LOS ANGELES, April 20 — On Thursday, April 20, L.A. WEEKLY is publishing its first-ever issue devoted exclusively to the people of Los Angeles, WHO WE ARE: PEOPLE 2006.

Who makes the cut in L.A. WEEKLY’S first-annual People issue? The 268-page, perfect-bound edition is a collection of the wildly diverse personalities who give Los Angeles its character, from the woman who bakes our morning croissants to the nightclub doorkeepers who sneer at our shoes, from the comedian destined for the Walk of Fame to the guy who shines the Hollywood Boulevard stars on his hands and knees.

Jack Black, Sarah Silverman, Rick Rubin, Ed Asner, Vic the Brick and Antonio Villaraigosa are some of the names you’ll recognize; others are stars with smaller orbits: the guy who walks the paths of Griffith Park every day, no matter the weather; the protestor on Sunset standing vigil against the war each Friday night; the elevator man who has seen the ups and downs of generations of apartment dwellers. Meet the Andy Warhol-like assemblage of creative types who make up the growing empire of artist Shepard Fairey, and the T-shirt-wearing multi-millionaires who unleashed the social networking juggernaut MySpace.com. This is a city where a high-school drop-out can become mayor and where you will always find a story worth listening to if you only bother to ask the bus driver, the book seller or even the chief of police. This is an issue devoted to those people and the stories they tell about who we are as a city.