Tony DiTerlizzi | |
---|---|
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | September 6, 1969
Occupation | Author, illustrator |
Notable awards | Caldecott Honor |
Spouse | Angela DiTerlizzi |
Signature | |
Website | |
diterlizzi.com |
Tony M. DiTerlizzi [1] (born September 6, 1969) is an American fantasy artist, children's book creator, and motion picture producer.
In the gaming industry, he is best known for his work in the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering and on the Planescape product line for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. DiTerlizzi created The Spiderwick Chronicles series with Holly Black, and was an executive producer on the 2008 film adaptation of the series. He won a Caldecott Honor for his adaptation of The Spider and the Fly .
Tony DiTerlizzi was born in Los Angeles in 1969, the first of three children. [2] The name DiTerlizzi means "from Terlizzi", a village in Italy's Apulia region. [3] He grew up in South Florida where he attended South Fork High School. [2] He went to college at the Florida School of the Arts and The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where he earned a graphic design degree in 1992. [2] [4] : 86
DiTerlizzi cites a variety of artists including Norman Rockwell and Dr. Seuss as major creative influences. [5] "Many good fantasy artists will tell you their influences are Frazetta or Boris Vallejo. Realizing this, I went for more diverse influences, since it seemed to me that most current fantasy work has that same oil-painted feel." [3] DiTerlizzi was influenced by artists such as Hieronymus Bosch and Leonardo da Vinci to early 1900s magazine artists (Maxfield Parrish, Heinrich Kley) to classic children's book illustrators (Arthur Rackham, Ernest Shepard, John Tenniel) to offbeat modern fantasy artists (Brian Froud, Moebius, William Stout, Jim Henson). [3] Another inspiration was David Trampier, who illustrated much of AD&D's first Monster Manual , which DiTerlizzi recalled as his favorite book as a child: "I would copy Trampier's drawings over and over." [3] DiTerlizzi was a fan of role-playing game art long before entering the field. [6]
DiTerlizzi is also a fan of the work of Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Illustrators such as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen and Ernest Shepard all had an impact, as well as author/illustrators like Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein and Richard Scarry. [7]
Upon graduating, DiTerlizzi moved to New York with his wife Angela and began a freelance illustration career working for TSR's Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. [8] [9] "I was so psyched when I got a chance to work on [the 1993 Monstrous Manual tome]. My entire goal was to 'blow away' the other artists. It helped me in getting the job for the Planescape setting." [3]
DiTerlizzi worked on the 1994 Planescape Campaign Setting and its supplements, redesigning the look of the Outer Planes, "Not only buildings but the people had to have a rusted, organic look. This seemed to come naturally in my art style. When I went to work on Planescape, I looked at anime and Japanese fantasy art like Yoshitaka Amano." [3] According to Shannon Appelcline, the artist's work was the backbone of the setting. [10]
DiTerlizzi continued to work for TSR, as well as White Wolf Publishing's Changeling and Werewolf Storyteller games, and illustrated many cards for Magic , [3] Blood Wars and Rage . [4] : 88–89
He also illustrated books such as 1997's Giant Bones by Peter Beagle, and 1998's Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear. [3] The first project where he both wrote and illustrated a book was the 2000 publication Jimmy Zangwow's Out-of-this-World Moon Pie Adventure, [11] followed in 2001, by Ted, which received the 2002 Zena Sutherland Award.
Mary Howitt's classic poem The Spider and the Fly , which became a New York Times Best Seller, was his next project [12] and for which he was awarded the 2003 Caldecott Honor Medal. [8]
DiTerlizzi and Holly Black created The Spiderwick Chronicles , bought by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing and Nickelodeon Movies in 2002 and published in 2003. [8] It was subsequently translated into 30 different languages. In 2005, Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You was published, with Paramount Pictures releasing a live-action movie adaptation of the series, DiTerlizzi acting as co-executive producer.
A sequel series, Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, began publication in September 2007, and continued through 2009. [13]
In 2010, Simon & Schuster published the first book of a trilogy, The Search for WondLa , written and illustrated by DiTerlizzi. A Hero for WondLa was published in 2012, and The Battle for WondLa followed in 2014.
