In an interview with CBS News in 2011, author Jeff Kinney describes himself as a “failed cartoonist” who wasn’t able to break into the world of newspaper cartoons. To date, Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has sold over 275 million copies around the world. It is ranked as one of the top bestselling book series of all time, and several film and television adaptations have been produced since the first book was published in 2007. The beloved series now includes 17 novels as of 2022, but the series was first published as a daily webcomic on the website FunBrain starting in 2004. Ironically, Kinney wasn’t sure about turning his webcomic into a book aimed at children. According to an interview with BookTrust in 2018, Kinney claims that he was “a bit concerned” that children might not recognize how deeply flawed Greg Heffley is. He worried that kids might see Greg as a role model instead of a character to learn from. Kinney explains that the first book wasn’t originally written for kids at all, but the numbers show that the overwhelming majority of Kinney’s fans are young readers who are eager to learn more about what happens to Greg Heffley as he navigates middle school.