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The doors were a faded gray worn with age. The only traces of paint were an indeterminate cream stuck deep and crevices and around the hinges. A rusted Rams had door knocker hung from a single heavy nail at its center. Their mother fitted jagged key into the lock turned it and shoved hard with her shoulder. The door opened into a dim hallway. The only window was halfway up the stairs, and it's stained glass panes gave the walls and eerie reddish glow. Hello, it's Chuck from above the basement Boston music and conversation the voice you just heard was from the Spiderwick Chronicles audio book read by none other than the great Mark Hamill, Illustrator and author Tony DTZ. Gotta start drawing for Dungeons and Dragons but soon began world building through his books that include Jimmy's egg miles out of this world Moon Pie Adventure The spider and fly and with writer Holly Black, the Spiderwick Chronicles to name only a few of his wonderful books. Angela DTZ, has worked as a makeup artist in film and TV including Saturday Night Live and MTV and from musicians including the fellows from Dave Matthews Band Duran Duran and Depeche Mode and is the author of several award winning children's books herself that includes say what some bugs and baby love. This was an especially fun conversation for me as I used to live above Tony and Angela and Brooklyn back when I used to be an actor anyway, so it was great to catch up with these two very talented people. So here is our conversation with Tony and Angela do talese recorded in their basement in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Unknown Speaker 1:35
One of my first celebrity sightings in New York City, Johnny does Johnny Depp. He was filming Donnie Brasco. Yeah. And we were coming there to look for an apartment and we walked outside of our hotel. They're filming and they're fun. They're like, Oh, they're filming some movie. And then Johnny Depp came walking out and I was like, York City. It's bad.
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He walked right up to her. She
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walked right up and I talked to him and
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you guys didn't need any Johnny Depp. You had a famous actor living above you in Brooklyn. That's, that's right. Chuck, famous actor slash artistic model.
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That was 94 probably right.
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We moved there. 95
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Yeah. And you guys were there. And we moved there. 9596
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right around the first street parcel been successful now really, mostly because of us. Right. To the trailblazers, we really helped gentrify Park Slope. That's right. Is
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that a landline?
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a studio
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is that like what? cameras mass like they have actual phones.
Unknown Speaker 2:35
That's what we have. We have it you notice I think growing up in Florida the Hurricanes always knock out the electricity for weeks Yes, you need to have so you need a landline so we we just it's like ingrained on like a landline and people like you know would ask that question. It would feel a little loaded like that until we had that crazy snowstorm. Right? And then friends were coming over using our phone we still have a landline. I have
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a landline.
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Surprised?
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Well, because I don't hear landlines with a real like a real ring. No one calls us Oh never rings. I never why
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we have a landline. I never answer my phone at home.
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You never to answer any phone. That's true.
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But I specifically don't answer my landline. He's
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always like, Oh, it was in my car. He says that every my landline
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is never in my car. The cell
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always in my cell phone. But we've gone full circle here because you guys met in Brooklyn. We did. And I'm sitting next to one of the three Chuck's
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there were several.
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Tony and Angela. We're so happy to be here. Thank you for bringing us not only into your home, but into your basement. Studio. So now we're
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below the bed. Well, we're not below base. We were above the basement when you entered. Yeah.
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And now we're in the basement is actually probably our very first recording that we've done in a basement other than the test run we did.
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And we we had a couple beers and really, we're just
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trying to figure out how to use this stuff. I mean,
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we should probably explain like, this isn't just I mean, this is a walkout basement. There's lots of light here. Windows.
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Yeah, it's not like
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talking about
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I had that book Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons, the monster manual. That was your main thing that we were doing. You didn't done any of the children's books yet
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when we first met No, no, I'm still
Unknown Speaker 4:15
started with END. We're doing Magic the Gathering cards though. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 4:19
Okay. When we lived in New York, I was definitely working on Magic the Gathering and I had worked for Dungeons and Dragons for a couple years. I think at that point. Yeah.
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As an illustrator
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as an illustrator. Yes. And you were at Mac.
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I was I was at Mac cosmetics. I was doing makeup. See?
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Slowly but surely see how it came back? It was like
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I gotta say it out loud
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quick before I forget.
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Otherwise, it's gone. Yeah, in the
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early years, the magic the gathering of witches. Now that's also 20 something years old, and
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no Dungeons and Dragons started in what year the 70s. And then you were hired as an illustrator for the company.
Unknown Speaker 4:55
Yeah, it was started by two men Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, who were war gamers with is you know if you've seen the movies where they're like, and the army was here, and they would slide all the figures guys figured out how to do a game like that and the pieces and moving the pieces and my army of dwarves will thank you and you know that kind of thing. And and they use those voices of course when they when they play Yeah, but then like 12 year old kids Yeah, yeah. And then it developed into the game that became a phenomenon and in the early 80s, which I played and is enjoying an incredible Renaissance right yeah
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it really really huge
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Yeah, mines like the cassette tape the cassette
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tapes coming back that Yeah,
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dragons I'm serious it's coming
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up I knew vital was has been on the set, sir. Anyway.
