Eisner Shakedown: Best Digital Comic

Previous winners in the category include Mom's Cancer (Brian Fies), PvP (Scott Kurtz), Sam & Max: The Big Sleep by Steve Purcell (2007), and Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's Sugarshock. This year, the judges have some difficult choices in front of them. Three of the nominees are short stories that can be enjoyed in one sitting, but two are major epics--with Carla Speed McNeil's Finder consisting of over a decade of material, the equivalent of hundreds of pages--the equivalent of having to choose to grant an Oscar to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and one of Nick Park's delightful Wallace & Gromit shorts. But, as my example suggests, each of the nominees has achieved something special in its own class. If there's one category in which you should take the time to read all of the nominees, here it is.

BodyWorld by Dash Shaw
Dash Shaw is this year's golden boy, what with the universal critical acclaim for his heartbreaking family saga, Bottomless Belly Button (Fantagraphics), an adoring, star-making New York magazine profile, and his serialization of Body World, which may even surpass the masterful Bottomless Belly Button in achievement...and all by his mid-twenties. BodyWorld is a warped and deliriously twisted sci-fi comedy about a writer who happens upon a hallucinogenic plant that grants him telepathic abilities. Visually inventive, painfully original, and consistently disturbing, BodyWorld is a serious mindtrip. (Full disclosure: Dash Shaw's BodyWorld is being published next year by Pantheon, a subsidiary of Random House).

Finder by Carla Speed McNeil
Finder takes place on a far-future Earth, in which radical depopulation has led to a remaking of human culture. If Ursula K. LeGuin could draw like Moebius, you might end up with something like Finder. Carla Speed McNeil began serializing Finder in 1996--and has spent the past thirteen years creating one of the most complete, persuasive, and fascinating alternate worlds in science fiction and fantasy. With 9 Eisner nominations to her credit, an obsessively loyal fanbase, and her ongoing series Finder just getting better every year, McNeil is pretty much already a legend. It may be time to add a win to that record!

Vs by Alex Sottile & Joe Infurnari

Smith, an online magazine devoted to the art of storytelling, has a robust online comics program that first published Shooting War and Josh Neufeld's A.D. Part of its "Next Door Neighbor" series, in which cartoonists narrate horrifying tales of misadventures with their neighbors, "Vs." shows what happens when one mild-mannered apartment dweller is pushed too far. Told in Cat in the Hat-style rhyming verse, this humorous story is distinguished by strong art that ably mixes the marvelous and the mundane.

The Lady's Murder by Eliza Frye

Who was Marie Madeleine? After her murder, we learn the story of her life from the men who loved her, and, Citizen Kane-style, the more we learn about her, the more mysterious and elusive she becomes. "The Lady's Murder" is a beautifully crafted short with gorgeous, distinctive art that recalls the art of the nineteenth century setting of the story without resorting to a weak Toulouse-Lautrec imitation. Instead, the voice feels fresh and modern.

Speak No Evil: Melancholy of a Space Mexican by Elan Trinidad

Another short with an outsized impact, "Speak No Evil: Melancholy of a Space Mexican" imagines a future in which foreign-born migrant workers are sent to distant planets, rather than just distant countries, to work. Trinidad has created an unsettling visual metaphor for the voicelessness of the dispossesed: the workers literally have their mouths removed before they are shipped out. Not just a clever use of science fiction conceit to make political commentary, "Speak No Evil" is rather moving.

Now you decide...