Tony DiTerlizzi's Blog, page 4

Comic Con International Recap

I’ve attended San Diego’s Comic Con International off-and-on since the 1990′s and I’ve watched it grow to become the daddy of all geek conventions. Despite the long airplane flight, long lines and 200k+ crowd, it is a fun four-day ride.

I’ve always felt that I am a bit of an odd puzzle piece as a participant in the programming for Comic Con. Compared to other massive conventions, like BookExpo, there are far fewer kid’s lit author/illustrators present–and many that do attend are either current bestsellers or their book is Soon to Become a Major Motion Picture. I suppose my books fall somewhere in this category and I am thankful for that.

As Angela and I shuffled past the decorated booths, I was reminded that Comic Con is a grab-bag cross-section of pop culture in media. Film, television, nerdy apparel, toys, games and books were all featured prominently. About the only thing that wasn’t front and center were good ol’ comic books, which seem relegated to the outer fringes of the convention floor.

But, because there was such a mix, I bumped into all sorts of creative types: like fellow artists and writers, sculptors and film-makers.

Next to me are Vicki and Allen Williams, director and artist Travis Lewis sits front and center.

HBO’s ubiquitous Game of Thrones series dominated the con. Here, I met the book’s author (and the winner of the Game of Thrones) George R.R. Martin at the Weta booth (there’s Weta Workshop founder, Richard Taylor, right behind us). After stalk-chatting with George for several minutes, he had some of his characters remove me from the premises:

But I was remembered by my old friend, artist Donato Giancola–who used my likeness as one of the Night’s Watch in the 2015 Game of Thrones calendar. Scratch that one off of my bucket list.

I participated on a couple of panels, including “Fairy Tale Remix” moderated by the award-winning author, Shannon Hale (who may, or may not, be part of a crime-fighting duo).

The conversation on the influence of fairy tales in modern storytelling was lively and the audience’s questions were thought-provoking. (Lytherus.com has a nice, detailed write-up on the panel).

Above are authors aplenty (from left to right): Katherine Harbour, Shannon Hale, Cornelia Funke, Marissa Meyer, Danielle Paige, Ben Tripp, T-Dog and John Peck.

Friday was “Star Wars Day” at the con (in DiTerlizziland, every day is “Star Wars Day”) and I presented the upcoming picture book The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight (featuring illustrations by the legendary Ralph McQuarrie). Along with Exec. Editor of Disney Publishing, Michael Siglain, and Lucasfilm historian and author, Jonathan Rinzler, we talked of how this book came to be and offered up inside stories of the development of the first screenplay as well as Ralph’s place in Lucasfilm history as the visual genius who presented the first glimpses into a galaxy far, far away.

I had a moment when Jonathan told me that he thought Ralph would have liked how this book turned out. That meant a lot to this ten-year old kid and I am still beaming from his comment.

The Star Wars fun continued when Ang and I reunited with film effects dungeon master, Phil Tippett, who was not only responsible for bringing to life childhood cinematic moments (like the AT-AT attack in The Empire Strikes Back or the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park) but goblins, trolls and Hogsqueal in The Spiderwick Chronicles.

After my authorial duties were completed it was time to spend some hard earned royalty money. For many nerd collectors, Comic Con has become a one-stop-shop of the weird and rarefied. In fact, there were one-of-kind props from some of my favorite films, like Marty McFly’s hoverboard from Back to the Future II. (price tag: $30k):

…or one of the puppets from Beetlejuice:

If your a 70′s kid trapped in a man’s body (like me) then you’ll love these Kenner-styled Alien figures. Sure, they’re about 30 years too late, but you know what they say…(in 1979 no one can hear you scream…for Alien action figures?)

Speaking of toys, Sideshow toys melted my brain with a new line of incredibly detailed creeptastic ghouls and demons called “Court of the Dead”. If you were a fan of McFarlane Toys or Wayne Barlowe, you’re gonna love these. Take a look:

Lastly, I nabbed a few limited edition artist’s sketchbooks. By far, this is my favorite sort of thing to hunt down and purchase at the con. Fortunately, booksellers (like Stuart Ng Books) had many to choose from like this reproduction of Claire Wendling’s sketchbook.

…and, yes, I dropped off a handful of signed The Battle for WondLa: Sketchbook III to Stuart who should have them for sale on his site very soon. I’ll share a link once they’re up. In the meantime, “Stay classy San Diego. I’ll see you next time.”

Comic Con 2014 Schedule

For those attending next week’s Comic Con International in lovely San Diego, California, here is my schedule of events:

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*** BE SURE TO STOP AT SIMON & SCHUSTER (booth 1128) TO RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF The Battle for WondLa LIMITED EDITION SKETCHBOOK!