Unknown Speaker 5:41
Oh, cuz single What a waste of money. That was. You remember
Unknown Speaker 5:44
the single was just one song one song. Actually, you know what I have probably still some cassette tapes that you gave me. You just getting rid of me like hey, you want these? I there was elton john and Billy Joel. And
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that sounds right. And they're all very
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elaborately. It's got your beauty handwriting in there.
Unknown Speaker 6:03
No, just the tapes that he had his tapes that I still have probably in the attic walked away with all the other Can I have them back?
Unknown Speaker 6:14
Yeah, well, it's got the you know, it's got the Tony DZ signature writing on it. So Wow.
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That's worth at least 1520 cents.
Unknown Speaker 6:24
I don't think actually ever played them. I just think well, you know, I'm definitely gets Billy Joel and elton john. I just don't know you.
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Well, I kept them so it must mean something. So
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back to the end. Yes. So I had some friends that played I remember not really understanding it. Okay. I was never that bright.
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And you refer to your friends in the past tense, which makes me think you they're all dead.
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Right? They got really into it. And you know what happens after that? Tell me what
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does happen. I was I saw the Tom Hanks movie right? Yeah,
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yeah, there is tunnels killing each other. Yeah, that actually
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monsters and mazes. Remember the
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man is supposed to be anti d&d because it's Yeah. Yeah, he went crazy
Unknown Speaker 7:06
in the in the made for TV that was based on a sensationalized case about one guy they thought had committed suicide. But it turned out he had just had gone home. And but so when they were looking through his dorm and stuff, they find Dungeons and Dragons. So the detective suspects Oh, he's very into this double game. And that's the media then it feeds a narrative. I remember that
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narrative. I told you remember that?
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Yeah. What the d&d stuff told you to say
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that's what it's telling me to say right now. Hold on, I don't know what I'm gonna say next. So let me roll this dice and it will determine exactly
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did you have a certain character, something that you brought to that community? You basically were an illustrator? But did you have a certain character that was yours?
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So it has like sub world. So if you think of like the Marvel Universe is, you know, has Hulk and it has Iron Man, it has like four, and then they'll do like, okay, we're going to go out and do a space story. So dungeons dragons kind of operates the same dungeon dragons is kind of the entire universe. And then there's all these little subculture so I worked on a game line called plain scape, which was basically all the mythologies of Dungeons and Dragons in one world and I did all the artwork I was a solo illustrator for that for Geez, almost 10 years they created new characters that you could play a new monsters and I illustrated a lot of them
Unknown Speaker 8:20
and you did the monster manual too.
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Yeah, I did. I did the first color monster manual, actually,
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how does that work? They have an idea of animal x or monster x, whatever. And they send you an idea. Just text
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it could either be a text description and not
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an actual text that was a long time No, no, it would have been give you x ray
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that comes out
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you're gonna get this it's gonna be in like 1015 minutes you'll be able to read this It's unbelievable. The thing
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comes out you read it and then your your your imagination starts to go fire.
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Yeah, that's it
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evil dog like creature with hideous things. That's why
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you call me downstairs to model for
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Chuck came through Chuck's
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hideous monster will like you'll do certain iterations of it and then send it back. And
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Ben would go back and forth through the through the art director to the game designers to make sure it met whatever they envisioned for this thing. And then off I went, I
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think I remember seeing you outside crying,
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painting. Or maybe you are you finishing up the final?
Unknown Speaker 9:25
Oh, I would spray the clear coat over the paintings when they were done. Yeah, because that would have killed all of us. If I spend it in the apartment. I'd spray I like a clear protective coat out over the art before I'd ship it off to Wisconsin. They were based out there based on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for years. But in the later 90s they ran into financial troubles. And then they were purchased by Wizards of the Coast who created Magic the Gathering. And now we're sitting on a Scrooge McDuck pile of money out and then they were later all has a good idea. Or by Hasbro, it's still a
Unknown Speaker 9:55
very popular game d&d, right?
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It's huge. It's bigger than ever.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
And it's amazing. But you know, with, you know, with video games and virtual reality now, I mean, that's, I wouldn't be surprised if they come out with the DVD virtual reality kind of thing.
Unknown Speaker 10:08
I have a couple theories. I mean, one on one. I mean, Dungeons and Dragons also informs actually a lot of games, including video games that we play. So the structure of like your health meter, and armor and the level of your armor. That's all those rules are figured out during the 70s with Dungeons and Dragons, and are later applied to all forms of gaming, including video games. But I think the reason it's probably enjoying a renaissance now is is twofold, I think we're starting to understand that devices are not necessarily always good. So I think there's been a real push to like, let's put the phones down. Let's sit around the table. And actually, instead of having headphones on and playing a video game with someone across the world, let's actually just sit around and order a pizza our age with each as a family or as friends. And let's
Ronnie 10:51
Isn't it amazing that it's become novel? Yeah. So we talked about this with music and how getting people together in one room to hear a band that there's something about this generation now that it's special, because we're all sitting on our couches with our iPhones. But when you get to be with actual humans, it reminds me a lot of what you're talking about the games, because there's nothing like imagination and experience without the devices and the technology doing it for you. Yes, part of that comes from having kids to that are going.
