Thank you Aunt Minnie

I’m getting published tomorrow.

What started as a silly cartoon to understand my girlfriend’s life as a radiology resident turned into an actual honest-to-God paycheck. My Rad Girlfriend is actually getting published for at least one year of content.

People are going to give me money to make them laugh.

This is kind of nuts when you think about it. I understand why you hire a plumber. If you try to do plumbing yourself and you screw it up, now you really need a plumber. But anybody can tell a joke. And if your joke isn’t funny, it’s not like the average person needs to hire a writer to bring the joke up to code before the state inspectors arrive on Monday.

When I started this whole writing adventure, I thought I would just write a book about Iraq, a few people would buy it, and maybe one day I would see someone reading it on a plane. But this cartoon blew up. It’s not even a cartoon for a general audience. It’s targeted at radiologists and it has jokes like: “THAT WASN'T EVEN AS HARD AS CONVINCING PULMONARY THAT A V/Q SCAN IS NEGATIVE.” You might not find that line funny, but trust me it’s hilarious if you put yourself through medical school and four years of radiology residency.

Over 150,000 people are going to see this cartoon tomorrow. Is this a lot? Well, the novel All the Light We Cannot See sold 60,000 copies in its initial printing.

Wow.

If you are coming from auntminnie.com and are reading this - thank you. I hope this cartoon makes you smile before conference. I hope you print it out and tape it up on the break room refrigerator to make other people laugh. I hope you put it in Power Points when you brief the new interns. I hope you fire it as little paper cruise missiles at your attendings when they PIMP you.

Most of all, I hope you take a little time to read Debriding Iraq, Threesome and Swindle and spread the word if one of you knows a literary agent who specializes in the problems of balding middle-aged Jewish men. I’m still looking for an agent to take on Threesome.