Original cover.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
is a Slice of Life webcomic written by Jeff Kinney that was hosted on the children's website FunBrain. It had daily updates from May 2004 to June 2005 with 1285 total pages. It's a successor to Kinney's college newspaper comic, Igdoof, featuring a lot of the same jokes and a similar art style. As of 2024, it is now only available on the Internet Archive.
It's about 12-year-old Greg Heffley, who receives a diary (which he insists on calling a journal) from his mother, much to his chagrin. Greg's mom strikes a deal with him and tells him if he writes a little each day in his diary, he will get to opt-out of one chore on Saturdays. Greg agrees to this, but it's mostly because he hopes it will be useful when he becomes famous and doesn't want to answer annoying questions. He then chronicles all of his misadventures during the start of the school year all the way into summer vacation.
In 2007, Kinney published the first novel, which is a condensed version of the original webcomic. The novel quickly became a bestseller, spawning a number of sequels to the point it became a long-runner series. It would later become an entire franchise, including multiple film adaptations. Much of the material from the webcomic was adapted across the first five Wimpy Kid books, with other jokes showing up between the sixth and eighth.
The Diary of a Wimpy Kid webcomic contains the following tropes:
- Batman Gambit: When the boys are fighting about where to go for dinner, Frank gives them three choices: Tofu Grille, Vegetarian Delight, or Red Lobster. All three boys immediately yell, "Red Lobster! Red Lobster!" Greg only later realizes Frank tricked them into picking his favorite restaurant.
- Bowdlerise: The webcomic is notable for its risque content when compared to the books and movies that were adapted from it. This is likely because Jeff Kinney's original intention was to have the story appeal to all audiences - including adults - while the books and movies were marketed more specifically towards kids. Thus, the webcomic gets away with a number of racier elements that were not included in the books:
- The webcomic makes numerous references to drinking, smoking and cheating. The books cut most (but not all) of these parts out.
- There is a lot more slang and innuendo in the webcomic; Greg's vocabulary in particular is quite advanced to the point that he almost sounds a bit urban at times. The books tone this down considerably.
- In one scene, Greg draws a comic strip about a guy who hates Eskimos. When the scene was adapted for The Last Straw, it was changed to a guy who hates polar bears.
- In another scene, Greg and Rowley play Vikings and Indians. When the scene was adapted for Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, it was changed to them playing Vikings and Ninjas instead.
- Some female characters are drawn more suggestively in the webcomic:
- When Greg imagines himself sneaking into the girls' bathroom at Crossland High, the girls in there are shown to be wearing nothing but modesty towels. When the scene was adapted for Rodrick Rules, it was changed to them being fully dressed in cheerleading outfits.
- When Greg fantasizes about sunbathing with the neighbor girl Trista, she is shown wearing a bikini. When the scene was adapted for The Last Straw, she is shown wearing a one-piece swimsuit instead.
- Cloneopoly: Ann institutes a "Mom Bucks" program for her sons, where she gives them play money in exchange for doing well, and they can give back to her in exchange for real money. Greg eventually discovers that the bills are actually from a board game called "Zoo-Opoly", and steals some from a game box to pass them off as Mom Bucks he earned. This plot point also appears in the book and movie adaptations, but the book version doesn't name the board game, while the movie version calls it "Pay Up".
- Comically Missing the Point: Greg's Aunt Cakey doesn't like kids, but she does buy them some legos to play with. She then glues the legos into a solid brick so they can't be scattered around.
- Covers Always Lie: In-universe. Greg wants to read a fantasy book that has a racy cover and his mom confiscates it. Greg's irritated partly because there's nothing like that in the book anyway.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Greg writes an allegory story for school involving a monkey attempting and failing to fix a car, then shows it to Rodrick, who is fixing his own car. When Rodrick gets it, not only does he tear up Greg's story, but he tells all his friends about Greg's embarrassing incident in the retirement home toilets.
