There were some fabulous entries this year. In addition to the linked winners, my favorites include the already linked
Steamed Piper of Neo Hamelin by Matt Cexwish,
The Final Charge by Ivan Melnikov (aka Nakatan),
So High by Marc Massians, and
Barbarian Dude 97 by Conrad G. Mynett.
The Final Charge:
Click to see full-sized image
The big improvement this year, in my view, was in the historical entries. In the first two years, that was a relatively weak category, but this year there were some very nice entries in that category.
As usual, the competition had many rather ordinary entries, making voting a rather boring process. I do think the online voting component would be a lot more fun if they only put the "first cut" entries online, instead of posting all of them. Then you wouldn't have to vote on ~200 ordinary minis to see the 30 or so extraordinary ones.