At Comic-Con in July my friend Jim Zubkavich told me that he was finally going to take the plunge and put Makeshift Miracle into print. His webcomic burst onto the scene four years ago garnering him "Best Newcomer" at the Cartoonist's Choice awards, and was among the first titles to be picked up by Modern Tales. Jim's line art back then made me a little envious, but his coloring drove me particularly green. He did more with tinted monochromes than most folks do with a 16-bit palette. And now, four years later, he has taken the whole story and remastered it. Some panels have been re-drawn, others re-colored, and the entire work is available now in book form. You can read the non-remastered stuff at makeshiftmiracle.com. You'll want to own the book, though, and that can be accomplished via instructions found here. Okay, there's the light. Now for the dark. At WorldCon 64 in August I met this cool guy in the bar at the Hilton. We talked for a bit before discovering that we were both comics professionals -- kind of unusual at a strictly Sci-Fi event. His name was David Lloyd, and he's the guy who was originally tapped to write and illustrate V for Vendetta, and who later teamed up with Alan Moore. He has a new book out, too. If you're into crime noir, you may want to check out Kickback, the graphic novel compilation of Lloyd's Dark Horse series of the same name. The art and the story are both gritty and gripping independently of each other. Taken together they nicely epitomize "crime noir" without being predictable. I read it on a bright, sunny day while sitting on my back deck. I fear some of the effect may have been lost on me. It's possible I need to wait for November's rains, and read it again cloistered in my office with only the reading lamp on.
