In this month's "Essence Of..." Ping Teo delivers two for the price of one. Two sets of alternate lyrics for the tune "Savages" from Disney's Pocahantas and a chance to make up your own set of lyrics.

Meredith Gran is the author of Skirting Danger, a webcomic that has appeared both on Graphic Smash and later, Keenspot. She gives her opinion on insecurities, the Keenspot vs. the Modern Tales model, and the relative lack(!) of Internet drama and webcomic in-fighting in a delightful interview.

Old School meets new school as Welton Colbert comes to Comixpedia to tell you kids today about a time when being a cartoonist meant something. This month, Welton interviews Andrea Peterson, creator of No Rest for the Wicked.

There is a kind of dichotomy inherent in any civil rights movement. On the one hand, it's generally felt that the minority should be given every opportunity to succeed in competition with the majority. On the other hand, it only seems fair that the minority should be given compensatory advantage to level the playing field with the majority.

Comic book guy, one of the recurring characters on The Simpsons, is the avatar of the comic book fan: a fat, poorly-dressed, goatee-wielding man with an encyclopedic knowledge of comic books and pop culture. And while this image may not be fair or even generally true, the fact remains that comics have mostly been – and still are considered – a male domain, both from the standpoint of audience and of creators. But, whereas this may be true about the print comic world, both mainstream and indie, is it also true about webcomics?

Recently, we’ve seen more recognition for webcomics. In fact, March featured what potentially could be the single most important news item for webcomics in 2005. The Eisner Awards accepted nominations for a new Digital Comics category.

We’ve also seen a spread of sites that cover webcomics. Last year Comixpedia wrote about the larger “comics blogosphere” but at this point a full-blown “webcomics blogosphere” has arrived with a number of commentators focused solely on webcomics.

But it’s not necessarily all good.

UK folks are all too well accustomed to Americans getting all the big cons. Alternative Press Expo? San Diego? It's just not fair. So, when the UK Web and Minicomix Thing rolled around again this year, how could any of us resist? Finally, we not only had something the Americans didn't, but we had it *first*.

Here's a small taste of what it was like.

Well, it's that time "The Women Issue" for Comixpedia.

I suppose I should be all excited about this. I mean, hey... I'm female, I make comics. I'm fairly vocal and campaign for a more realistic portrayal of women in comics and all that, and sometimes I'm tempted to do a comic where the females run around rescuing the hapless (but mighty fine-looking) men all the time just to show how odd it looks from a reversed perspective.

Oh wait... I almost do one like that already.... ;)

Katie Galaxy, created by Maggie McFee, is an interstellar adventure full of humor and piles of trash. Literally. The head of a salvage business founded by her deceased father, Katie Galaxy is a no-nonsense, though often satiric, woman working in a man's world, and succeeding. Aided by Diesel, her mechanic, and Dig, her problematic, manic navbot, or navigational robot, Galaxy's mission is to run the best salvage business in the universe, come hell, high water, or...

It's the Women Issue at Comixpedia. Coincidently, it's the Women Issue at that other webcomics magazine. Kristofer Straub brings us a behind the scenes look at Modern Humor Authority.