Why Jeff Kinney draws from his childhood to create the smash ‘Wimpy Kid’ series

Jeff Kinney is no weakling when it comes to success: the American author is the creator of one of the most successful comic book series of all time. Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Kinney recently spoke with Antonio Michael Downing about Next chapter about his iconic children's series and the story behind it.

20th issue poop at a party, just released with a note on the front: “Over 300 million copies sold.”

“We haven’t actually sold 300 million books. We just put a sticker on the cover because it looks cool,” Kinney joked.

Antonio Michael Downing: Can you describe Greg and his family to someone who has never met them?

Jeff Kinney: I would call Greg and his family ordinary people. They are based on my family in a house of mirrors of sorts. They are exaggerated versions of my family members, including myself as Greg.

They are exaggerated versions of my family members, including myself as Greg.-Jeff Kinney

They are very flawed, flawed, make a lot of mistakes, and these characters are a lot of fun to write.

Go back to the beginning when you started sketching out ideas in 1998. What was going on in your head?

I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist. This was my big dream. Be like Charles Schulz or Bill Watterson. So, I did my best to do it. I spent about three years trying to get my work syndicated, but it didn't work. I received no support and many rejection letters. This is a common story for any creator trying to break in.

Over time, the newspaper began to shrink. Comics were getting smaller and I felt like I needed to change, so I came up with an idea to show my cartoon differently.

At that time I kept a diary. The magazines looked exactly the same as Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, a mixture of text and drawings. I thought, “Well, maybe this could work in fiction.” I worked on it for about eight years and was finally ready to share it with the world in 2006.

When you're a cartoonist, you do a lot of work that won't necessarily get published. You're just always working. Have you followed a similar process?

First of all, I wanted to write down all the funny things that happened to me as a child, because I thought it belonged to me.

It took me about four years just to write down all these fun ideas. Then it took me another four years to write the first draft and develop the characters. One of the things I never liked about cartoons is when characters change over time. For example, when you see the early Peanuts strips, they don't look like the later Peanuts, Calvin Hobbs, or The Simpsons strips. It kind of breaks the spell of cartoons.

First of all, I wanted to write down all the funny things that happened to me as a child, because I thought it belonged to me.-Jeff Kinney

My first goal was to simply be consistent. I got into a rhythm where I could draw these characters the same way. I think they were still evolving over time as I wrote more and more books, but generally speaking at least the heads look the same.

Greg is the same age Party poop the same as he was in the very first book of the series. How does it feel? draw a character who is no older than 20 years old?

It doesn't change because that's what cartoons should be. Animation is the promise of consistency and sameness. When we connect with these characters, we want them to be reliable.

I have a statue of Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck's uncle, in my studio. Donald Duck never changes. It doesn't develop. He's still very angry and nervous and that's why we like cartoons, because in an ever-changing world we can rely on something and comics are one of those things.

It's good when children have something permanent. Every year a child can go out and buy a new Wimpy Kid book. They may outgrow it over time, but it will always be there for them in case they want to return to it.

Greg uses the emotion gambit, like most high school students. He may be self-centered, but he is kind. What do you rely on when writing Greg's emotional space?

My goal with Greg was for his flaws to be realistic. Often in children's literature, the main character resembles a miniature adult.

In stories like Harry Potter, the characters need to be heroic to be interesting. To captivate you with a story, they have to be extraordinary.

But there is a downside to this: there are other types of characters who are much more like me when I was growing up. I made a lot of mistakes. I had shortcomings. I'm really trying to bring these things to the surface.

I think of my books as a stand-up comedian. When a comedian goes on stage, he usually talks about his shortcomings and self-doubt. The best comedians make audiences feel seen. The audience sits in the dark and watches this man on stage expose himself. You laugh because you say, “I do that too. You know, that's who I am.”

That's what I'm trying to do with these books. Hold up a mirror to the lives of children.

I have a quote where you say, “I was an ordinary kid who had moments of weakness, just like we all do.” What did you mean?

I was an ordinary child. If you ask my teachers, “Do you remember Jeff Kinney?” Most of them would probably say no.

I didn't flash it. I didn't make a big splash. It always seemed to me that I was observing life. I felt like I was 40 or 50 years old but stuck in fifth grade.

I wrote all this down in my mind before I even knew I was going to be a writer. I felt like an observer. The observer is not usually the main character, and I certainly wasn't the main character in the life I grew up in.

It always seemed to me that I was observing life.-Jeff Kinney

We have this image of you as an observer collecting these images throughout your life and then trying to become a syndicated comic and it doesn't work. So you move on to thinking, “I'm going to capture all the funny things that happened to me, all the mistakes I made, so I can put them in this diary of a wimp.”

That's true. I make money by writing about my mistakes.

I was on the swim team as a kid, and our swim season started very early. It was so cold in that pool during those spring months. I would jump into the pool, do one lap, and then tell the coach that I needed to go to the bathroom.

They let me go and sat in the bathroom for the rest of the workout, but I was so cold that I wrapped myself in toilet paper to keep warm.

By the time my father came to pick me up, I had already torn off the last bits of toilet paper.

This is correct in the books. Stuff like this goes straight into the books. This is my bread and butter.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.