I really wanted to make the book as authentic as possible, so I brought on veteran search and find illustrators like Chuck Dillon (Highlights), Rich Powell (Mad Magazine), Laura Close, and Brian Michael Weaver to bring my concepts to life. These artists are so incredibly talented and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they were all excited to push the genre to an edgier place.

All of the puzzles have been meticulously sketched by hand and it took over 4 months to complete 40 puzzles with over 500 random hidden objects. Having seen the process firsthand, I can attest to how special these illustrators are. To not only be able to create an engaging illustration but also convincingly hide lederhosen within that picture is a very unique talent.

I'm proud to say this is the only brain activity book proven to make you smarter and dumber at the same time! Hope you dig it.

So, in terms of the process, I would first come up with a loose concept for a puzzle setting and a list of random hidden objects for each illustrator to work with. So, for "Wet Dad Bod" contest as an example, I would write to Chuck and say let's do a puzzle in the classic Spring Break wet t-shirt contest setting but instead, it's middle-aged dads or for "Zombies on Zkis," let's do a zombie attack on the ski slopes, something I had never really seen before and made me laugh. Then the illustrators would bring the concepts to life by adding all of the subtle and amazing details and of course, all of them are geniuses when it comes to hiding the objects within the drawing. It's such a talent to be able to do that, especially when I was giving them such strange objects to work with. All of the illustrators were so easy to work with and it was truly a collaborative effort to create the puzzles.

The most fun was just seeing the concepts come to life. When the illustrator would send me that first draft of the puzzle (which would typically take about a week), it was such a blast seeing what they did with it and how they chose to hide the objects. Oftentimes, they would take my concept and make it so much funnier with their own ideas and instincts! I was very much in awe of their talents.

The most challenging part of the process was definitely coming up with all of the hidden objects. I would literally be in my car driving and see someone changing their tire on the side of the road and say to myself "tire iron!" and then would quickly scribble it down in a notebook I carried all the time. I had to come up with about 20 objects for 40 puzzles, so it was a lot to think of without repeating. But for me, it was so important, because the concepts are the first layer of comedy and then the objects are the second layer of jokes. I love that multidimensional kind of humor. 

Search and Find Puzzles for kids already exist and they are so well done. My kids are obsessed with them... there is just something so addictive about trying to find the hidden images. But after doing some searching around, no pun intended, there was really nothing out there for adults that was both legitimately challenging and also humorous and irreverent. So, I thought it would be a fun challenge to try and create something for that adult who loved doing these kinds of puzzles as a kid. It's a throwback with a twist. 

So, when I was working on the search and find puzzles with my kids, the illustrators always received a credit. And so I decided to search online for the ones I really admired and see if I could contact them. Many have websites or Instagram pages featuring their work and so I would write and say, "Would you be interested in working on a more irreverent search and find for adults?" and to my surprise, almost all of them responded with "Yes! I've always wanted to do that!" For them, I think it was very liberating to create these knowing there were no rules, no limitations, and that they could push the humor as far as they wanted.

People sometimes ask me why I call myself Awkward Mike. Well, I am the co-founder of Awkward Family Photos and have always been a fan of awkwardness. I also grew up a very skinny kid, feeling very awkward all the time, which I used to be embarrassed about. As I got older, I thought, hey, why not celebrate my awkwardness!? Wear it as a badge of honor. And today, I'm proud to be Awkward Mike.