Aquatic Friday Fan Art
13 year-old Emily of Georgia sent me a link to her wonderful watercolor rendition of the Spiderwick Nixie. Check it out.
Well done Emily, the facial proportions are nice and you rendered it in watercolors – which can be tricky. I started playing around with them when I was your age and I still enjoy painting with them. Keep up the great work!
15 commentsFriday Fan Art
I am nearing the deadline for delivering the artwork for The Search for WondLa, and it has been intense here in DiTerlizziland. I cannot wait to share the new story with you and the news surrounding it. I AM SO EXCITED!
In the meantime, I got a message from a fellow fairy researcher from Europe this week, Álvaro:
“I’m sending you this *”captured will-o’-the-wisp”* from Spain. It’s made of fluorescent polymer clay, so it glows in the dark. I hope you’ll like it.”
Do I like it? Do I like it? You made a will-o-wisp that actually glows!? Holy crap!
I LOVE IT! You made my week, Álvaro. Keep on creating…though, if your studio starts getting swampy, or you suddenly can’t find your way back home, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Friday Fan Art!
Happy Friday everyone!
Angela received a kind note and link from Ranae Atchison, who sculpted some familiar brownies and boggarts out of polymer clay. Check it out:
You can see more pics of these little lovelies, as well as Ranae’s other fabulous work, on her blog. Have a great weekend!
4 commentsFriday Fan Art!
Twelve year-old Emily has sent us some lovely examples of her drawings done in the same mediums which I use. We have a dwarf done in pencils…
…and an ink drawing of a nixie…
…not to mention a mermaid drawing which has been inked and painted in watercolors. WOW!
Nice work, Emily, especially on the sunken ship – why didn’t I think of that? Thanks for sending these along and participating on my blog. Have a great weekend and keep drawing!
9 commentsSpiderwick Farewell Tour (Second Leg dates)
The “Spiderwick Farewell Tour” concludes next week, starting Saturday at the National Book Festival in Washington DC. Bring EVERYTHING you want signed! I hope to see you there!
Saturday, September 26
NBF Signing: 12:30-1:30 PM
NBF Presentation: 2:30-3:00 PM
NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
Washington, DC
*NOTE: The line at NBF is notoriously long and the organizers are quick to cut it off. If you are serious about getting books signed, I would suggest arriving early to secure a spot. Holly and I will try to sign for as many as possible and we are going to pre-sign a bunch of books prior to the festival.
Sunday, September 27 @ 1:00 PM
POLITICS & PROSE
5015 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Monday, September 28 @ 6:00 PM
BLUE MANATEE CHILDREN’S BOOKSTORE
3054 Madison Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45208
Tuesday, September 29 @ 7:00 PM
JOSEPH-BETH BOOKSELLERS
Rockwood Pavilion 2692 Madison Road
Cincinnati, OH 45208
Wednesday, September 30 @ 6:30 PM
ANDERSON’S EVENT AT TIVOLI THEATER
5021 Highland Ave.
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Thursday, October 1 @ 4:00 PM
THE BOOKSTALL AT CHESTNUT COURT
811 Elm St.
Winnetka, IL 60093
Thursday, October 1 @ 7:00 PM
BORDERS
15260 South La Grange Road
Orland Park, IL 60462
4 commentsSpiderwick Chronicles: The Completely Fantastical Edition
I am home for a spell before Holly and I head back out next week to continue our “Farewell Tour” of the Spiderwick series. A BIG thanks to everyone who came out and made the west coast events so memorable.
While on the road, and to our delight, we spied The Completely Fantastical Edition in stores which is something, frankly, I’ve been holding out on sharing with you all. (Though I did post many of the cover explorations earlier this year).
For this bind-up of the original five Spiderwick books, I took a collector’s approach. This is an approach you may be quite familiar with. Especially if you are a movie/dvd collector (like myself)…or even a graphic novel reader – e.g., when they take all the issues of a comic and bind them up into one book (also like myself – really, I am just a collector, period.).
That said, we packaged this book towards a little older reader than what the five original books were aimed at. After all, this title is close to 600 pages long(!) Yup, you read that right. But the original story itself stops around page 500 – so what did we add to this book to make it the “2-disc special edition/bind up graphic novel”?
For one thing, we pulled out all of the spot art and cameos. This helped the story flow better, and kept the original 5 titles still special. However, sometimes we’d have one of the books end on a left page with a blank right page. In that case, I went in and digitally drew on the existing spot art to make them full-pagers. Below are a couple of favs:
This is the phooka talking to the kids in book 3…
…and here is the dwarven king, the Korting, revealing an entombed Mallory in book 4.