Unknown Speaker 11:20
That would be my other reason. I think the tweens and teens who are playing in the 80s now have teens and tweens. So you know, they're like, Hey, this is a really fun game. Everybody
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like you who's like I had that when I was a kid. And it
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was fun. And I love playing it. And
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I was never good at it. I never quite understood
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the acting and the role playing. I mean, that's really I didn't come until it until later on. You should play now. Yeah, we still, we still play. I mean, For the uninitiated, really the gist of the game is you make a character with some numbers, statistics that you're going to be rolling to determine whether you do a thing you've been dungeon masters, essentially the narrator of a story and then you know, you're in a room and the door creaks open, you know, a pair of red eyes are behind it, you see a sword, what do you do? And then whatever you think to do, you do and that's what makes the game so fun. Because I'm having such
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flashback. I remember hearing my friends talk about it like that.
Unknown Speaker 12:08
And now it informs everything I do later in my career, when I think back now as I erroneously thought, I'm going to draw wizards and monsters and get paid for it. That'll be awesome. But actually what it wasn't just the characters in the monsters, it was the architecture, it was the armor, it was the weapons, it was how their belief system in the game affected the things that they wore the things that they did. So building the world around it was world building. Wow,
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do you guys, that's pretty good.
Unknown Speaker 12:34
Well, and Angela, what do you think about creating a world when you read something when we use technology with virtual reality, and with the iPad and whatnot? It all does it for us, as we were talking about before, but there's nothing like an actual book, as a writer, you must have that sense behind the process that people are envisioning a world.
Unknown Speaker 12:55
Well, I have that sense because I live with someone who envisions that world can write something in a story. But then for Tony to actually be able to draw something and draw the details of what all the characters look like, what they were what the architecture looks like the inhabitants in that world. That's what I'm used to seeing. So when I write stories, because I'm used to someone who's also a visual storyteller, I tend to just picture it like a movie in my head when I'm writing for me, I'm not an illustrator. So I write but when I'm writing, I often think about what I hope the illustrations will look like. And for that reason, I've often gone out and got the illustrators or found new illustrators to work with on a lot of my books because I'm like, Oh, I pictured this looking like you know a 1950s little golden book feeling vintage what I want the characters to look like I often say like I speak fluent artist, because I'm used to being with one all the time. She
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has a unique perspective I think in supporting me for so many years she understands the way most illustrators work but she's much more on top of what's going on and illustration more than I am I'm kind of tend to be in my head a lot. She can hold her own. With any art director of up and coming illustrators and artists and books and titles. When you're looking at starting a book, it kind of reminds me of run I don't know if you know this, I used to be an actor.
Unknown Speaker 14:12
Amazing what you learn about someone every day.
Unknown Speaker 14:13
I know one of the things you do when you're preparing a character is that you build a bio of that character, right? So you have to create a world do you create the world then you kind of forget about it, you're making a backstory, you make the backstory, I don't know if it's something that's tangible to people who are watching you, but it creates the life of the actor on stage. I must imagine that it's kind of the same for the book, there's a lot of backstory is a lot of imagination that goes into what's happened to these characters coming in building the world, what they're wearing, what they're eating, all that kind of stuff, when it's finally down the page and not seeing what they're eating and not seeing all these little things you thought about but it fills up that character into a tangible entity that would be less so if you didn't build up that backstory. Am I thinking too deeply about this?
Unknown Speaker 14:55
No, not at all. I think the challenge then is what do you keep? Because what's important to the story, what propels the narrative forward and the story and what do you unfortunately shave away? That's always the challenge when writing for younger readers, certainly with like a picture book, which I'm not very good at. She's much better at paring it down to the 300 words than the average picture book is
Unknown Speaker 15:19
Hello, everyone above the basement is excited for an upcoming episode with Old Crow Medicine Show we are recording on Friday, June 15. Before the band performs at in a shoebox school in Concord, Massachusetts. This is an intimate performance and as a part of the umbrella concert series brought to you by the umbrella Community Arts Center. The umbrella Community Arts Center enriches lives and build a vibrant community through the arts. They inspire creativity, learning and personal growth through arts education programs, performing and visual arts presentations and community collaborations to get tickets for the show. And to learn more about the umbrella please visit the umbrella art.org. Okay, now back to the conversation.
Unknown Speaker 15:57
I remember hearing or reading something about you, Tony with the Star Wars get good did thinking about the line. I'm your father, how do you create a line out of a picture? How do you create a picture out of a line Angela just blew
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my mind.
Unknown Speaker 16:12
So in other words, when you're writing, you have a different perspective of what that picture is going to be with some salient lines of your text. I wonder if that comes to mind.
