With all of the events at New York Comic Con this year, it was tough to decide what to do. Late on Sunday, October 12, the panel “Jeff Kinney Presents Diary of a Wimpy Kid and a Preview of Book 9, The Long Haul” captured the attention of large crowd and did not disappoint the fans of this long-running series.
Jeff Kinney, author and artist for the series of novels, related his personal story, sharing how he went from a college newspaper cartoonist to a successful author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He discussed his creation process and showed photos of his cramped idea books. His first spiral notebook like this took over four years to fill.
From there, the author writes out the individual scenes and in the book and puts together the artwork in collaboration with the publisher. He gave the audience a demonstration of how he draws, inking over a preliminary view that is all done on his computer. Each illustration takes him about an hour to complete.
Each book is written as the diary of the main character, middle-schooler Greg Heffley. The Long Haul is the newest book, and is about a Heffley family road trip and the adventures and disasters that occur as they travel.
The panel was filled with humor as well, as befits the author of this funny series. Kinney related that many of the scenes in his books were drawn from his real life. In an earlier volume, one of his characters is cold after swim team practice. He flees to the bathroom where he wraps himself in toilet paper to stay warm. This was a real event that the author shared with everyone.
Here is a sneak peek of some of the scenes in the new book:
Someone goes barefoot for part of the book.
The Heffley’s get a pet pig.
Which of course leads to a lot of trouble!
I don’t think anyone looks happy about the pig in this preview.
The Long Haul is available November 4, 2014.
Guest post was written by Clare Deming @ http://claredeming.wordpress.
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