WIMPY KID PART TWO: FAILED CARTOONIST BANKS MILLIONS

The sixth book in Jeff Kinney’s Wimpy Kid series, Cabin Fever, was published November 15 with a first printing of more than 6 million copies, making it the biggest release of the year in both kids' and adult books, according to Publishers Weekly. Kinney has been named one of Time magazine's 100 "most influential people in the world," and two movies based on his books have grossed millions of dollars. “Kinney is one of the best-selling authors in America,” reports Karen MacPherson at Scripps Howard News Service. More than 50 million copies of his Wimpy Kid diaries are in print in the United States and Canada. The series has been translated into 35 languages.

Despite all the ballyhoo and jingling cash registers, Kinney still considers himself a "failed cartoonist."

"I'm an author whose strength is in gag-writing," Kinney said. "I recently went to speak at the National Cartoonists Society, and I think the line is clearly drawn between what they do and what I do."

At the University of Maryland, Kinney created a comic strip called Igdoof that he hoped would catapult him into cartooning stardom; “he even changed his major from computer science to criminal justice because he thought he would have more time to draw,” MacPherson said.

But when his efforts to sell Igdoof failed magnificently, Kinney turned away from his drawingboard to his computer screen and became a well-regarded website developer. “Among his creations is the popular website Poptropica.com, which was named one of Time magazines' 50 best websites.”

Kinney told MacPherson that he expects to write 7-10 Wimpy books, so there is at least one more brewing somewhere in Kinney’s stick-figured mind. Maybe more than one.