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The LA Times Festival of Books (4/28-29) is such a huge event – the Comic Con International of book fairs, if you will – that it cannot be held in any convention center or contained space. It takes over the campus of of UCLA and overwhelms it. If you love books of any type, on any subject, there is something here for you. Even for us animation fans and historians.

Mike Barrier (The Animated Man) will be a panelist on Biography: Icons on the Page which will take place at 10:30am on Saturday at Rolfe Hall (room 1200). Barrier will be around to sign books and chat afterward. Leonard Maltin will be signing books on Saturday at 12 noon at Dutton’s Brentwood Books booth #336. Neal Gabler, the author of the other recent Disney biography, will be a member of another panel of biographers, Biography: 20th Century Lives, at 3:30pm Saturday afternoon in Haines Hall (room 39). Charles Solomon will be on the panel Biography: Remarkable Lives on Sunday morning at 10:30am at Young Hall (room CS 24).

Most major book companies as well as small press and independent publishers, and book stores & major chains, have large booths selling back stock at discount prices (be sure to stop by the Chronicle Books booths #367, 804 and 901 for some great deals on their animation titles). Many big name real world celebrities—from Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor to Ray Bradbury appear on panels or do book signings. And it’s all free. For more information click here.

Jerry Beck

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