Tony DiTerlizzi
About Author
Tony DiTerlizzi is co-creator of the international bestselling series, The Spiderwick Chronicles. He has illustrated numerous picture books for children, including Ted, G is for 1 Gzonk and The Spider and the Fly, which won the US Caldecott Honor. Tony lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Angela, and their baby daughter, Sophia.
Author link
Interview
TONY DITERLIZZI TALKS ABOUT WONDLA
Published by Simon & Schuster Children's Books
October 2010
Q: How did the book start were you daydreaming about the day we'd be brought up by robots, or perhaps how we would manage to end life on earth?
A: It actually came to me about 10 years ago or so. I was sketching out a little girl, Eva Nine, inspired from Wendy Darling and Alice Liddell.
I thought it would be interesting to tell a story similar to theirs but with a 21st century twist. So instead of Neverland or Wonderland, I had my heroine lost on an alien planet full of bizarre life forms and limited technology.
Obviously, I didn't work on the story for 10 years straight, but I kept coming back to the premise and began developing a fairly traditional fairy tale wrapped in a science-fiction skin.
Q: In the book, Eva Nine discovers the library computer - and it's the last working computer on Earth. Was the library important to you as a child?
A: I LOVED visiting the library as a kid and still do to this day. I didn't always visit it to find the latest fiction, but often for reference books on a variety of subjects like art, astronomy, prehistoric life and (of course) insects.
With libraries in trouble now (especially here in the US) I also wanted to make a statement about what I feel about them and what treasures they contain.
Libraries are an archive of our culture, our way-of-life, our thinking throughout history. The books they contain don't just contain knowledge in the words they hold, they also are a reflection of society at the time they were made - from the fonts they used, illustrations they held and the very materials they were made from. We can't lose that.
Q: Have you always invented strange other worlds, like Orbona in WondLa or the faery world in Spiderwick?
A: I do like exploring a strange world. It harkens to the mythic stories many of us know where the hero leaves the comfort of home and ventures into strange and oft-times dangerous lands.
For The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly and I grafted the fairy world into the real world which is common in old folklore, but for The Search for WondLa I wanted to create an entire new world from soup to nuts. It was a challenge to be sure, but it was incredibly fun and a great exercise in imagination.
Q: What's the strangest place you've ever been?
A: The weirdest place I've ever been would probably be diving in the ocean. I received my SCUBA license when I graduated art school and was mesmerized by the world that I saw under the waves. You really feel like you are in another world. That greatly influenced my art and design, especially the aliens in this book.
Q: Why did you name this planet Orbona?
A: Like the planets in our solar system, Orbona is named after one of the classical Greek and Roman gods. She is the Roman goddess of children and orphans, which is very appropriate for the characters and this story.
Q: The creatures populating Orbona seem to be overgrown versions of our existing bugs and grubs did this stem from your own interest in insects? Do you still have your collections of bugs?
A: I had quite an insect collection when I was a kid, but not any more. I do enjoy taking photos of insects and catching them with my daughter.
The thing that fascinates me most about them is their antiquity. In the scheme of life on this planet, they are, in many ways evolved past us.
I have a hunch that if humans were to disappear from Earth tomorrow due to some unfortunate circumstance, insects would survive they've certainly managed to stick around through many other cataclysmic events when many other species perished.
That thinking absolutely affected my designs for the creatures that Eva Nine encounters while she explores her strange alien world.
Q: What, or who, is your favourite creature on Orbona?
A: My favorite creature is probably Otto, who is a gigantic water bear. He is based on a real animal by the same name. These microscopic critters are amazing in that they can survive in extreme conditions, like being completely dehydrated for 10 years, or even the vacuum of space.
Q: Eva Nine is brought up by a robot, Muthr do you think there will come a day when we are brought up and managed by robots?
A: Muthr is a hybrid of both traditional robot and cloned human brain tissue. This allows her to have limited emotions so that she can cope with the child that she is raising.
