…and now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.

October 5, 2009

Today, October 6th, 2009, is a mile-marker my friends. I am hammering down a flag right now. Two flags, actually.

You see, it is the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next in the as-of-yet-published-ever-ongoing art book of DiTerlizzi. Today, in fine bookstores everywhere, is The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Completely Fantastical Edition which I mentioned on the site before. I don’t think I could be more proud of a Spiderwick book (okay, save for Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide) as it contains one heckuva lot of work from both Holly and I.

However, today I am also celebrating the launch of a new series and a new collaboration. A silly collaboration. A risky collaboration.

Risky, because it is a HUGE stylistic departure for me. The art here serves truly to simply be a component of the book as a whole. in the truest sense of a picture book, the art cannot fully tell the story without the accompanying text – which was created and written by my loverly wife, Angela, and yours truly.

I’ve put considerable thought into these seemingly simple books. Why do them? I’ve worked so hard to perfect my drawing skills, develop my writing style, and yet here it seems I’ve gone in another direction entirely.

When Ang and I met artist/genius Mark Ryden this summer at Comic con, I handed him a copy of Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide and a copy of Meno.

TD: “Here ya go Mark, these are for you.”

MR: “Thanks! Who did these?”

AD: “Tony did them. He did the art for both.”

MR: flipping through pages of Spiderwick, then Meno. “Wait. You did BOTH of these.”

AD: “He did.”

TD: “Yup. I’m a bit schizophrenic.”

…now that I think back on it, that’s not the term I should have used. What I should of said was, “Yup. I’m constantly exploring. Evolving. Changing. Both as an artist and as a storyteller.” But I was nervous and giddy – all the things one feels when you are meeting someone you have admired from afar.

Adventure of Meno was born of our love of making people laugh. Ang and I created these stories without a big fancy book deal. We created them simply because we thought they would be fun to do – and they were. In fact, we had had so much fun that we were simply going to self-publish them and give them away to friends and family. But the fine folks at Simon & Schuster thought we should unleash this silliness into the world. So here we are.

If you can get to a local bookstore today, this weekend, or in the coming months, give them a read (it will take a whopping 5 minutes). I hope, if anything, they create a little laughter with an adult and child. And I also hope they entertain. After all, isn’t that what sharing a book with kids all about?

PS – In the spirit of The Little Golden Books, Ang and I got S&S to charge as little as possible while still retaining good production quality. We arrived at $9.99 – much lower than the usual $15-16 of your average picture book.

PPS – Here’s a link to find Adventure of Meno at a local bookshop near you…

…here’s a link at Barnes & Noble…

…and here’s a link to Amazon. Please to enjoy!