Unknown Speaker 16:21
Okay, so I'm writing Well, I've written and it's coming out this fall a book about glitter because literally the stuff glitter the actual glitter, physical, shiny flex shards, right? Because in a former life, I was a makeup artist. For me, I start thinking about vocabulary that evokes imagery of something like glitter, if I'm writing about glitter, or if I'm writing a book about Cowgirls. Or if I'm writing a book about insects or animals, I mean, I start utilizing that vocabulary. And that's where I begin or there's a spark of an idea. I tend to write younger picture books I write in rhyme a lot. For me, it's more like songwriting, I think, than just straight storytelling, like Tony does. I didn't grow up a huge reader. I grew up in a house that didn't have a lot of books, but I had a lot of music. So when I would listen to Jolene by Dolly Parton, I heard stories in her lyrics. And I saw the imagery that was evoked in those stories. Yeah. And so that's, I think, more comparable to what I do as a writer, as opposed to being a storyteller.
Unknown Speaker 17:22
So these books are like your albums.
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Oh, yeah, look, their songs,
Unknown Speaker 17:26
I mean, songs, song, I mean, their poems, you know, songs are poems. My stories tend to be like poems, and I hear them often like music, and I see them with imagery, I could take the music comparison one step further, when you spoke about the illustration. So a really well executed picture book, there's a symbiotic relationship, they kind of need each other, the words won't quite fully carry the story on their own. And the illustrations may not completely make sense without the words. And I often think of it as lyrics and melody, that they really need each other. So you look at the lyric, it's to your favorite song blowing in the wind by Bob Dylan, or a great Rolling Stone song or what have you, Billy Joel. But if you just read the lyrics, and have no concept of the music that goes with it, you're like, Oh, that's okay. That's nice. So he's writing about an Italian restaurant. Oh, that's very nice. But then when you hear the music, and it takes it to the next level, that's why I feel like what the art can do.
Unknown Speaker 18:22
It's so great that you mentioned that because I really see music and lyrics a lot like spoken word or written word along with illustration. And what we're seeing all around us in this amazing studio, what I was thinking about in your career was what it must have been like to be an illustrator IE, that's elton john. That's music only right. And then Bernie Taupin comes in with lyrics. So how was it to become both where you became the musician and the lyricist. At the same time,
Unknown Speaker 18:50
I think I'm probably more like the musician who would noodle on I've seen some musicians or you get the demos, and they're on their guitar, and they're kind of humming in the gunman. That's kind of how I am where I'll draw, and I'll see little flashes of the story. And so I'll make all these little notes kind of around the drawing. And then maybe I'll stop drawing for a moment. And then I'll write more. And then I go back to drawing again. So it's going to make sense. It's not like your stuff is so abstract, it's going to have a lyrical quality, it's going to have words that come to mind when you see a person or an object or a monster or something right. And even the longer format stuff. I tell you this all time I'm always thinking of it structured almost like a song where there's reprises and there's choruses in the story itself. Even if it's a long narrative, we're like, okay, we're going to loop back to this moment from the beginning, but now the protagonist is in a different place. So they're going to see it differently. Or, you know, which would maybe in a song, I'm going to sing this first stanza of I'm going to singing a different key now, right? Like it's a little different and if it's an old 70s like Jolene, singer, songwriter type song, now when I sing the chorus, it's through a different lens because now we've heard all the lyrics and so it deepens as it goes along. And I'm fascinated by that storytelling strong because life is like that often do you listen to music while you while you're driving? While you're right, I
Unknown Speaker 20:04
mean, we always have music playing here. Like we're working down here in the studio. We usually always have music playing if I'm writing I usually can't listen to music or I can listen to soundtracks or you know just something instrumental but it's difficult for me to be hearing lyrics and then be writing them a sense
Unknown Speaker 20:21
same for me but when I'm doing my art yeah I creating art I listened to tons of music and stuff so what happens with the book is these things can take almost a year when I just finished took me almost two years and so there are days when you come down and you're like I don't really want to do this today like I really want to go do something else so I make or you're like I'm into it but I can't get into the mindset so I'm often make playlists of music that will put me right into the mixtape base. Yeah, make a mixtape Joe
Unknown Speaker 20:46
is a astutely seen the fantastic pinball machine over there. The thing of beauty
Unknown Speaker 20:51
when you live and work in the same place, you need some distractions. Tell
Unknown Speaker 20:54
me about it. I do the same thing.
Unknown Speaker 20:56
Yeah, you know, I don't get to go blow some steam. You gotta go you know, play some packs. Man. Are some gallica or some Captain fans. Yeah, there's like 32 games loaded onto that other Pac
Unknown Speaker 21:05
Man machine. Not just
Unknown Speaker 21:07
Oh, no. Dig Dug. Wrong.
Unknown Speaker 21:09
You have actual donkey here.
Unknown Speaker 21:11
Yeah, you can play Pac Man. You know, I bought
Unknown Speaker 21:14
my daughter's the Atari that you can buy the Atari now that's all like and you don't need the cassettes anymore. You just have the it's all in the computer chip. And I'm like, I'm gonna play Pong gonna play. You know, asteroids can be awesome. And instead of playing like, it's kind of sucks. The kind of boring blank blank. blank, blank.
Unknown Speaker 21:34
Always boring.
Unknown Speaker 21:35
I mean, I love I used to love tank. Yeah, and I was you know,
Unknown Speaker 21:39
when you were like, seven
Unknown Speaker 21:41
You're going too fast.