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Thursday, July 24th

10:00 am -10:30 am

Booth 1119

Book signing – Mysterious Galaxy Book Store presents Tony DiTerlizzi. Many of my titles will be available for purchase or bring your books and cards to be signed.

12:00 pm-1:00 pm

Room 32AB

Fairy Tale Remix — Toto, I’ve a feeling these aren’t your typical fairy tales… From cyborg Cinderellas to swashbuckling pirates, fairy tales are just full of possibilities for retelling and reimagining. A fantastic line up of authors will discuss how they take very well-known stories (such as Rapunzel, The Wizard of Oz, Tam Lin) and remix them for a new audience, and how they create their very own fairy tales! Moderated by Shannon Hale (Ever After High series), this panel featuring Marissa Meyer (The Lunar Chronicles series), Katherine Harbour (Thorn Jack), John Peck (Charming Series), Cornelia Funke (Mirrorworld Series), Tony DiTerlizzi (Search for WondLa), Ben Tripp (The Accidental Highwayman), and Danielle Page (Dorothy Must Die) will give insight to the fairy tales of old, and new!

1:30 pm – 2:30 pm

Autograph Area AA09

Group Signing: Fairy Tale Remix

*I’ll have the FREE WondLa III sketchbooks on hand for the signing after the panel discussion.

Friday, July 25th

3:00 pm-4:00 pm

Room 7AB

Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight — Ralph McQuarrie’s art for the original Star Wars trilogy is introduced to a new generation of young readers in Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. Join New York Times bestselling author Tony DiTerlizzi as he talks about the conceptualization of this project and the process, challenges, and privileges of writing to the works of a legend; along with Troy Alders (Art Director, Lucasfilm), J.W. Rinzler (Executive Editor, Lucasfilm), and Joanne Chan (Children’s Book Editor, Lucasfilm).

*We will have a promotional postcard wallet of amazing McQuarrie art that we will be giving out at the panel, so stop on by!

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PS –For those not attending this year’s comic con who wish to nab one of the limited edition The Battle for WondLa sketchbooks, fear not. Stuart Ng Books (on of my favorite places to spend my royalty checks) will be selling them after the convention.

Decatur Book Festival

I am happy to announce that Ang and I will both be presenting and signing at this year’s Decatur Book Festival, near Atlanta, Georgia.

In fact, I designed this year’s Bookzilla poster for the event, which I will be happy to sign!

Details for the festival are at the official site (including a list of other attending authors such as Jon Scieszka, Loren Long and Tom Angleberger).

If you can’t make this event, fear not, for I shall be adding select dates this fall as I travel to support the upcoming picture book, The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. Stay tuned.

What a WondLaful Tour

The Battle for WondLa tour is over, and though I am exhausted from travel, I also feel honored, blessed and inspired.

My tour began in Southern California where I visited the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with WondLa’s audiobook reader and award-winning actress, Teri Hatcher.

From LA, I traveled east visiting bookstores in Phoenix, Kansas City, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, Milwaukee and even in my town in Western Massachusetts. I spoke at numerous schools and connected with scores of readers. We chatted mostly about stories and some of our favorite books and characters.

In a couple of stops, authors came to support me–like Adam Gidwitz (below, center) posing with Topher Bradfield (left) after my event at Austin’s premier indie shop, BookPeople.

To be honest, travel wears me down and it is tough being away from home, my wife and daughter. But the families who took the time to come and see me speak validated why I do this and inspired me (especially when my public event fell on a school night). I don’t usually stop to ponder how many lives my books touch, so I was often overwhelmed with emotion by the turnouts at my events. I was moved by the kind words and wonderful gifts given to me after readers had waited in a long line to have their book signed.

So, for today’s “Friday Fan Art”, I thought I’d share some of the amazing drawings, and other goodies, that were given to me while on the road. Check out Aeden (above), who delivered a whole mess of artwork from Spiderwick to WondLa.

Them there was Medelyn who brought me this lovely sketch of Eva Nine at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.

At Little Shop of Stories, near Atlanta, recent art school grad, Katie, gave me this wonderful watercolor of Eva and Rovee.

I love Austin and was blown away by the talent during my visit to BookPeople. This is a Bull Goblin, from The Spiderwick Chronicles, made from felt!

In fact, Tomoko, one of the booksellers at BookPeople created this beautiful image from the climax of A Hero for WondLa.

In Milwaukee, I was given “Christopher the Cupboard Pixie” from Janice who runs an Etsy shop called Sew Sweet Monsters. Christopher now watches over my books in the studio,

Back in Mass, Rob and his son, Ben, are both artist. They gave me drawings of their favorite characters from the WondLa books.