Dark Horse Books published Realms: The Roleplaying Art of Tony DiTerlizzi in 2015, with words from DiTerlizzi and a collection of artwork and photographs spanning his early career. “Tony's work has a distinct flair, a love for monsters if you will . . . His creatures have the charm of Henson or Rackham but they carry with them hints of their own ecosystem . . . Tony stands alone as a world creator and a weaver of tales, may you treasure these art pieces as much as I do,” quoted Guillermo del Toro. [14]
DiTerlizzi wrote and designed Star Wars: The Adventures of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, published in 2014 by Disney Lucasfilm Press (an imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide). Accompanying his words were illustrations by Ralph McQuarrie.
Author/illustrator Mo Willems partnered with DiTerlizzi to illustrate the book The Story of Diva and Flea , inspired by Willems' year living abroad in Paris. [15] Disney-Hyperion published the New York Times bestselling book in 2015.
DiTerlizzi lives and works in Amherst, Massachusetts with his wife and manager, children's book author Angela DiTerlizzi and their daughter, Sophia. [8]
The tiefling is a fictional humanoid race in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game. Originally introduced in the Planescape campaign setting in the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons as a player character race for the setting, they became one of the primary races available for player characters in the fourth edition of the game.
Arthur Rackham was an English book illustrator. He is recognised as one of the leading figures during the Golden Age of British book illustration. His work is noted for its robust pen and ink drawings, which were combined with the use of watercolour, a technique he developed due to his background as a journalistic illustrator.
Gerald Brom, known professionally as Brom, is an American gothic fantasy artist and illustrator, known for his work in role-playing games, novels, and comics.
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The Spiderwick Chronicles is a series of children's fantasy books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. They chronicle the adventures of the Grace children, twins Simon and Jared and their older sister Mallory, after they move into the Spiderwick Estate and discover a world of fairies that they never knew existed. The first book, The Field Guide, was published in 2003 and then followed by The Seeing Stone (2003), Lucinda's Secret (2003), The Ironwood Tree (2004), and The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004). Several companion books have been published including Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You (2005), Notebook for Fantastical Observations (2005), and Care and Feeding of Sprites (2006). A second series, entitled Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, includes The Nixie's Song (2007), A Giant Problem (2008), and The Wyrm King (2009).
Holly Black is an American writer and editor best known for her children's and young adult fiction. Her most recent work is the New York Times bestselling young adult Folk of the Air series. She is also well known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and her debut trilogy of young adult novels officially called the Modern Faerie Tales. Black has won an Eisner Award, a Lodestar Award, a Nebula Award, and a Newbery Honor.
Stormfront Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. In 2007, the company had over 50 developers working on two teams, and owned all its proprietary engines, tools, and technology. As of the end of 2007, over fourteen million copies of Stormfront-developed games had been sold. Stormfront closed on March 31, 2008, due to the closure of their publisher at the time, Sierra Entertainment.
David A. Trampier was an artist and writer whose artwork for TSR, Inc. illustrated some of the earliest editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Many of his illustrations, such as the cover of the original Players Handbook, became iconic. Trampier was also the creator of the Wormy comic strip that ran in Dragon magazine for several years.
Terese Nielsen is an American freelance fantasy artist and illustrator.
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The Planescape Campaign Setting is a boxed set for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The set was designed by David "Zeb" Cook and published in 1994. It introduced the Planescape setting and was highly praised by White Wolf and Pyramid magazines.
Planes of Chaos was a boxed set for the Planescape campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
The Search for WondLa is a children's science fiction fantasy novel by Tony DiTerlizzi published in 2010. It is the first book of the WondLa series. The website dedicated to the book had an innovative section which interacts with the book's illustrations via webcam.
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The Spiderwick Chronicles is an American fantasy television series loosely based on the book series of the same name by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. The series stars Joy Bryant, Noah Cottrell, Lyon Daniels, Mychala Lee, Jack Dylan Grazer and Christian Slater, and follows the Grace family, who move into their ancestral home and unravel a dark mystery about their great-uncle, who discovered the parallel and secret world of fairies.