Unknown Speaker 21:45
I don't know if I was so disappointed. They will use it once and that was like,
Unknown Speaker 21:50
you're in 15 minutes you're like wow, luckily it was only 40 bucks but you've taken it out of context. I mean, back then. You're like it's never going to get any better than this. The graphics on this are amazing. We
Unknown Speaker 21:59
gallica holds up like Gallagher Pac Man freakin those
Unknown Speaker 22:03
guys centipede kid Yeah, still
Unknown Speaker 22:04
yeah centipedes on their kids love still hold up
Unknown Speaker 22:09
it was the one with the guy would swing on the on the vine going across. That's pitfall
Unknown Speaker 22:16
ever been hired to do a video game illustration.
Unknown Speaker 22:19
I've been asked to work on films and stuff. And in generally I don't it's like this. My real commodity is my imagination. My brain so lending it to someone else's vision. Is it usually
Unknown Speaker 22:29
Yeah, you've been called for things like video games.
Unknown Speaker 22:31
One of your classic works, of course is Spiderwick Chronicles. Yeah. Where it became a movie in 2008. Right? That's right, that transformation of those characters into this big screen. Like the first time you sat there and saw it on the big screen. What was it like?
Unknown Speaker 22:46
We were fortunate in that we were fairly involved in the process. So I actually got to see dailies and watch them. Sure. Yeah. And Sam see rough cut of the film before was released.
Unknown Speaker 22:57
A moment of walking onto the set is so something that really was just born in your imagination. And now there's hundreds of people working on it and creating it in three dimension, life size. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 23:09
yeah. What you do on the page
Unknown Speaker 23:10
was mind blowing, mind blowing. It was a strange, strange feeling at once I felt at home, but also a bit out of place. Because I'm not a I don't work on movies. But all the things seems so familiar. And I and I could articulate with anyone in the crew about whatever they were working on. Did the
Unknown Speaker 23:26
actors pick your brain? First,
Unknown Speaker 23:30
no, they actually sit and pick our brains. But the director Mark Waters was constantly I mean, we talked fairly regularly why Mark worked on it.
Unknown Speaker 23:39
Jim Bissell the production designer, we were really close with him.
Unknown Speaker 23:42
Yeah, we're still still still friends with him. There was a couple producers on early who helped get the movie going. And we were very involved in and Kathleen Kennedy actually came on and did the production of the film, who later would go on to Helm Lucasfilm, in these new Star Wars movies
Unknown Speaker 23:57
and all of Steven Spielberg's team because she, you know, produced Steven Spielberg's movie, so you're dealing with like his cinematographer, and Caleb, rotted and
Unknown Speaker 24:05
his editor and yeah, it was crazy.
Unknown Speaker 24:08
So it really was just like, wow, okay, our dream was to sit back and let you
Unknown Speaker 24:12
guys do what you do. I'm not gonna tell you
Unknown Speaker 24:14
was there a fear that they would kill the initial thought of what the story was like? They would do something and they wouldn't listen to you. Maybe short. Imagine that. That must? That's, that's always a concern in
Unknown Speaker 24:23
any I think you probably talked to any person who's created the source material for a film. Yeah, that's the concern. Having watched enough books turned film, you're making something completely different out of it, you're making it do something different. So you know, it's got to change, you know, it can't be have
Unknown Speaker 24:40
that expectation.
Unknown Speaker 24:41
Yeah. So I think what you say is kind of what you said, Chuck, I just kind of would remind them like, remember the spirit of the book. The reason you you optioned it in the first place, I think that's the best you can kind of hope for, and and hope that they get right, so many moving parts, and so many people, and they all have different agendas. And you know,
Unknown Speaker 24:57
I remember often saying like, let's just just assume it's going to suck. And then it will either meet or exceed our expectations, low expectations. And that was
Unknown Speaker 25:06
it. We've talked to some musicians who have written for kids that we've talked to a guy named Alistair MOOC, who's written he wrote an album for kids with cancer. And it's talk about losing your hair. And it's all it's very kind of, it's a fun, it's a fun and supportive, and it's a really great album. And he actually does a lot of kids shows and stuff like that. But he also does grown up regular singer songwriter, stuff that he does as well. And they're both and they're all fantastic. You kind of run the gamut with some bugs. And then you have Jimmy sang. Wow. And then you you've gotten a little bit moving upwards with what's the one with the rabbit, Kenny? Kenny the dragon? And now you're up and doing the Star Wars stuff? Yep. Is there a mindset that you put yourself in? Do you even think about it when you're when you're writing for a demographic? Or is it just you just trying to write a good story?
Unknown Speaker 25:51
Well, I feel like often we're giant kids, we already are in that mentality, your face, in a studio that is covered in toys, literally from floor to ceiling, and often listening to music that we grew up with when we were kids, we have to tap into that. But we also have, you know, a young daughter. So that also surrounds us in her modern landscape. For me, it's just about what's inspiring me. That's what I'm going to write about, you know, if I'm talking to Sophia when she was four, and she comes home, and she's crying because their friends and bugs were disgusting. And I'm like, What did you say? And she said, Well, I said, bugs are cool. And I said, Well, some people think bugs are disgusting, because some bugs sting and some bugs bite. And she said, and some bugs stink and some bugs fight. And I was like, thank you for that first stanza. And I just came home and started writing. So it also ends with a spark and our inspirations always changing. You have a Christmas book coming out called the broken ornament, ornament. And that was inspired by my life situation.
