Inside AFP

A Salute to 30 Years of Light-hearted Art in AFP

joyce a. merriman

The Quantum Sufficit (QS) column in AFP was created more than 40 years ago. It is intended to add "just enough" information about short news items that may be of interest to you. The style is quite different from the typical clinical, academic style of most AFP articles. Nearly 30 years ago, the editors of AFP decided that this column deserved a bit of light-hearted graphic art. Peter Brunke of Prairie Village, Kan., began providing illustrations for QS in the 1970s. Since then, he has created more than 900 illustrations for AFP. We've reprinted a few of them here.

A Multitalented Artist

Mr. Brunke was an illustrator for Hallmark, headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., for many years until he retired eight years ago. He started illustrating humorous greeting cards and eventually did all the Hallmark humorous cards for particular markets, such as England, Germany, and France. According to Mr. Brunke, however, "QS was my number one career and Hallmark was second!"

The exposure of having his artwork in AFP resulted in other projects as well. Several years ago, David Wyatt, M.D., an AFP author, wrote a patient education textbook called OK Body, I'm Listening.1 Dr. Wyatt asked Mr. Brunke to illustrate the book because he so enjoyed his QS illustrations. That project included about 300 illustrations. Mr. Brunke also has illustrated several children's books, mostly including humorous art. And he recently held a gallery exhibit in Kansas City.

He paints, draws, and sculpts in steel.

Just for the Joy of It

Most of Mr. Brunke's artistic work has focused on light-hearted, humorous subject matter. He said, "It just came easy to me." Of creating AFP's illustrations, he said, "I just loved doing this. It's fun - just something that's purely a joy to me; it was always fun and always something new, since medicine is constantly changing." He also said, "I got quite an education in medicine. I'm now 60 years old and in quite good health, because I followed all the advice I read in AFP."

Although AFP is discontinuing the illustrations in QS, we salute Mr. Brunke's 30 years of dedicated service and thank him for his contributions. We hope you have enjoyed his wonderful illustrations in QS as much as we have.

1. Wyatt, DE. OK Body, I'm Listening. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Queen of the Missions Publishing Co, 2001.