After you finish the story proper, you then get a 30+ page sketchbook sampling some of the developmental work that went into creating the Spiderwick world. Any fans of my old gaming sketchbooks will quickly recognize the design and casual commentary I added here and there to make this section (hopefully) enlightening. Here are some page spreads:
…in fact, that ink drawing of the troll was never used in the final book. It is printed in this edition for the first time (along with some other deleted illustrations).
What follows is a section of “Lost Chapters” which Holly wrote to add little “sideways stories” on Thimbletack, Hogsqueal and the River Troll. If you collected the 3 General Mills “Spoonfuls of Stories” last year, then you’ll have read these tales before.
The finale is one many comic book readers will know and love – but (I think) this has yet to be done in a children’s bind-up collection: an all-star gallery of contemporary illustrators doing their take on the world of Spiderwick! The list of complete contributors includes:
and Mark Zug.
Below are a few jpegs from this AMAZING gallery:
So there it is, a lot of thought (and work) went into this on my part, and I am proud to unveil it to you all. If you get a chance to nab a copy, be sure to bring it to our additional booksignings as we finish up our tour. I’ll seeya there!
14 commentsSpiderwick Tour Starts Tomorrow!
…and here’s a reminder of the dates for leg 1 (including California, Oregon, Washington and Minnesota):
SPIDERWICK FAREWELL TOUR
Wednesday, September 9 @ 7:00 PM
MYSTERIOUS GALAXY BOOKS
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. #302
San Diego, CA 92111
Thursday, September 10 @ 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
7881 Edinger Avenue
Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Saturday, September 12 @ 2:00 PM
POWELL’S BOOKS AT CEDAR HILLS CROSSING
3415 SW Cedar Hills Crossing
Beaverton, OR 97005
Saturday, September 12 @ 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE
12000 SE 82nd Ave.
Portland, OR 97266
Sunday, September 13 @ 12:30 PM
A CHILDREN’S PLACE
4807 NE Fremont St.
Portland, OR 97213
Monday, September 14 @ 7:00 PM
THIRD PLACE BOOKS
17171 Bothell Way NE
Seattle, WA 98155
Tuesday, September 15 @ 7:00 PM
BORDERS
16549 NE 74th St.
Redmond, WA 98052
Wednesday, September 16 @ 6:30 PM
WILD RUMPUS
2720 W. 43rd
Minneapolis, MN 55410
…please bring anything you’d like signed: books, Magic cards, D&D stuff – I’ll be happy to sign it all. See you there!
3 commentsSneak-Peek of WYRM KING
Chapter One
IN WHICH Nick and Jules
Get Their Heads Examined
Nicholas Vargas had imagined a panoply of terrible punishments his dad might impose after he’d stayed out all night with Jules and Laurie. He’d imagined being grounded forever. He’d imagined all future video games and game systems confiscated. He’d imagined being yelled at every day for the next six months.
The actual punishment was much worse. His dad blamed himself for everything.
“This counselor will help us work things out,” Charlene said. She was driving, her hands gripping the wheel too tightly. Nick squirmed next to Jules and Laurie in the backseat. Even though Charlene was wearing sunglasses, Nick could tell her eyes were red and puffy.
His dad also blamed Charlene. The two of them had fought so much that they were basically not speaking. Now they only argued through dark looks and passive-aggressive comments delivered to the air.
The car pulled into the driveway of a small yellow house, where garage doors had been changed out for a wall of windows. Nick could see crystals stuck to the glass, making rainbows dance across the asphalt. It didn’t look like a doctor’s office at all.
“This person has a degree?” his dad said, making the statement into a question. He appeared to be addressing the windshield.
The inside wasn’t much more reassuring. The counselor’s office was actually in the converted garage. Soothing instrumental music played in the background. The counselor herself had lots of long silver hair and a few braids secured with silver spirals. She wore jeans. She introduced herself as Teresa Gunnar and told them all to call herby her first name.
Three big white couches sat opposite a single chair, where Nick guessed Teresa was supposed to sit. On the coffee table rested a box of tissues and a pitcher of water with cucumber slices floating among the ice cubes.
Jules flopped on a couch.
“Let’s get started,” Teresa said. “We’re going to try and maintain positive spiritual energy as we communicate with one another.”
