I had a good time at the L.A. Times Festival of Books – really, I was showing people books and taking people’s money, and those are both things I love to do. I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by – oh, and AAUGH Blog reader Pat? I think I still owe you the free gift I was giving to folks who bought The Peanuts Collection, so email me your address. And I apologize to anyone to whom I forgot to show the preview copies of God’s Children and The Zipper On My Bible Is Stuck, my two planned gift books using cartoons from Schulz’s Youth; I had too many people coming at me and too many things to keep track of.
Lots of folks came over to talk about Peanuts, often explaining what made Schulz special to them (although the person whose friend used to be a neighbor of Schulz in Compton? I don’t think so, and I’d like to see those Peanuts original drawings your friend gave you.) (I was going to make some joke about the friend confusing the creator of Snoopy with Snoop Dogg, but then I remembered that it was N.W.A, not Snoop, who came straight outta Compton. Forgive me if my west coast hip hop references fail.)
Off the topic of Peanuts, it was a lovely time, and I hope to be there again next year. There certainly was some pleasant surprises, seeing old friends who I didn’t know would be there (my old chum and one-time collaborator Carla Speed McNeil took home the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Graphic Novel category for the latest volume in her Finder science fictions series; I was surprised to see that at the moment you can get new copies for a buck plus shipping from third party sellers at Amazon, and I suggest you grab them up), and meeting someone who had used my book on making graphic novels as a guide for making memoirs, which ended up coming out from a major mainstream publisher and garnered much praise. If you’re in the area, be sure to stop by next year’s show; admission is free (although parking isn’t), and there’s much entertainment to be found there. I wish there were two of me, so that I could be taking care of business as well as enjoying the show!
