Rise and Fall of Big Nate: An overly detailed explanation

Read this first
Before I begin, I want to point out that this has NOTHING to do with the comment section, but just the comic itself. The comments don't really need talking about. ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉⁿᵗ ˢᵉᶜᵗᶦᵒⁿ ˢᵘᶜᵏˢ ᵇᵘᵗ ᴵ ᶜᵃⁿ ⁿᵉᵛᵉʳ ᵍᵉᵗ ᵃʷᵃʸ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᶦᵗ. Also, this is all my (yoshadoo's) opinion, and so it's very subjective. If you like the new comics then that's great, but I'm personally not a fan

The Beginning (1991-1996)
The early years of Big Nate were great. The main characters were introduced (Nate, Francis, Marty, etc), who each had different personalities that played off each other. For example, Nate, being the 'dumb' one, played off of Francis, the 'smart' one, since they had different ways of getting through school. Also, the art style went through several phases. Around the first year and a half, the characters were tall and skinny with big feet. However, starting around late 1992, the characters became shorter, in what I like to call the 'cute' phase. Also, the majority of comics were independent of each other, and some were short arcs, and fewer were long arcs.

The Golden Age (1997-2004)
The golden age was arguably the best time for Big Nate. In mid-1997, Nate's first girlfriend Angie was introduced. However, they broke up around Valentine's Day of 1998, and fans still want her reappearance to this day. On December 12th, 1999, the snobbish brainiac Gina was introduced, quickly becoming a rival of Nate and sometimes Francis. On May 7th, 2001, Artur was introduced and became Nate's silent rival, due to Artur beating him at chess and 'stealing' Jenny from him. Also in 2001, Nate's second girlfriend, Kelly, came around, though Nate broke with her later on the back of a detention slip. Despite the sudden breakup, however, it still felt natural, as Nate found out that Jenny broke up with her boyfriend Ronnie, and Nate wanted to go after her again. Nate obviously had to break up with Kelly, but he had to write a note on the back of a detention slip, but Kelly didn't appreciate this and yelled at Nate. There was also a nice balance of the story arcs, as many were only half a week, though some were a whole week, particularly at more important times of the year, such as when school begins again.

The 'Silver' Age (2005-2013)
During this time, most comics were week-long, and most new characters were very niche and minor, with a few exceptions such as Chad. However, one thing that brings this era up were the novels, which started in 2010 with Big Nate: In a Class by Himself. With it came some characters that are exclusive, with Dee Dee being the only one to appear in the daily comics, and Mary Ellen Popowski has been mentioned, but has never appeared. other than that, not much has been introduced.

The Falling Age (2014-2017)
During this age, only a single character was really introduced, that being Nate's third girlfriend Trudy in 2015, though they broke up in 2016. Other than that, there was Daisy, who was anticipated to be Nate's girlfriend, but broke up after a single 'date'. However, this arc was extremely stretched out, going for almost a month and a half, with no satisfying conclusion. It also had the end of the novel series, Big Nate: Blasts Off. There's not much else to say.

The Fallen Age (2018-Present)
2018 was a rough year for Big Nate, due to over half the year just being reruns. Peirce typically takes only a week or two off, so this was an unpleasant surprise. Aside from that, virtually every arc was a week or two long, even if it didn't need to be, and so many comics became filler to stretch out the arc. A recent example of this is during the arc from June 21st, 2021, where Teddy and Francis insulted 'Nate'(actually Nigel) behind his back for three days straight. Also, there have been very few new characters, and the ones introduced only exist for a single arc and are never seen again. Also, Peirce has been recycling ideas instead of making new ones, an example is the strip from July 11th, 2021 is very similar to the strip from April 21st, 2013. All these things combined make this the Fallen Age of Big Nate.

Statistics
A few weeks ago I ran a poll on the Big Nate wiki asking what the best era was. So far 20 votes have been put in (you can vote here), and here are the current results:

1991-1997: 9% (2 Votes)

1998-2004: 27% (6 Votes)

2005-2011: 32% (7 Votes)

2012-2016: 9% (2 Votes)

2017-Present: 23% (5 Votes)

As you can see, the era I labeled as the 'silver age' has the majority of votes. The Golden era ranks second, and the Fallen era tie takes third. The Beginning and Falling eras are tied for last. Given that 1998-2011 has 58% percent of the votes, whatever was done there needs to continue to please the audience.

Conclusion
In the early days, the comics were great. Iconic characters were introduced, and the arcs were original and funny. Nowadays, however, it seems that Peirce is running low on ideas, due to the strip going on for over thirty years. Hopefully, he'll get over his writer's block...