They sat down. Nick tried to tune everything out. It was mostly Charlene talking about how his dad hadn’t prepared the kids for her and Laurie moving in. Which was true. About how he never talked with them about their grief over their mother’s death. Also true. But it didn’t matter if those things were true; Nick hated her for saying them.
Looking at the cucumbers bobbing in the water, Nick thought of giants walking along the bottom of the ocean after a slowing, singing boat. He thought of the pages Jared had clutched in his hand, papers that showed there were some kind of wriggly black things worse than giants coming. Jared, the real hero, who would have done the right thing instead of making everything worse. Nick had thought that getting rid of the giants was impossible. Then he’d done it. He’d been really proud of himself too. And, of course, it turned out he shouldn’t have gotten rid of them at all.
Which was exactly why he’d started not bothering with anything in the first place — because trying really hard just made you feel terrible when it turned out that all that trying wasn’t enough.
“Nick. What are you thinking about?” Teresa asked. “Remember, we’re trying to cultivate positive energy and communication.”
“Nothing,” Nick said, carefully avoiding looking at any of them.
Teresa tapped her pencil against the back of her hand as the silence stretched. “How did you feel about your father remarrying? And what about you, Jules? I’d like to hear from both of you.”
“I feel okay,” Jules said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Charlene’s nice. And Laurie’s cool.”
“I didn’t like that I had to give up my room,” said Nick. He felt like blaming someone for something.
Jules kicked Nick’s foot.
“What?” Nick said. “I didn’t!”
“Well, I didn’t mean to take it,” Laurie said.
“You didn’t care,” said Nick.
Jules sighed. “Just until the new house got finished. It was no big deal. Nick’s exaggerating.”
“So you were angry with your father?” the counselor asked.
“No,” Nick said. “I don’t know.”
“Do you think he’s trying to replace your mother?”
Nick looked over at Charlene and Laurie. “I think Dad’s trying to be happy.”
“But not trying to make you happy?”
Nick shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”
She wrote something on the pad in front of her. “Did you express any of your concerns to your father?”
Nick shrugged.
“That’s my fault,” said their dad. “I guess with my background — my parents didn’t talk things over with me. They were the parents and I just did what they said. That’s how things were.”
“Dad — ,” Jules started.
Their father cut him off. “No. I should have talked to you both. I should have seen that you weren’t ready for so much change. I know it’s my fault that you were acting out — staying out all night, stealing my car. You’re good kids. You’re not like that.”
Nick looked down. “It had nothing to do — ”
“Laurie — I know she’s a troubled girl.” He glanced over at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry — it’s just — ”
Tears glistened in Laurie’s eyes.
“What?” Nick said, turning to his dad. “No, that’s not true — ”
“Laurie is not troubled,” Charlene said. She looked at all three of them through narrowed eyes. “Before you start throwing around blame, let me remind you that your seventeen-year-old son kept my very young daughter out all night. What kind of teenager takes little kids out — ”
“Have you heard the way your daughter talks? You keep indulging her fantasies of faeries and magic, and what she needs is to be more grounded in the here and now! I know for a fact that they were intently discussing one of her stories that night — ”
“So if your kids are so grounded in the here and now, how could her story make them do anything — ”
“We didn’t mean for this to happen.” Nick’s voice came out louder than he expected.
“No one’s mad at you,” his dad snapped. “This isn’t your fault.”
But Nick knew it was his fault. He hadn’t been happy about Charlene’s moving in. He hadn’t liked Laurie at first. And now, even when it was obvious that Laurie was getting blamed for stuff that wasn’t her fault, he wasn’t saying the right things to fix it.
“We think…,” their dad said, and looked over at Charlene. “We think that maybe it would be best for you kids if we separate for a while.”
“You can’t,” Laurie said.
“Dad,” Jules said, “Nick and I — we told you we were sorry.”
“We’ve already decided, Jules,” Charlene said. “We decided before we came here today. That hotel is a cramped space. It’s only making everything worse. We’re committed to trying to work things out, but I think we all need a little breathing room.”
“Us guys are going to move into a trailer on the build site,” their dad said. “We think this is the best thing for everyone.”
Nick scooted forward on the couch. “Charlene and Laurie don’t have to move out — you guys don’t have to move out. We’re never going to do anything like that ever again. We totally promise.”
“It’s done,” their dad said. “We’re going to give ourselves some time apart. I am considering the matter closed until then, understand? This isn’t any of your faults. It’s between me and Charlene.”
