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. The Waiting Room by Sarah Glidden // April 13, 2011
2. Infested by Dirk I. Tiede // October 2006
3. Page 216 from “Family Man” by Dylan Meconis // 2011 NSFW
4. The Adventures of Blue Bird from “Beware the Slumpy” by Drosh // April 11, 2011
5. The Golden Crown by Lance Ward // April 10, 2011

– Sarah Morean

It was standing room only on Sunday night—or kneeling, rather, as audience members contorted bodies around the projector’s beam cutting through the center of the room. The consensus, it seems, amongst nearly everyone packed into KGB Bar on Manhattan’s East 4th st. was that the bi-annual comics event had finally outgrown its old home amongst the strangely homey décor of Soviet-era Russian memorabilia lining the walls.

Over the years the event has become one of the best-loved in the New York indie comics scene, hosted by Tom Hart twice-yearly—on Easter Sunday and the Sunday following Thanksgiving, the latter of which happily boasts the tagline, ‘Come digest that tryptophan with comix!’

Despite said poultry-induced sluggishness, widespread jetlag, the stormy weather, and the innate desire to spend the bulk  of the weekend on the business end of a treadmill, the turnout seems to perpetual increase, year after year, thanks in no small part to the consistently stellar lineup of comics artists reading their work alongside panels projected large on a bedsheet pulled taut along the front wall of the bar.

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Hey all, I’ve extremely excited to announce that we’ve been tapped by our pals at the People’s Improv Theater to curate Comic Book Club. Next Tuesday I’ll be joining the show’s hosts, Alex, Pete and Justin, alongside Cross Hatch favorites Tom Hart, Sarah Glidden, and John Kerschbaum.

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How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less #2: The Golan Heights
By Sarah Glidden
Self-Published

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less follows Sarah Glidden’s trip to Israel on Birthright, with the recently published chapter two taking her into the Golan Heights, or, as the artist proclaims in the book, “disputed territory proper!” As thoughtful and enjoyable as chapter one, the second installment presents the comic Glidden again with a healthy blend of enthusiasm, reverence, and skepticism—a combination that makes the book properly political without being obnoxious and adequately fun without avoiding politics.

While in the small pages of the mini, extremely complex issues are sometimes boiled down to too small a size, Glidden keeps her character questioning and thinking, which in turn keeps us doing the same. And of course, if the story focused entirely on the politics and history, it wouldn’t be nearly as compelling.

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