These little tokens of appreciation will all be cherished. It is surreal and inspiring to see others celebrate my characters through their art.

Thank you for coming out and making this tour so memorable for me. I hope to see you again, next time.

Keep dreaming, keep drawing.

STAR WARS Book Trailer

Lucasfilm has released a trailer for my upcoming picture book adaptation of the original trilogy, title The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. Take a look:

 

Star Wars Interviews

Patrick Day of the Los Angeles Times interviewed me while on the road promoting The Battle for WondLa last week.

The interview focuses on the production of my upcoming picture book with Lucasfilm, STAR WARS: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. You can read more here.

As well, I spoke with the fellas at TheForce.net on their weekly podcast, ForceCast. We had a great in-depth discussion about the legacy of these beloved films and the impact they’ve had on the 1970-80′s generation of kids. You can listen to the complete podcast here.

Lastly, while on tour I sat down with Corey McPherrin on Good Day Chicago to chat about WondLa, imagination and Star Wars. Take a look:

 

Unless

Last November the non-profit organization, Reading is Fundamental (RIF), asked if I would donate an original piece of artwork to be auctioned off at their spring “Cat in The Hat” gala held in Washington DC.

Since RIF’s mission is to provide books for impoverished children, their annual galas are themed around legendary icons of children’s literacy. You may recall my piece for last year’s “Where the Wild Things Are” gala celebrating the work of Maurice Sendak. The theme for this year was another hero of mine, Dr. Seuss.

For these auction requests, I could simply rummage through my flat files and send over a sketch or study. Instead, I’ve used it as an opportunity to create one-of-a-kind pieces that I would not normally take the time to do. Though this year’s theme was The Cat in the Hat, I had a favorite Dr. Seuss character that I have loved since grade school. To this day, I continue to cherish – and have been longing to paint – the Lorax. In fact, I’ve been sketching the feisty spirit who “speaks for the trees” for some time. Here’s a sketch from 1999:

…and another, 10 years later, from 2009.

…with my daughter’s copy of the book, I revisited the Lorax in February and tried to put my spin on him while retaining the squat seed-sprout shape of Seuss’ original. I wanted to capture the creature’s ancient wizened face with a hint of sadness in his eyes.

Once I had the sketch down, I enlarged it (using Photoshop) and prepared it for tracing onto a 16×24″ sheet of Strathmore plate Bristol board.

…that’s when I noticed I had a li’l assistant in the studio watching every step that I did.

This was was a welcome relief as my daughter is still a bit young for the WondLa books (that I’ve been working on for the past 5 years). I was thrilled to see her genuinely interested in this project so I asked her to help me complete the finished painting. First, I taught her how to draw Truffula trees. We practiced on loose sheets of paper.

Then I handed her my Pigma brush pen and had her draw and ink the trees.

I gave her a break and finished inking the Lorax and his stump. I was thrilled at my daughter’s childlike execution of the trees. It was a chaotic, energetic line that reminded me of why I love Seuss’ art. As I pondered how to paint the image, I thought back on the process I used for the large cut-out animals I created for our local gift shop’s holiday window a couple of years back. I dug out my acrylic paints and got to work.

First I antiqued the entire image in “Unbleached Titanium”. This provided a nice base coat and it white-washed the pen line so it wasn’t as strong a contrast.

Afterwards, I continued under-painting using diluted acrylic paints. I kept the tones cool so that the warm golds and oranges would become richer when added on top.

Once I got that where I wanted, I was ready to add the local color. Once again, my assistant came to my aid. I had her paint the distinct bright base colors of the Truffula trees.

Once her colors were down, I began to build upon them and integrate her strokes into mine for the final painting.

Truth be told, there were moments where I was nervous as to what my 6 year-old might do to this piece during the stages that she helped on, but I realized I’ve totally botched up my own paintings before. Just as I’ve done in the past, I would either fix it or start over. Fortunately, I did not have to do either. She did a fantastic job.

In the end, this collaboration couldn’t have turned out better. Not only did we create this image together, I was able to show my daughter that something she and I love doing – painting pictures – can be turned into something else. In this case, the sale of our painting will provide books to those who don’t have any. I wanted her to know that having a special skill set doesn’t have to be about serving yourself alone, it can be used to help others as well.

