Festival embraces graphic novels

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will expand this year to include comic books, graphic novels and manga. There will be three panels featuring authors and artists who work in the field, and others will be making appearances to talk with fans and sign autographs.

One of the panel discussions, “Comics: Superheroes of the Page & Screen,” will feature Mike Mignola, creator of “Hellboy”; Steve Niles, creator of the “30 Days of Night” graphic novel franchise; and Jeph Loeb, who has written for numerous super-hero comic books and is co-executive producer of NBC’s “Heroes.”

The festival will be held April 26-27 at UCLA.