Nick remembered how angry he’d been when Charlene had moved into the house and Laurie had taken his room. He remembered wishing over and over that she’d just go home. He’d made fun of Laurie for believing that things like wishes could come true, but right then Nick had a terrible feeling that she might be right.
• • •
Nick looked out the car window at the ocean as they passed over the bridge, this time in his dad’s car with all their stuff loaded into the trunk. Boulders remained visible out in the water, like small islands. They looked perfectly normal dotting the horizon until you realized they weren’t there a week ago. Until you realized that they were sleeping giants.
On the other side of the bridge, the car veered suddenly to the right, causing Nick’s head to bang against the window and then knocking him against the door.
“Why’d you swerve?” he asked.
His dad pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. He was breathing hard. “A sinkhole. Really bad one.” He opened the door and stepped out of the car shakily.
Jules pulled his wagon off the road behind them and hopped out.
The sinkhole was a crater in the ground, almost perfectly circular and the size of an overturned truck. Ridges of asphalt ran along the slope that dipped down to a hole. And that pit went so far down that all Nick could see was blackness. He felt a growing sense of dread.
Other cars were edging sharply around it. A few people had stopped to take pictures.
Nick looked over at Jules, who was reaching down to pick up a chunk of road. “Do you think this is it?” he whispered.
Ever since Jared, Simon, and Mallory Grace had shown up with the papers in hand, they’d all known it was only a matter of time before the creatures appeared. They’d taken turns patrolling the beach, looking for evidence. This was definitely evidence.
“Something displaced — pushed out — the dirt underneath,” said their father, pressing numbers into his phone. “Probably water. It happens a lot in Florida. That’s why we need the land we build on to be so carefully surveyed. Imagine what happens if a sinkhole forms under a house.”
Nick could easily imagine. Too easily.
“Yeah, we’re over on Route 1 and there’s a big sinkhole,” their dad said into the phone. “Oh, really? Huh.”
He listened for a few more moments, nodding grimly, then hung up.
“Who was that?” Jules asked as they walked back to their cars.
“I know a guy at city hall,” their dad said. “He hadn’t heard about this one, but there have been a few others just today.”
“A few?” Nick asked.
“Yeah,” said their father. “Only locally, but they’re spreading.”
As his dad’s car started to roll forward, Nick looked back, and for a moment he thought he saw something worming around the edges of the crater, like fingers reaching for a better grip or snakes slithering to the surface.
Copyright © 2009 by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
4 commentsSpiderwick Tour Dates
This is it! The last Spiderwick tour Holly and I will likely do for a looong time! I hope we see you there!
SPIDERWICK FINAL TOUR
Wednesday, September 9 @ 7:00 PM
MYSTERIOUS GALAXY BOOKS 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. #302 San Diego, CA 92111
Thursday, September 10 @ 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE 7881 Edinger Avenue Huntington Beach, CA 92647
Saturday, September 12 @ 2:00 PM
POWELL’S BOOKS AT CEDAR HILLS CROSSING 3415 SW Cedar Hills Crossing Beaverton, OR 97005
Saturday, September 12 @ 7:00 PM
BARNES & NOBLE 12000 SE 82nd Ave. Portland, OR 97266
Sunday, September 13 @ 12:30 PM
A Children’s Place 4807 NE Fremont St. Portland, OR 97213
Monday, September 14 @ 7:00 PM
Third Place Books 17171 Bothell Way NE Seattle, WA 98155
Tuesday, September 15 @ 7:00 PM
BORDERS 16549 NE 74th St. Redmond, WA 98052
Wednesday, September 16 @ 6:30 PM
WILD RUMPUS 2720 W. 43rd Minneapolis, MN 55410
Saturday, September 26
NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL, WASHINGTON, DC
http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/
Sunday, September 27 @ 1:00 PM
Politics & Prose 5015 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, DC 20008
Monday, September 28 @ 6:00 PM
BLUE MANATEE CHILDREN’S BOOKSTORE 3054 Madison Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45208
Tuesday, September 29 @ 7:00 PM
JOSEPH-BETH BOOKSELLERS CINCINNATI Rockwood Pavilion 2692 Madison Road Cincinnati, OH 45208
Wednesday, September 30 @ 6:30 PM
ANDERSON’S EVENT AT TIVOLI THEATER 5021 Highland Ave. Downers Grove, IL 60515
Thursday, October 1 @ 4:00 PM
THE BOOKSTALL AT CHESTNUT COURT 811 Elm St. Winnetka, IL 60093
12 comments