I don't envision a real world where robots are raising our children, but I certainly have felt like an automaton many times while raising my daughter.
I hope I get to see the evolution in robotics during my lifetime, but I have the feeling it will be something that truly takes shape during my daughter's generation.
Q: Eva seems to be the only girl on Orbona what has happened to everyone else?
A: Youll have to read the book to find out!
Q: Eva relies on her omnipod, which is a bit like a live encyclopaedia. What would you use an omnipod for?
A: The omnipod is a handheld device, which contains all known human knowledge. It is an evolution of many of the technological devices we have today. You can simply ask a question about anything and it will reply with holographic imagery.
The irony of course is, that having all this collected knowledge in your hand is no good if you are the only human alive.
I would love to have an omnipod to take outside and identify all the organisms living around me. Eva does this throughout the book, but meets with much different results than what the programmers of the omnipod intended.
Q: WondLa is a wonderful illustrated book / graphic novel meets electronic game (the virtual reality bits) where do you see children's books going?
A: I see electronic books for children certainly developing more in the coming years, but I don't believe they will ever replace a real book.
I wanted to Wondla to be more than just an entertaining story. I wanted the book itself to be a beautiful object a tome one would cherish as a child, a tome that perhaps one would hold onto and read to their own children one day. But I suppose only time will tell.
I produced 70 two-colour illustrations for it: more than I ever did for any one Spiderwick book and certainly more than what we normally see in a chapter book for this age range.
I wanted the book to immerse you with words and pictures into the world I created. I wanted a window into my imagination. I wanted it to compete with other highly visual diversions such as television or video games that also occupy a kid's world.
Q: What did you prefer creating in WondLa the words or the images?
A: For this, I used a picture book approach in that I tried to not illustrate something that I described at great length in the text (and vice versa).
In that way there becomes a relationship with the words and images that creates a complete experience. Its sort of like lyrics and music to song both can be amazing if isolated of one another, but are much richer when combined.
That said, I feel that both elements had their challenges. Obviously I am much more known for my illustration work, so I put an incredible amount of effort into my writing.
Once that was complete, I wanted to create a virtual portal into the world I had created so that the reader could see what I saw in my mind as I wrote it. The words affect the pictures which in turn tint the words. It's a bit of a symphony and I enjoy playing all of the instruments.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about book two, how many titles are you planning and where is the storyline heading?
A: I can tell you that I planned out an overarching plot for all three books, then figured out where to break the stories. The theme of compassion vs. aggression will be consistent throughout as the action ramps up from book to book ending in the climatic finale.
I think that Eva's step into adulthood will continue to evolve. In the first book, she learned the importance of family and began to get an understanding about the ways of the world.
In the second book, she'll come face to face with the truth. We'll find out what happened to Orbona and the humans living there, We will also learn more about Rovender and his clan.
When Eva discovers the history of her people, she realizes that the truth is not always black and white it usually many shades of grey.
As we head into the third book, she'll have to make her own moral decisions that she must live with. That was a big step for me as I grew into a young adult. We all have to live with the choices we've made in our past, good or bad.
Q: When can we expect the film?
A: Much to my surprise and joy, Paramount Pictures optioned the book this spring. A literary scout got a hold of an early manuscript that was then shared with studio executives, who loved the material.
This thrilled me because their excitement was based solely on the story and words. None of the illustrations were completed when they optioned the book so that was a tremendous validation for me as a writer.
We've had some preliminary discussions about a general approach and the books are out to potential writers basically the first stages of a long process.
I'd rather the studio take its time and get the right talent involved as opposed to rushing it out. A passion and understanding for the underlying source material always leads to a smart and thoughtful adaptation (think of what Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings).
Hopefully now that the book is released, the studio may get some unexpected phone calls from potential directors, writers or actors who may not have been on our wish list. That had happened with Spiderwick, much to everyone's delight. In the meantime, I'll keep spinning new tales.