Unknown Speaker 26:52
Yeah, where we were decorating the tree A few years ago, Angela had bought some glass ball ornaments. And so our daughter was lacing the hooks and kind of handing them to us. And we had the music plan and the hot chocolate was coming and I love decorating the tree is one of my favorite things from when I was a kid and you're not looking and you hear that and you look and she's got her shoulders hunched in the ocean, so sorry. And I was immediately transported back to being like her age and dropping an ornament and my day come on those things cost money. You know, that kind of thing. And you feel bad. I normally can't do this. You You're much better at than me. I just make up a story right there. So and I just literally knelt down and said, it's okay when you break an ornament on accident, Christmas, various born and she smiled and I was like, gave her a hug and we're done. And he goes, that's your next book. And I'm like, No, no, no, that's just like I want
Unknown Speaker 27:42
25 fairies. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 27:47
Okay, sorry. Sorry.
Unknown Speaker 27:49
The tree fell over by accident. Yeah. And so as a kid and I would tuck her in a bet you go Dad, tell me a story. And I go, Well, what book? Would you like me to read Mike Mulligan or curious? No, no, no, tell me a story. write stories. So tell me a story. And I'd be like, I can't I'm not as spontaneous if she asked her she'd be like, well, porcupine was driving in a car and you see this come by the side of the road. Like he just starts coming out. And and it rhymes too. And I can't yet and arrives on top of that. I just can't do it. I'm much more cerebral. I think I've got to think about it more. So that is a very rare thing for me to be able to just almost not think and do it on autopilot. And then it took me two years to figure out what the rest of that story was. But I had the
Unknown Speaker 28:27
is your current project is taking a couple years. Two Christmases, two Christmases. Yeah. How was that when you came to the next Christmas? Did you reboot some of the story? Or was this just another day, another week. And interesting
Unknown Speaker 28:37
thing happens in the wake of success, to be honest with you. So the Tony, that you would have known Chuck, who was trying to get into children's books was you know, 20 going on 30 something and I, you know, I was trying to get those books done. The advance of royalties is not very big. So you really like you're working, you're working, you're like I gotta get this book done. I got to get it off to the publisher. Okay, I'll take a little bit of break. Okay, I'm on to the next book. But once you achieve success, and financial success, what then changes within me is, this isn't good enough. I actually think I need to redo it. So this book in particular, I wrote the book, I spent a better part of the year writing it and doing all the sketches, and doing what we call book dummy, which is basically like a demo, if you will, of what the book is going to be. So here we have the page turns and everything. And I got to the end of it, and I read it to Sophia, and she's like, it's good. And I was like, What? It's just good. And I was like I knew something was fundamentally not right. And Angela, and I kind of tore into it. We had been in Florida and I had lunch with my friend mo Willems and mo took a look at it. And he knew exactly what was wrong with it. And so I knew I had to he said you wrote the perfect midlife crisis book. That's right, where the kid wasn't the protagonist, the parents were
Unknown Speaker 29:53
Well, I mean, you talk about working and thing of being inspired by being a kid that's important to not be constantly working from a place of nostalgia, because you're like, oh, you're an almost 50 year old guy that's writing about being a kid when you were eight. But you have to remember what it is to be that kid. When the first draft of that book, it was the parents story.
Unknown Speaker 30:12
Yeah. Fascinating. Why don't you do two books, though? And why don't you give to the parents? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 30:16
So here's You're lucky if you're fortunate you get it to work on both levels. But
Unknown Speaker 30:20
that's that's the reality is that it took your experience to even create the idea in the character. That's the niceness of that character to begin with. Yes, yes. That's the irony there. It has to come from the kids perspective. But you couldn't create that if you didn't have the dads perspective,
Unknown Speaker 30:35
it really is like a journey. And there's always a story behind the story of how you get from the beginning to the end.
Unknown Speaker 30:41
And I love how you meant how you did the sound effect of the ornament breaking. It's something we can recognize an ornament falling and breaking. You know what that sound? I never had that even though
Unknown Speaker 30:52
I had a menorah fall
Unknown Speaker 30:53
but don't
Unknown Speaker 30:55
you don't have a Christmas tree too.
Unknown Speaker 30:57
I do know in my 40s you for it is
Unknown Speaker 30:59
yeah, life is Catholic, but it's certainly a you don't have to tell me what it is when you went. I'm like I know exactly. We know that. A Miami of remember the World According to Garp. Sure. So he sees the the woman that got into the cab and she drops a glove, right. And he wrote this short story kind of triggered something to write that story about the magic love, she can wear the gloves, and she can heal people with the glove. But she takes the gloves off. She isn't feeling anything. No, I'm going with this. But
Unknown Speaker 31:23
But, but I like when I put the gloves on.
Unknown Speaker 31:28
Like that ornament, though. Like you can visualize what it's like a story from the trigger.
