I’ll at two festivals this weekend, which I admit seems a bit over-ambitious! Let me tell you a little about both.
One event is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which you’ve read me talking about many times over the years (that’s a photo from 2015 above). It’s the largest such festival in the USA, and is a wonderful celebration of books and related things. It is on Saturday and Sunday.
The other event is the San Diego Comic Fest, which also runs through the weekend (although it starts Friday). Don’t mix this up with ComicCon (although there are connections between the two if you care to dig a little to find out).
As I write this post I’m actually basking in the sun as I ride on the train (the Pacific Surfliner) from Los Angeles to San Diego, as tomorrow I’ll be giving a talk at the comics fest. Here are the details:
(Saturday 12:00pm, Crescent) Physics as Graphic Novel – Creating The Dialogues: Conversations About the Nature of the Universe
Prof. Clifford Johnson, a theoretical physicist at USC, has brought physics alive through the new non-fiction graphic novel The Dialogues: Conversations About the Nature of the Universe, which he both wrote and illustrated. In his presentation he’ll describe how he decided to use the graphic novel form to transform what’s possible in a book about science, bringing alive for general readers diverse topics such as black holes, cosmology, the nature of time, and even the science of cooking.
I’ll also be taking part in a panel at 3:00pm discussing science and the movies. That’ll be fun too!
I’ll be signing at the booth of Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, but I don’t know where that is yet.
Then on Sunday, having returned to Los Angeles, I’ll be talking and signing at the LA Times Festival of Books. The panel details are:
(Sunday 10:30pm, Annenberg Hall) The Power of Comics: From the Page to the Screen, Conversation 2141 M.G. Lord, John DeMita, Henry Jenkins, Clifford Johnson. My summary: We’re going to have a fun conversation about comics and graphic novels, their reach into other media, and using them to tackle a broad range of topics (i.e. not just superheroes).
I’ll be signing the book afterwards, and then a bit later on (from shortly after noon) I’ll also be signing at the stall of Kinokuniya Books).
Anyway, I hope that if you’re in the area you’ll get out and be festive in the name of books and comics. There are all sorts of marvellous speakers and events going on at each festival (use the links to their websites to get more information) and I bet you have a great time!
-cvj
