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.

This year Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel shared the headlining spot, the former reading from the duo’s recent Vertigo release, The Alcoholic. Also on board were fellow Act-I-Vater, Fishtown’s Kevin Colden; How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less author, Sarah Glidden; and Matthew Thurber, whose 1-800-Mice #1 debuted on Brooklyn’s Picturebox, last winter.

Colden stared the evening off with the first few pages of his recent IDW release, Fishtown. The book, which follows the based-on-real-events murder of a teenager in the Fishtown district of Philadelphia, highlighted the decided change in tone of this year’s selections, which were a touch more solemn than those of past events. All of the artists present, Colden included, however, made a point to bring a bit of levity to the otherwise serious nature of their works. Colden added sound effects to his piece, highlighting the already absurd nature of reading aloud from a comic book in front of a packed East Village bar.

Thurber was on second, with an innovative presentation that proved the surprise hit of the night. Armed with the one solidly comedic work on display, Thurber concocted a scrolling real of butcher paper to accompany the reading of 1-800-Mice. The artist directed the room’s attention to the rear window of the bar over which he had hung a large roll of paper. Panel by panel he unspooled it as he read from the work, crumpling the finished work in a large pile at the bottom, much to the audible chagrin of those empathetic audience members who could only imagine how much time the artist must have invested in the spool.

After a quick intermission Sarah Glidden read cheerfully from the opening of How to Understand Israel’s first issue. The portion focused on Glidden’s own idealistic optimism on the lead up to her Birthright Israel trip, following her journey to the airport where the narrator and her fellow travelers met with a fair amount of hassle at the hands of the security guards. At an appropriately climatic moment involving a piece of unaccompanied luggage, the slideshow app unexpectedly quit, revealing a large cartoon “Boom!” that Hart had chosen as his computer’s desktop for reasons unbeknownst to the rest of us.

Haspiel opted to stay at the bar as Ames took charge reading selections from The Alcoholic, the thinly-veiled semi-autobiographical book following the adventures of one “Jonathan A.” Having loosened up with the aid of a few vodkas, Ames launched into a few of the more comedic moments from the book, including a chance encounter with Monica Lewinsky, which, the author happily pointed out, was sufficiently meta, having taking place during a reading in the same bar in which we were all sitting.

Even Hart himself admitted begrudgingly that said bar was, perhaps, just not large enough to hold the event, should it continue to grow at the current rate. And while it would be a shame to have to leave the warm literati-friendly watering hole, the increasing popularity of the event is certainly an encouraging sign of things to come.

–Brian Heater

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.

Hart is best known for his long-running strip, Hutch Owen, which follows the misadventures of the titular knit capped rabble-rouser. The strip is currently syndicated both online through Hart’s site and in the Boston and New York editions of the daily Metro paper. Hart has also been teaching cartooning at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts for more than a half-dozen years.

Sarah Glidden recently picked up a “Promising New Talent” Ignatz Award for her mini, How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less. She also runs the site SmallNoises.com, named for her three-issue-long diary mini.

John Kerschbaum’s debut graphic novel, Petey & Pussy was recently released on Fantagraphics. The publisher calls it “Looney Tunes Meets Luis Bunuel,” and really, were at a loss to come up with a more apt description.

And Brian Heater, of course, is probably best known for being the belching champion of his boy scout camp in 6th grade.

The show is Tuesday the 18th at the People’s Improv Theater (154 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001). It starts at 8:00 PM and costs $5. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’s easily one of the top five live comedic comic book talk shows currently running in midtown Manhattan. For more info, check out the Comic Book Club site.

Oh, and in addition to the usual Midtown Comics gift certificate, we’ll be tossing in one of those snazzy Daily Cross Hatch shirts for one lucky trivia winner.

Oh, and if it works out this time, maybe they actually let us do it again. See you guys on Tuesday!

–Brian H.

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.

What Glidden does best is mingle history and personal experience, mostly in great visual sequences. A prime example occurs when the group is engaged in discussion at a visitors’ center in front of a large diorama of the Golan Heights. As the group’s guide tells them stories about the Six Day War, Glidden’s character imagines the action taking place inside the diorama. Then, in a subtle transition, she swiftly turns the territory inside the diorama into the terrain that her bus is traversing in the space of three panels, making her trip a part of the land’s history.

Similarly, in my favorite sequence of the mini, when Glidden can’t sleep, she imagines herself as the latest in a long line of sleepers on the small square of land where her hostel bed sits. She pictures the Natufians, early Jews, Roman soldiers, Ottomans, Arabs, and 20th century Jews in a dreamlike page that hits home the excitement of experiencing a place that feels as profoundly old as Israel.

Ultimately, that seems to be where Glidden is heading with the series—toward focusing on the simple fact of Israel’s wondrous existence, which is often overshadowed amid the scores of complicated political issues and violence. But, I can only speculate; where she ends up and the lessons she draws remain to be seen in the rest of the chapters—six more, which are coming together with the previous two in complete book form, from Vertigo.

–Jillian Steinhauer