Unknown Speaker 31:34
Like so he had posted a photo on Instagram of the broken ornament. And mentioned like in a moment of kind parenting, this is what I said to our daughter. And then we woke up the next morning and there was like thousands of likes, and people started saying my son broke my grandmother's ornament. There's something that really could resonate here.
Unknown Speaker 31:52
When you made that sound, I know exactly what that sound is. And everything that entails a really expensive ornament just hit the ground. You know, is this something that my grandmother gave us is, you know, my daughter is now going to be sad because she there's a whole bunch of things that happened that flood at you
Unknown Speaker 32:07
I collect a 1950s Japanese salt and pepper shaker sodas Chuck. Yeah. Usually with a anthropomorphic character, so there's a whole cabinet of them above the basement, upstairs and I. So there's this calm that's really.com.com I have this little egg timer, and it's a little mouse and they used to play with it was my grandparents and I used to spend a lot of time with them. And when my grandmother passed away, my grandfather gave it to me and I had to think about Okay, if it's not an ornament, what would it be like to be Sofia? What if she broke that? What if our daughter broke that? And how would she feel thinking that it's just one of the other things in the cabinet, but also it means so much? To me?
Unknown Speaker 32:49
The Broken ornament, though, is very metaphorical for a family. I mean, you're gonna have a broken ornament every once in a while? That's correct. Absolutely. Yeah. It's very powerful to me, even as someone who didn't grow up with it. I live in the world of Christmas trees. And now my family might live in a world of Christmas tree. Right, you know, wow. You know, every, every, every most American Jews grow up that way. And it's very special. And actually, for me, it was really awesome to marry into a family that had that as a such a solid tradition. It was like it was really special to have as an adult.
Unknown Speaker 33:23
Well, and we had to ask ourselves, like, What does Christmas mean? Yeah. And so this kid in this book is he's like, it means having more of things. Because when you're a kid, and you like something, you really just want more of it. Right? Yeah, you're like, Oh, we need a bigger tree so that Santa has more space to lead more presence. So what happens when you break one thing? Oh, you can get more of that. But you can't.
Unknown Speaker 33:43
So going way back to kind of what you were initially asking, like, what are you tapping? What are you doing? I'm trying to impress the nine year old or the 10 year old is a 12 year old version of me. And I'm also trying to impress my daughter.
Unknown Speaker 33:55
It's funny because we worked on the cover for this book a lot. There was a lot of revisions, the cover soap had made a card for you. It's on the fridge right now. And it says I think the new cover looks amazing. And it was like, oh, it doesn't just look good anymore. It looks amazing. She's impressed. Gosh, I got from good.
Unknown Speaker 34:12
The shoulder shrug. That's all right. When is it coming out? September September 2018. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 34:17
What's your next thing?
Unknown Speaker 34:18
Just add glitter, just a glitter, right? That's October night.
Unknown Speaker 34:22
What's the bullet of your book?
Unknown Speaker 34:24
The question is, is there such thing as too much bling? Depends on just how much you bring? Ah, so we'll see. See when the
Unknown Speaker 34:32
Roman Reigns. I know. I can't Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 34:34
with the rhyming in the game. You know, I can't I can't do that.
Unknown Speaker 34:37
And the illustrator who
Unknown Speaker 34:38
Her name's Samantha Cottrell, the illustrations are super cool. It's actually all in 3d and it's photographed so she cut out scenes and characters and used real glitter so it's three dimensional sets, real glitter and then it was photographed the publisher Simon and Schuster was super excited and they're springing for real glitter ink. So all the pages going to have glitter inside sweet.
Unknown Speaker 35:02
Parents will love you in the glitter gets all over their couches.
Unknown Speaker 35:04
I know it is the face of crafting. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 35:09
Yeah, Chuck you have a little on your cheek.
Unknown Speaker 35:12
The herpes of crafting.
Unknown Speaker 35:15
One of the last time that was in North Hampton bookstore there had a toner digital Lizzy children's book display in the bookstore. Wow. And you don't remember it is a special art play display of all these different children's books and yours is part of it.
Unknown Speaker 35:28
Michaelson, Michaelson guy.
Unknown Speaker 35:31
So it wasn't it wasn't a bookstore was a gallery
Unknown Speaker 35:33
that's a gallery and
Unknown Speaker 35:34
a book. So I mean, they do sell books, but it's primarily an art gallery.
Unknown Speaker 35:37
We work closely with the art Carl Museum, a picture book arts. I mean, there's already a very robust group of children's book writers and illustrators in the area. But then people are always coming here to events, and I'm sure it's kind of a mecca for that
Unknown Speaker 35:50
last year. We went and visited the Norman Rockwell museum. No, yeah. And so I just missed you getting in there and having your exhibit there. Is it still there?
Unknown Speaker 35:57
It's there to the end of May. Yeah. Man. Yeah. What's hanging up in there is Jimmy saying, Wow, what's what's up? Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Chuck has that just a museum? It is a great museum. We knew we'd been going there for years ourselves. And I mean, Norman Rockwell is a huge influence. I mean, there's I grew up on it probably, like so many people with the museum has, what they've been kind of dealing with is that generation that grew up on Rockwell is kind of aging out. And so they they've been looking at ways to bring in younger people to the museum. And so how's it
Unknown Speaker 36:25
feel to be young? I know.
