Imagine my surprise leafing through Saturday's edition of the Wall Street Journal to discover a short feature lauding the work of a trio of 2007 Eisner Award nominees in their Pursuits section. Sounds like no big deal, until you dig deeper into the details.

The three Eisner-nominated books cited in Jamin Brophy-Warren's piece were among a record 24 that went to female cartoonists, ranging from a 10-year-old girl (and the daughter of former indy publisher Denis Kitchen) to the just-now celebrated creator of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic working up to now on the periphery of the comics industry to the late Tove Jansson, a Finnish creator who died six years ago at age 86.

Unfortunately, the WSJ piece doesn't come with links, so I strongly advise you to take a look at these other beautiful Eisner Award nominees. FYI, none of them features a superhero either...

1. Renee French competing in the Best Writer/Artist category for her second book from Top Shelf Productions, The Ticking.

2. Ellen Forney's hysterical cartoons collected in I Love Led Zeppelin from Fantagraphics Books.

3. A rare self-published book, A Late Freeze, vying for best single issue of the year honors, beautifully written and illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff, a designer for First Second.

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