L.A. Festival of Books

Purchased from the Hi De Ho Comics Booth
at the festival.

On Sunday, April 25, we visited the L.A. Festival of Books (sponsored by the Los Angeles Times), held on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) near downtown L.A. My wife primarily wished to attend some signings and panels, so I tagged along.

In addition to books and authors, I was glad to see comics and graphic novels well represented among the vendors, including a booth from one of the local Westside comic book stores near me in Santa Monica, Hi De Ho Comics, which I visited regularly when I was in college. You’ll see some of my purchases in the photo gallery.

In addition, when checking the schedule the day before we went, I discovered there was a panel appearance of Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, the cartoonists behind the long-running Love and Rockets series. I snatched up tickets for what turned out to be a fun overview of their series and a fascinating conversation about their creative process. The panel was followed by a book signing.

It was also fun visiting USC (we actually took L.A.’s Metro rail there, which was only about a 20 minute ride). As I have occasionally mentioned, my wife and I both attended UCLA as undergrads. That said, I actually got my master’s degree at USC, while my wife spent several years there for her doctorate. (As a student, I went to several UCLA-USC football games, both at the Rose Bowl and the L.A. Coliseum.) But we remain Bruins through and through.

So with UCLA and USC being cross-town rivalries, naturally I made sure to wear a UCLA t-shirt (during the day, several people randomly called out “Go, Bruins!” when they saw me). At right is a selfie I took wearing a Bruin shirt in front of the Tommy Trojan mascot statue.

All kidding aside, we were impressed by the changes the campus has undergone (we’ve been aware of the changes, we just hadn’t seen them first hand). USC has gentrified much of the area around campus. In fact, a rather sketchy shopping center we remembered across the street from campus (which had a bar my wife recalled visiting occasionally with fellow grad students and professors) had been transformed into a mixed-use student residential dorm area with restaurants, bars, and even a Trader Joe’s and Target! We also quickly visited the building where our classes and programs were sited. We recalled that my wife’s office in the doctoral program overlooked USC's football practice field. This included a quick visit to the Annenberg School of Communication where I received my master’s, which I had not been to since my graduation there in ‘92!

Anyway, it was a fun day and a reminder that we’re overdue to visit the equally visit UCLA campus.

Below are additional photos...you can see the full photogallery here.