The most common criticism of Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate: In a Class by Himself is that the book copied and took advantage of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. There are some notable similarities. Both books focus on domestic, everyday matters. Both are written in first person with direct addresses to the audience, though Diary of a Wimpy Kid states explicitly that it is a journal, while Nate’s reason for writing is more uncertain. Most strikingly, both books use a combination of prose and comic strips to tell the story. However, Diary of a Wimpy Kid came out in 2007, whereas the “Big Nate” comic, on which the book is based, was first published in 1991. How could Peirce be copying when his work came out first?

There are several reasons for the similarities in style between Peirce and Kinney. The most glaring one is that Peirce mentored Kinney for a few years. When Kinney was 19, he was struggling to become a cartoonist. He wrote to several cartoonists looking for advice on how to break into the field. Lincoln Peirce was the only one to write back.