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A scene from Medikidz - Source: ONE News -
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Two ex-pat Kiwi doctors are the toast of the publishing world in Britain, with the launch of their own global business to help sick children.
They have devised a series of comic book superheroes to make going to hospital seem less scary.
Dr Kim Chilman-Blair and Dr Kate Hersov say they came up with the idea of Medikidz in their battle to take the fear out of illness amongst children.
"It certainly says something about the Kiwi ingenuity that we're the first in the world to come up with something like this," says Chilman-Blair.
"It explains to children in a language they can understand what otherwise would just be understood by doctors."
The book series contains 26 titles and an interactive website explaining everything from epilepsy to asthma and leukaemia to diabetes, all using comic book characters.
The Medikidz are a gang of superheroes from planet Mediland, which is a planet shaped like the human body out in space, and the gang each represent a different part of the body.
Gap in the market
Both the doctors are Otago medical school graduates. They say they noticed a gap in the market while working with sick kids at Starship and Middlemore Hospitals when they were in New Zealand.
"We thought this was a problem just in New Zealand alone and we searched around England, America and Asia and there was no standardised source of information to explain to children what they were going through," says Chilman-Blair.
They have now already signed publishing deals in Germany, France, Spain, South Africa, Indonesia and with the US Cancer Society.
They have also sold to four major British hospitals, including London's Evelina Children's Hospital.
Steve Tomlin, spokesman for the hospital, says the comics make a difference.
"Just by having the engagement you lose the fear, and that's what I think is good about this."
Now 100,000 copies are heading to Africa.
Hersov says the pair has written some of the comic book titles specifically for the developing world as well, so Medikidz is able to explain HIV, Malaria and TB.
The comics also have strong Kiwi content.
"A lot of the characters you'll see throughout a story ... Rory the radiologist, Jo the pharmacist ... all come from people we know back home who we've worked with," says Hersov.
The pair plans to launch their books in New Zealand and hopefully sign deals with health officials by February.
