Today, the book franchise contains 17 official installments, not to mention various spinoffs. … It’s been on the bestseller list for 800 weeks.” “I was like, ‘At least I’ll have something to talk about at my high school reunion,’ but then it rebounded and got to No. “It was the most exciting day of my life,” Kinney said. 9, so he thought his 15 minutes of fame were over. Roughly three weeks after publication, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” debuted on The New York Times bestseller list at No. Without the experiences I had growing up, Greg and his family wouldn’t exist.” Everything I did wrong as a kid I amplified, put through the fiction blender, then put onto the page. “He’s not a hero, he’s not an anti-hero, he’s just an average kid who makes lots of mistakes, but hopefully people find them funny. “He is a middle-school weakling, a little like Larry David for kids,” he said. His breakthrough novel “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” was published in 2007, following the struggles of Greg Heffley, an awkward middle-schooler who illustrates his daily life in a diary, or as Kinney would insist calling it a journal. I tried for about three years to get my comics into newspapers, but nobody liked my work, so eventually I came up with this idea of ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid.’ I worked on it for a really long time, about eight years, and finally brought a sample packet to New York Comic Con and an editor liked what I did and that’s how I got started as a published author.” “I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, but it didn’t work out. After four-and-a-half years, he graduated in 1993, but had a hard time finding a job in his dream vocation. While on campus, Kinney created a popular comic strip called “Igdoof,” which ran in The Diamondback, where he also served as the graphics editor, headline writer and production manager above the South Campus Dining Hall. So it’s really cool how much that university has grown in stature since I’ve been there.” “These days I wouldn’t even be able to get into the college, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to get into a basketball game. “Maryland was really starting to rise in its reputation,” he said. “The first year the Greg Heffley balloon appeared in the Macy’s Day Parade, he was right behind Kermit the Frog, staring into his rear end, so it’s an appropriate place for my statue to be: behind Kermit.”īorn in Fort Washington, Maryland, Kinney graduated from Bishop McNamara High School in 1989 before transferring to the University of Maryland just in time for his sophomore year of undergraduate studies. “He’ll be under the shelter of rain, so if it’s a bad day outside and you don’t want to visit the Jim Henson-Kermit the Frog statue, go inside and maybe rub Greg’s nose for good luck on your next test (like the Testudo turtle statues),” Kinney said. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.
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