Providing books to expand young minds is important to the next generation. Books cause us to question, find answers, be entertained and even inspire–just as I was inspired by the good doctor’s words long ago:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

The Adventures of Luke Skywalker

Disney & Lucasfilm have released some exciting news that I have been dying to share…

“Disney Publishing Worldwide announced today the upcoming global release of four new books based on the original Star Wars film trilogy. The classic Saga will come to life like never before through adaptations by bestselling children’s authors Tom Angleberger, Tony DiTerlizzi, Adam Gidwitz, and R.J. Palacio. Each of these celebrated authors will bring their contemporary, unique voice to the galaxy far, far away, bridging the multi-arc storyline in anticipation of the release of Star Wars Episode VII in December 2015.

The Star Wars Saga program will hit stores beginning in October of 2014, with THE ADVENTURES OF LUKE SKYWALKER, JEDI KNIGHT a picture book written by New York Times bestselling author Tony DiTerlizzi (The Spiderwick Chronicles), illustrated with concept art created by Ralph McQuarrie, for the original Star Wars films. This winning collaboration, combining the entire storyline of the original trilogy, is bound to delight dedicated Star Wars fans and enthrall readers new to the series.

Additional titles to follow include new retellings of STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE by R.J. Palacio (Wonder), STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK by Adam Gidwitz (A Tale Dark and Grimm) and STAR WARS: RETURN OF THE JEDI by Tom Angleberger (Origami Yoda series), which will be illustrated by award-winning Star Wars concept artist Iain McCaig.”

Knowing full well what a geek I am, the folks at Lucasfilm contacted me last fall to see if I would be interested in taking the late Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art to create a picture book retelling the original STAR WARS trilogy. Without hesitation, I agreed.

How I pored over my Art of Star Wars when I was a young padawan artist. Within those pages my imagination exploded like a Death Star as I studied the blueprints of movie magic. And, of course, most of the drawings and paintings in the Art of Star Wars were by Ralph. I was familiar with many of his iconic images, but not prepared for the 200+ jpegs that soon arrived in my dropbox.

I printed out small thumbnail-sized images and began sorting them in order of each film and scene. I laid the book out as if I were not only the author, but the artist as well. As I designed the flow of the book, I could see where the text would have to work harder to tell the story and where the art would do the job – just like the division of labor in a true picture book.

As a fan, I also tried to incorporate images that I had not seen in previously published books. I’m hoping the parents reading The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight will enjoy a nice blend of Ralph’s iconic imagery mixed with some fresh new art (I even figured out how to include his cover painting to Splinter of the Mind’s Eye)

I am also incredibly excited for the other participating authors involved with the chapter book adaptations of the original films (like Adam Gidwitz here, hanging out with me and Yoda). Earlier this year, we met at Skywalker Ranch to discuss our projects and immerse ourselves in a galaxy far, far away. Ten year-old Tony had died and gone to heaven.

(Left to right: Ten year-old T, Tom Angleberger, Luke Skywalker in disguise, R.J. Palacio and Adam Gidwitz)

There’s no question that the STAR WARS myth has impacted me as a storyteller. I am humbled and honored to be the author asked to retell George Lucas’ classic space-age story of good triumphing evil for the next generation.

May the force be with you.

LA Times Festival of Books

Angela and I will be presenting and signing at the LA Times Festival of Books on Saturday, April 12th, at the University of Southern California.

The presentation schedule is here and we will both be signing throughout the day.  I am on a panel discussion at 1:30 p.m. titled “Young Adult Fantasy: Worlds Beyond Imagination” along with Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Hawkins and Neal Shusterman. There will be a signing afterwards. Also, you can check in at the Simon & Schuster booth for my additional signing times.

Seeya there!

David A. Trampier (1954-2014)

I am saddened to learn the news of the passing of 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons artist, David A. Trampier–or DAT as he was known to us old-school gamers.

Though I never met him, I’ve posted several times about the impact Trampier’s art had on my burgeoning artistic abilities way back in middle school. And I cherish my artifacts of his inspiration to this day.

Many know his graphic inkwork from the AD&D Monster Manual (1977) and the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1979). His cover to the AD&D Player’s Handbook (1978) has become an icon from this era of role-playing. A quick image search of Trampier’s name will show you many fine examples of his work from these popular tomes. Being a collector of all things from childhood,  I also happen to own many of the early “pastel” adventure modules from the 1970′s, which also featured his woodcut-inspired illustration. Below are some of my favorite pieces that aren’t seen as often (click to enlarge):

Fire Giant from 1978′s Dungeon Module G3 “Hall of the Fire Giant King”

A manticore in his lair for 1977′s “Monster & Treasure Assortment”

Tramp’s cover to Dungeon Module T1 “The Village of Hommlet”, 1979

Gargoyle from the AD&D classic, “Tomb of Horrors”. 1978

Thank you for your continued inspiration, Tramp. May your art continue to influence many imaginations for generations to come.