Lunch Break is a short round-up of favorite webcomics appearing here each weekday at noon. Here’s something for you to enjoy over your lunch break or whenever. The premise is simple: It’s another day on the internet. Here’s a new or forgotten comic that seems interesting.

1. Maddie and Toby in 10 Years by Toby Jones // May 6, 2011
2. The Hare’s Bride by Emily Carroll // 2010
3. no. 066 – @iamnotdiddy by Twaggies // May 16, 2010
4. The Wayward Wallet by Julia Wertz // April 4, 2008
5. “_______” by Brenna Zedan and Chase Allgood // December 12, 2005

We’d love to have you guest edit Lunch Break! Check out the Contribute page for more information.

– Sarah Morean

Lunch Break is a short round-up of favorite webcomics appearing here each weekday at noon. Here’s something for you to enjoy over your lunch break or whenever. The premise is simple: It’s another day on the internet. Here’s a new or forgotten comic that seems interesting.

We’d love to have you guest edit Lunch Break! Check out the Contribute page for more information.

1. Crystal Cats by Dan Moynihan // November 13, 2010
2. excerpts from ” The Great Pretenders” by Julia Wertz // April 28, 2011
3. 99 Problems from “Let’s Be Friends Again” by Curt Franklin & Chris Haley // April 20, 2011
4. Gingerbread Girl by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover // 2010-2011
5. John Stanley’s Summer Fun preview by John Stanley // 2011

– Sarah Morean

Lunch Break is a short round-up of favorite webcomics appearing here each weekday at noon. Here’s something for you to enjoy over your lunch break or whenever. The premise is simple: It’s another day on the internet. Here’s a new or forgotten comic that seems interesting.

We’d love to have you guest edit Lunch Break! Check out the Contribute page for more information.

1. Afrodisiac by Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg // 2010
2. Prime Baby by Gene Luen Yang // 2008
3. Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz // 2010
4. This is What’s Up from “Little Love Monster” by Madéleine Flores // April 20, 2011
5. String Me Up, Secure Me Down by Dane Martin // March 2011

– Sarah Morean

Drinking at the Movies
by Julia Wertz
Three Rivers Press

There’s something to be said for having goals. For being responsible and readying yourself for the next big challenge and having your ducks more or less in a row. For growing up smart and successful and being in a good position to take advantage of opportunities whenever they are presented to you in life.

That sounds like nice work if you can get it. But is there any help or advice for us poor fuck ups?

Drinking at the Movies says to me, well, if you can’t put yourself together the best you can do is hang on and see what happens.  Rings true enough.

After a string of bad jobs and empty bottles of bourbon Julia Wertz finds herself, by the end of the book, in a pretty good place. After not so much learning and growing as just staying true to herself and, frankly, being lucky.

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Lunch Break is a short round-up of favorite webcomics appearing here each weekday at noon. Here’s something for you to enjoy over your lunch break or whenever. The premise is simple: it’s another day on the internet. Here’s a new or forgotten comic that seems interesting. Have something to recommend? Email us: crosshatchdispatch@gmail.com.

1. Serial Typist by Kevin Cannon // ~ May 2010
2. A Walk With My Double by David King // October 2010
3. “When Janitors Die” from Toothpaste For Dinner by Drew // 02.19.2005
4. Climate Change by Darryl Cunningham // December 13, 2010
5. Sleeping Together by Julia Wertz // June 7, 2006

– Sarah Morean

[Photo by Sarah Glidden.]

Saturday November 6th 2010 will surely go down as one of the most important moments in comics history—the day we recorded the first-ever live version of the Cross Hatch Podcast. The event occurred on the third floor of the Brooklyn Lyceum, a cold and cavernous space, as part of the second annual King Con.

The hosts of the show were Alex and myself—Sarah, sadly, was too cheap to fly in from Minneapolis for a 50 minute-long panel. R. Sikoryak, Lisa Hanawalt, and Julia Wertz joined us for the discussion.

What unfolded was a hilarious trainwreck of a faux quiz show, tackling subjects from the Sunday funnies, to the smell of Subway sandwich shops, to far, far darker fare.

We’ve labeled the panel “Explicit,” because, while we’ve bleeped out most of the swears, there’s still some subject matter that might offend.

So, please enjoy arguably the single greatest moment in comics history, again and again, like so many commemorative plates.

Cross Hatch Podcast 011 [CLICK TO LISTEN]

I Saw You…Missed Connection Comics
Edited by Julia Wertz
Three Rivers Press

Missed connections ads are a mixed bag of emotions: they’re at once funny, sad, creepy, and inspiring. So perhaps it’s only natural that we should turn to them for inspiration and for the creation of great and strange stories. Still, it’s an idea I would never have thought of. Luckily, Julia Wertz did.

Wertz, the creator of the hilarious autobiographical comic The Fart Party, started to find herself obsessed with reading missed connections ads a few years ago, and was struck by the idea of creating comics based on them. She put a call out to fellow cartoonists and received an overwhelming number of submissions, which led to the creation of a mini-comic, which led to a book, appropriately (if unexcitingly) titled I Saw You…, published by Three Rivers Press. As with pages of missed connections ads in newspapers or on Craigslist, I Saw You… is eclectic in terms of the length of the pieces, their tone, and their approach to the assignment. It is also great. The diversity of the content, as well as the overall talent of the contributors, make it an extremely enjoyable read.

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[Above, absence in book form. Below, filling in the Dispatch void.]

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Chalk it up to the sophomore jinx, but the Second Annual Astoria Comic Con isn’t going quite so well as I had hoped. Sure there will be naysayers who insist that it has something to do with the fact that once again I stubbornly insisted on holding it the same weekend as the San Diego Comic Con. And then there’s the fact that I didn’t advertise or really mention it to anybody. And, of course, nitpickers will likely point out that I held the thing in my tiny backyard in Astoria, Queens.

Honestly, though, I think the whole thing is just a matter of building proper buzz, and that sort of thing takes at least three years of unsuccessful backyard conventions to build. Maybe next year J. Scott Campbell will return my phone calls…

We’ve still got another day-and-a-half to turn this whole thing around. And believe me, once word gets out about those discount-priced hugs, attendees will be fleeing the San Diego convention center like rats from a sinking Watchmen sneak previewing ship. At least it didn’t rain this year–yet…

In the meantime, we put out the word to some of our cartoonist pals and asked them why the hell they weren’t at SDCC either, this weekend. Check out responses from Jeff Smith, Evan Dorkin, Renee French, Tony Millionaire, Tom Hart, and many, many more, after the jump.

Bonus: almost certainly the most adorable picture in the history of The Hatch.
–BH

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