Guinness World Record Day: Looking Back at the Longest 'Big Nate'
by The GoComics TeamToday would-be-record-breakers of all stripes will work to achieve feats never before chronicled by the authoritative Guinness World Records. Or, at least people are supposed to, anyway. Otherwise what's this novelty holiday for?
Whatever the case, we're proud to report that we know a guy who successfully did that very thing! In 2014 Big Nate creator Lincoln Peirce teamed up with school kids, librarians, teachers and more from all over America to set a Guinness World Record for the longest comic strip in the world (by a team) on NBC's Today show. How long was it? Try 1,214.07 meters (approximately 3,983' 2"). That's longer than 11 football fields! As GWR's own motto goes, that's "Officially Amazing." With the average comic strip drawn at a scale of around 5 x 17" it's a pretty huge feat.
A team of art students from France and Spain set an initial record in 2011 with a 1,200-meter long comic strip and actually worked to dethrone Big Nate's place in GWR this past spring with a 1,600-meter long comic. All's fair in love, war and extremely long comics, after all. Guinness hasn't quite updated its official website's records confirming the new strip, however, so we're going to revel in our current association with the BN crew.
That's not to say there haven't been other huge feats in massive comic creation, though. Indian artist Suhas Palimkar holds the individual record for longest cartoon strip with a work 191.31 meters long in 2013. In Tokyo in 2010 the Adidas Japan K.K. and Sky Comic project team created GWR's official "Largest Comic Strip," which contained 3785.35 square meters of soccer manga.
Relive the making of the strip, along with its officiated confirmation below to set a record for "Most Immediate Satisfaction in Watching a Rad Comics Thing Happen":
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