- Doorstopper: The webcomic is 1285 pages long; every Wimpy Kid book is 217 pages, meaning it's almost six books' worth of material. Fittingly, much of the content here was spread throughout the books until Hard Luck.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The webcomic contains several aspects that were changed for the books. One example being that several characters had their names changed; Ann Heffley had her name changed to Susan, while Lori and Piper Matthews became Heather and Holly Hills.
- Exact Words: Greg has sworn not to "say a word to anybody" about why the Jeffersons fired Lori as their babysitter. He then proceeds to draw a wordless, uncaptioned picture of Lori smoking and the Jeffersons catching her.
- Eye Scream: Greg's pet angelfish has its eyes ripped out by Rodrick's fish.
- The Faceless: A character in the webcomic named Herbie Reamer. He's the leader of a gang of bullies and the reason why no sane kid in Greg's school stays on the basketball courts past 3:00.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: On page 1000, Rowley says that in Brazil, ice cream is called "gelado". In reality, gelado is the European Portuguese word for ice cream, while the Brazilian Portuguese word is sorvete.
- Gruel and Unusual Punishment: Downplayed—Greg makes a bet with Ann that if he gets 100% on a state capitals test, which he's confident he can do because his seat is next to a map of the United States with all of the state capitals labeled, she'll take him to Pizza Hut. Unfortunately, Greg's plan is foiled when Patty Farrell tells the teacher, Mr. Beardo, to cover up the poster board. Greg, who didn't even bother studying, ends up with a zero on the test; needless to say, Ann doesn't take Greg to Pizza Hut for dinner the following night and Greg just has meat loaf.
- Hype Backlash: In-Universe. Greg is shown as being incredibly anxious to play a video game called Twisted Wizard Black and then says it's the lamest game ever made (mainly because of a horrible control scheme).
- Loud Sleeper Gag: Greg is staying with his grandfather at one point, and is woken up by him having a night terror and yelling, "There are monkeys in the walls!"
- Mistaken for Cheating: On page 1114, Ann finds a pair of women's underwear in the bedroom that isn't hers, and Frank doesn't have a good explanation. It actually belongs to Grandpa's girlfriend Maurlene.
- Nature Tinkling: Ann confiscates Greg's book due to thinking it's too "racy" because of the picture on the cover. The raciest scene Greg can think of is when a dwarf tries to use the bathroom in the woods, but bees chase him and he runs back to the camp with a bare bum.
- Padding the Paper: When Greg has to write an essay on chimpanzees, he doesn't know much about them, so he types in a large font, plays with the margin sizes, draws pictures, and at the end, he writes, "Well, it looks like I'm almost out of paper, so I guess this is—-" and then a giant "THE END". This scene is re-used in The Last Straw.
- Scare 'Em Straight: The webcomic has Greg go to the dentist once, which has pictures of all the people who never brushed their teeth in their lives or never even used floss. This unfortunately doesn't do anything to help Greg with his fear of the dentist... and you can bet that a lot of people are afraid of someone with metal tools poking around in their mouths.
- Single Sex Offspring: The Matthews family, who would later become the Hills family in the books. They have a mother, a father, and five daughters— Lori (the inspiration for Heather), Piper (the inspiration for Holly), Jennifer, and two unnamed daughters. Greg's dad Frank teases Mr. Matthews that if he had a hundred more kids, they'd all be girls, and Greg (who has crushes on Piper and Lori) says that if Mr. Matthews did have a hundred more daughters, the world would be a more attractive place.
- Sneaking Snacks: Greg hides in the laundry hamper to find out who's been stealing the lunch treats and discovers that his dad is the thief.
- Spoof Aesop: Greg borrows Rowley's coat, then scares some kindergarteners with a worm on a stick. A woman sees the event (and the name on Rowley's coat), and calls the school, which gets Rowley in trouble. Greg is wracked with guilt, but in the end does nothing, because it was Rowley's fault after all. The obvious moral of this story is "be careful about who you lend your coat to".
- Toilet Throne: Manny likes to sit on his kiddie potty to watch TV. Greg notes that Manny is potty trained (in the online version, he's five instead of three like in the books) but has been doing that since he was a toddler and the habit stuck.
