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Category: Spider & Fly

Never Abandon Imagination: The Fantastical Art of Tony DiTerlizzi

December 18, 2017

If you’ve been following me on social media for the past year, you know that in November I celebrated the opening of a retrospective exhibition at The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. To say that the experience was surreal would be an understatement. Having grown up copying Rockwell’s iconic images, it is an amazing …

Happy New Year!

January 13, 2017

I know the site looks like a ghost town. I haven’t updated it in almost a year. Fear not, I am in the process of a new design for the site which I am planning on relaunching very soon. In the meantime, I do have some newsy bits I’d love to share: 2016 marked the …

(A Trick-or-Treat) Friday Fan Art

November 2, 2012

I do hope this Friday finds many of you still enjoying Wednesday’s haul of Halloween booty. For our friends in the Tri-state area, I hope you are safe and recovering from that dreadful storm.

This Geekdad’s Top 10 Creepy Kid’s Books

October 30, 2012

Wired magazine’s Geekdad blog features a list of some of my favorite spooky stories for kids. Check it out.

(A Poetic) Friday Fan Art

June 15, 2012

11 year-old Abby from Clapham, England is quite a fan of The Spider & The Fly. “How big of a fan?” you ask. She’s such an awesome fan that she penned an awesome sequel. Check it out.

A (Fey-riffic) Friday Fan Art

April 13, 2012

Herb Leonhard is a fantasy illustrator whom I was introduced to years ago when I contributed an image for Tori Amos’ RAINN calendar.

A Story a Day or I Just Can’t Play

October 10, 2011

While touring through the UK last month, I became aware of a wonderful British children’s television series called Bookaboo. Its about a rock-star drumming dog named Bookaboo (who clearly is inspired by Bret Michael’s headwear). Bookaboo won’t play for his band until he is read a picture book – preferably by a celebrity visiting him …

Download some DiTerlizzi!

July 5, 2011

I hope everyone had a fabulous Fourth of July. I took a weekend off from WondLa 2 and enjoyed some food, fireworks and finding fireflies. Also, I uploaded all sorts of DiTerlizzi-themed downloads to the site. If you read about each title under the BOOKS section, you’ll now find lots of cool FREE stuff, like …

Friday Fan Art!

May 15, 2009

We got a great pile of Friday Fan Art just waiting to be uploaded over the next few weeks, starting with these character images from The Spider and The Fly from Jessica. She is in the eight grade and is already taking existing subject matter a juxtaposing it in a different art style – in …

Halloweeny Fan Art!

October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween Everyone! Considering the auspicious nature of the day, I thought it would be great to share this awesome handbag made by the very talented Margaret a few years back. I think it would make a great trick or treating bag- after all, spiderwebs and treat bags are both made to fill with sweet …

Will you walk into my (Spooky) parlor?

October 20, 2008

Sweet creatures! My FAVORITE holiday, Halloween, is fast arriving and I look forward to decorating the house for all of the trick-or-treaters. So, I thought I’d blow the dust off of some old goodies I had made when The Spider & Fly made its debut back in 2002 and color them up with my little …

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Never Abandon Imagination Tony DiTerlizzi: Never abandon imagination.

Imagination is a world of possibility that exists within each of us. It is what makes us uniquely human. It is our creative fingerprint that touches and influences the world around us. Imagination is essential to art and science; to innovation and prosperity. It gives us hope, calls us to action and leads to change.

Whether it’s fairies, dragons, robots or aliens, all of my children’s book characters are siblings born of my imagination – an imagination strengthened through years of encouragement from family, teachers and friends. While so many others abandoned it during their transition from childhood to adulthood, I fiercely held onto mine, hoping for a day when I could share it to inspire the next generation of dreamers. Innovators. World changers.

Imagination empowers us to envision and create a reality of what could be. We must hold it dear, foster it and never abandon it.