The Adventures of Medical Man

They're heeeere! Advanced copies of the children's book I co-wrote with Dr. Mike Evans have arrived, hot off the overseas presses: The Adventures of Medical Man: Kids' Illnesses and Injuries Explained published by Annick Press. As a lifelong book lover, and as a worker in the book industry lo these past 15 years, I confess to feeling a great thrill at seeing (and holding!) a published book with my name on it (as a writing credit; no doubt David Wichman: The Unauthorized Biography would produce a wholly different sensation).

Better still, it's a book with which I'm tremendously pleased. We combined Dr. Mike's medical expertise with my movie obsession and created cinematic analogies to explain common childhood ailments: allergies, concussions, broken bones, ear infections, asthma, and strep throat. None is exclusive to childhood, of course, as I was painfully reminded a few weeks ago when I contracted strep throat. (It would have been a brilliant marketing move had the book been available for sale yet.)

Despite my ill-timed infection, the strep throat chapter is, in fact, one of my favourites thanks to superstar illustrator Gareth Williams, who lovingly created that chapter's superhero artwork in true comic book style. Indeed, Gareth was a real find. He's based in South Africa, and as his first art samples for the book came in electronically, it became clear that he's no less a film geek than I am. He carefully recreates the look of the various film genres we rip off, er, pay homage to: b-movie sci-fi serials, film noir, horror, submarine films, and, of course, Indiana Jones. It was a lot of fun watching Gareth bring the book to life before my eyes.

The whole project was a blast to put together, which is pretty amazing considering it took almost two years and I was working on my Master's degree at the same time. Hopefully it will be as much fun to read and it will have a long, healthy run in bookstores. You'll find it on shelves by the end of the summer.

And speaking of long, healthy runs, I post about the book here not only as an act of shameless self-promotion:



Thanks, docs. I literally couldn't have done it without you.