Veepster Bill Kelter waxes nostalgic on "The Cradle of Insignificance," in his new Veeps blog post. Some tasty travel writing and veeps history.

• Steve Lafler's swell new music video!

• Nate Powell -- On The March!! Does this guy ever sleep? From Nate himself:
My site has been totally redesigned! It also features links to the new digital versions of both graphic novels.

I just did the cover for the band Good Luck's new album, Without Hesitation. It's out on No Idea Records, and the artwork was a collaboration with photographer Ben Rains.

My forthcoming graphic novel The Silence Of Our Friends (written by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos, published by First Second Books) is "Certified Cool" in this month's Previews, and will hit stores in January!

I'll be going on a two-week tour in February, doing discussions, presentations, and signings for The Silence Of Our Friends-- dates aren't set yet, [stay tuned].

I also finished a novel/graphic novel hybrid with writer Cecil Castellucci called The Year Of The Beasts, to be released in May 2012 on Roaring Brook Press.

As part of the digital week, the amazing James Kochalka will be doing a Reddit AMA today! Go over and ask him anything!

EDIT

BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR THE AWESOME JAMES KOCHALKA! Take a look at his responses here.

MIX. Minneapolis Indie Expo. So much fun was had at this show. Lots of great catching up with friends. Met new ones, like Grimalkin Press' Jordan Shiveley. Little children literally freaking out over our Kids Club books. I try to travel light, but did come home with some good loot, including new stuff from Joe Biel at Microcosm, a sketchbook (and dinner!) from Annie Koyama, two new issues of Jon Lewis' True Swamp from Tom K.'s new press, Kevin Cannon's Beard Hero, and Tim Sievert's new mini-comic, The Clandestinauts. And more from Chris Pitzer at AdHouse. And some rad stuff from the impossibly cute posse of girls at Paper Darts.

Super props to Andy Krueger and Sarah Morean for rocking another great show.

Oh, and speaking of Tim Sievert, here's the wraparound cover i commissioned from him, for my new Fantasy/Sci-Fi themed sketchbook. Sweet!!

Stumbled across a nice little used bookstore called James & Mary Laurie Booksellers, on Nicollet Mall. Picked up a bitchin' book on Hollywood Westerns, a gorgeous, fully painted book on extinct animals, and a wonderful little illustrated book drawn by the great great Maurice Sendak, titled How Little Lori Visited Times Square (1963).

On the food front, found and ate at terrific all-sustainable eateries every day. They were all outstanding. Restaurants included: Red Stag Supperclub, Spoonriver, Brasa, and Sea Change.

• This isn't under the radar, but neither is it widely known that Renee French is working on a total revamp of her classic, out of print book The Soap Lady. Here's some notes she's been making in this massive undertaking. "I'm working on cleaning up the missing pages of handwritten text for the soap lady redux book. I have it stuffed with little postits."

• Geekdad talks Top Shelf Kids Club with Leigh Walton at Wired.

• Jeremy Eaton continues his spectacular metamorphous with his new art blog. His work is crazy good and always worth checking out.

• Here's a rough cover sketch for Jeffrey Brown's forthcoming, A Matter of Life graphic novel.

• Finally, in the whirlwind world of Jennifer Hayden, she's got a lot going on! [Aspiring cartoonists take note. This is textbook self-promotion.] Check it:

"Thursday, November 10, 7:30 p.m., I'll be speaking on a panel, "Backgammon, Blackberries & Barbarians" at the Princeton Arts Council in Princeton, NJ, with two other Princeton graphic novelists Galit Seliktar Barak (Farm 54) and Mike LaRiccia (Too Fast). The moderator will be children's author and graphic novel editor Galen Longstreth.

"Saturday, November 12, 8:00-11:00 p.m., it's the rescheduled-due-to-snow-in-October launch party for UNDERWIRE at Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope, Brooklyn! Yeah! Booze, bubbly, books, family members, live music, Sharpies, outta control.

"Wednesday, November 16, 7:00 p.m., my first UNDERWIRE reading in NYC, at BookCourt in Brooklyn! Dean Haspiel will MC, and I'll be joined by George O'Connor, reading from his gorgeous book Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory, and Leslie Stein, reading from her cool book, Eye of the Majestic Creature.

"Friday, November 18, 8:15 p.m., I'll be participating in a "Literary Death Match" at Bardot in Miami, FL, which I hope doesn't involve any actual death. I'll be competing with Mat Johnson (Pym), T.M. Shine (Nothing Happens Until It Happens To You), and Sandra Beasley (Don't Kill The Birthday Girl), hosted by Todd Zuniga. Judges will be Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Damned), Dean Haspiel (Bored to Death), and Justic Torres (We the Animals).

"Sunday, November 20, 11:00 a.m., I'll be speaking on a panel at Miami Book Fair International called "2011 Favorites and New Classics", with Vera Brosgol, Shannon Wheeler, and Matt Phelan, moderated by John Hogan and Jeff Newelt.

"Sunday, November 20, 4:00 p.m., I'll be speaking on a panel at Miami Book Fair International called "Comics and Autobiography" with Jason Shiga (Empire State) and Mark Kalesniko (Freeway), moderated by John Hogan (editor, Graphic Novel Reporter.)

"And check out my new blog post I wrote for Trip City, concerning chicken broth and motherhood.

And you can also check out my new webcomic S'Crapbook there, "Moments of Shirley"

I'd forgive someone who mistook this blog as Jennifer Hayden's blog, if only by way of the fact that she's always here, right? Well, i tell ALL of our authors that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and goshdarn if she isn't the squeakiest wheel on our big 18-wheeler!! (James Kochalka runs a close second in the squeaky wheel contest!)

In any case, Jennifer's webcomic S'Crapbook has a new home. She writes:

"I'm proud to announce that I'm part of a new web-based arts adventure called Trip City that launched today. Trip City is a multi-media virtual "arts salon", featuring music, and video, and comics by Dean Haspiel, Chris Miskiewicz, Seth Kushner, Jef UK, Nick Abadzis, Amy Finkel, Joe Infurnari, Nick Bertozzi, Kevin Colden, Jen Ferguson, Ron Scalzo, and The Perv Whisperer."

• And check out this interview with the whip-smart whirlwind of comics awesomeness Sarah Morean at Comics Reporter. Sarah runs the MIX show in Minneapolis, and it's in this interview where i myself learned this could be the last one. : (

From Gregory Benton and Top Shelf! [And make sure to check out Gregory's page at Top Shelf!]