Saturday, April 30, 2011

LA Literature festival

One of the cool things I have discovered about life in LA is the constant number of events going on.

Today I went to the LA Times Literature Festival being hosted on the USC campus. There were several hundred authors in attendance, such as the guy who is currently writing the Madeline series, RL Stine, Ted Danson and Jamie Lee Curtis to name a few.

Madel-egs.
She will eat your children.

My main goal was to meet RL Stine, as his writing was one of my primary influences during my middle school years (although our school was enough behind the times it had no middle school, just elementary to jr. high).  I had all of the first 50 books of the Goosebumps series, as well as several Fear Street and other such spin off books.  Welcome to the Dead House is still a favorite of mine.

book201ra

 It featured a town of zombie like ghosts and a kid all on her own.  I blame this book for my early fear and later fascination with the walking dead.  Then there was The Dead Next Door (notice a naming trend?) which was another favorite, featuring a nice reversal of expectations.

goosebumps_the_ghost_next_door

After an hour in line I got my book signed and shook hands with Mr. Stine.  I had to buy one of his newer books since all of my Goosebumps collection is sitting on a shelf back in Missouri, but it featured the evil ventriloquist dummy, Slappy, from the original Goosebumps line so it wasn't a terrible secondary option.

RL Stine

Definitely worth the wait.

RL Stine Signature

There were several cool booths with a lot of authors and artists I need to look up when I get the chance.  One of the more interesting booths was inhabited by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.  They had several comic books and prints that could be purchased with a donation to the fund.  There was a nifty autographed Lauren K Hamilton print from the comic adaptation of her first Anita Blake novel and several signed Scott Pilgrim books, but the one that got my cash was a Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes graphic novel signed by the great Neil Gaiman.

Sandman signed

One day I am gonna shake that mans hand.

In closing, Geek Nation, I give you this glorious window decal sighted outside the Golden Apple comic store.

RoboCop

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