Unknown Speaker 36:27
Yeah. They reach out to you. Exactly. Now, I think they want the art. It's not really me. It's the people I'm reaching, I think is what they're
Unknown Speaker 36:34
looking at, especially museums are doing this. They're trying to reach family,
Unknown Speaker 36:38
but it's in the success. I would venture to say that in your success. Now, this is a moment of time where you can be looked at as an old person, a younger Rockwell or like,
Unknown Speaker 36:49
you know, refer to it as a mid career retrospective.
Unknown Speaker 36:52
That sounds good. I'll go with a career mid career optimistic.
Unknown Speaker 36:56
Yes, it is.
Unknown Speaker 36:58
There for what 25 years. I mean, as a paid illustrator, author now. Yeah, so hopefully, you know, mid career maybe another boy,
Unknown Speaker 37:05
I do want to ask about Duran Duran.
Unknown Speaker 37:07
Oh, okay. The reflex
Unknown Speaker 37:09
so that it's a reflex
Unknown Speaker 37:11
lonely child or an only child. We have lyrics on that one. We're really weird.
Unknown Speaker 37:15
You did make up for them. Right.
Unknown Speaker 37:16
I did a lot of bands. You didn't make up for a lot of bands. And you
Unknown Speaker 37:24
excellent. Yes. I didn't make up for a lot of bands. New York. Yeah. And Duran Duran being one of them.
Unknown Speaker 37:33
And Bill Clinton, who plays the saxophone. Yes,
Unknown Speaker 37:35
I did make up for Bill Clinton as well. The thing that I loved about makeup, I wasn't one of these people who was like, I love all the textures and the colors and I loved the interaction. I was a kid that grew up watching Saturday Night Live, seeing like smart, funny, amazing women. And thinking like I want to work on that show. Yeah, you did theater as an adult. But I grew up doing a lot of theater. I loved performers. These people. I just thought they were so cool. They were artists. nobody in my family was an artist. One of my early Jobs was working at like a clinic counter at the mall. Yeah. Which is when I met Tony in Florida.
Unknown Speaker 38:10
It's like I want to get your colors done. You want to go to chick fil a?
Unknown Speaker 38:14
Or TGI Fridays? Oh, they got a Ruby Tuesday.
Unknown Speaker 38:18
So you gave us three choices choice.
Unknown Speaker 38:21
Actually, a friend in a band introduced us remember, we had a guy in a band that we were both friends with? So he was like you have to meet my friend Tony. He has just a sick a sense of humor as you do. And Tony's like, Listen, I want to move to New York. I want to do kids books. I was like, I've never been to New York. I want to do makeup for TV. Let's move and we
Unknown Speaker 38:39
moved so she worked at the today show. I know if we made that clear like for for many years. Yeah, I remember one day you called me you're on your way home but you were like an hour late. And you're like I just sat in the makeup room and talk to Carlos Santana for like an hour. And she and she was like he was amazing. He
Unknown Speaker 38:55
was amazing. And just so kind and so wonderful. And like, you know, he's just like literally in his hat while he's talking to me and just, you know, one of these moments that just burned in my mind
Unknown Speaker 39:05
if when we met some of the folks who worked on the Spiderwick film I mean, some of them same thing. They're just very down to earth. You know, you asked like, did they ask about like their character? Not so much, but some of them were just like, like Andrew McCarthy had kids. So he knew my books
Unknown Speaker 39:20
of Pretty in Pink Andrew McCarthy. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 39:22
he played the father in the Spiderwick film plane. He played the douche bag dead. Yeah. He was like Blaine grown up. I remember going to breakfast with the director Mark Waters, they'd cast just about everybody at that point, but they hadn't cast the Father. He said, You're not gonna believe who we have for the dad. And that's exactly what he said. It's blame grown up like this.
Unknown Speaker 39:42
It's gonna be perfect. Can you imagine building your career and just being an asshole?
Unknown Speaker 39:46
That's how you
Unknown Speaker 39:51
On that note, guys, such a pleasure seeing you again. It's not very often you get to be next to neighbors who I mean, we weren't we weren't close close. We saw you guys all the time. We'd go over for the Oscars.
Unknown Speaker 40:02
You introduced us to the first episode of South Park. I did. Yeah. You sent us over on VHS tape sent us the that pilot
Unknown Speaker 40:10
that the Kristina
Unknown Speaker 40:11
Jesus? Yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Well, I can put that on my resume now. But so great to you guys. Again, thanks for having some your house. Thanks. I appreciate it. As
Unknown Speaker 40:25
you can see Tony's art find out where it's being shown and purchases books at detail easy calm and learn more about Angela and her books at Angela detail easy calm, go to above the basement calm where you can join us on Patreon. Sign up for our newsletter list and subscribe to our podcast like our Facebook page. Follow us on Twitter and look at all the nice pictures we post on Instagram. We are everywhere. On behalf of Ronnie and myself. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends and remember Boston music like its history is unique.
Unknown Speaker 41:01
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai
