Amazon Feature on the Eisner Awards

Here's my feature on the Eisner Awards, which recently announced finalists.A quote from judge Jeff Jensen, senior writer for EW, that I couldn't use in the Amazon piece.Someone on a message board reacted to the nominations by saying something like 'Guess it must have been a lousy year.' On the contrary: it was a great year for comics, and the diversity of nominations reflects that. In many of these categoies, we could have easily nominated five completely different books or artists and walked away feeling, 'Yep, we nailed it.' In particular, I recall our collective frustration i/r/t the graphic novel categories; it sucked that we couldn't nominate, like, 10. Very "Sophie's Choice." [I learned a lot from the other judges:] From Eva and John, all things manga. From Atom, a more learned, succinct articulation of comics love. From Paul, mature insight into the medium and creative process in general. From all of them, an expanded appreciation of humor; this was definitely a crowd whose personality favored laughter in many forms. Also: dynamic new uses of the word "cute."