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This is my pin-up from UDON’s upcoming 10th anniversary art/comic/tutorial showcase called VENT!
The pin-up and story concept are called ‘Sliverspark’. It’s a modern fairy tale with a similar feel to Makeshift.
The story mixes my love of traditional stage magic/sleight-of-hand with faerie folk and mystery. It’s something I’ve been wanting to explore for quite some time. I’m hoping this illustration for VENT is the first step in making that story a reality.
The pin-up and a thorough run-through of the digital art techniques used in creating it are in the book alongside artwork, stories and tutorials by the entire UDON Crew, old and new artists alike.
More details on VENT at the UDON blog:
http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/?p=1770
Sliverspark and related characters are copyright © Jim Zubkavich
Janette Hughes interviewed me about Makeshift Miracle a while back and I recently came across the extensive article she put together analyzing some of the themes and symbolism in the book. It’s actually pretty fascinating looking at someone else’s breakdown of elements in my book to see what aspects they see as important and relevant.
If you haven’t read Makeshift all the way through, please do so before reading her article since there are major spoilers throughout her analysis.
You can check out the full article HERE.
I know it’s been well over a year since I’ve posted any new blog posts here at the ol’ Makeshift Miracle site. It’s been really gratifying having the entire graphic novel archived here, but obviously that doesn’t lend itself to new updates very often.
I did want to let any fans of Makeshift know that I’m writing a new comic series coming out in September from Image Comics called Skullkickers. Content-wise it’s practically 180 degrees from Makeshift but, even still, if you like my storytelling and want to see what I have coming out I figured it was worth mentioning.
Skullkickers is a fantasy adventure-comedy with sass and dark humour. If you love movies like ‘Army of Darkness’ or enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons you should be right on board with what we’re delivering come this September.
You can find out all the details at the Skullkickers Blog.
I have other stories coming down the pipe that are more in line with what Makeshift readers expect from me. Hopefully I’ll be able to post more details on that soon.
Thanks, as always, for your support.
Jim
I’ll be exhibiting as part of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend at the main Toronto Reference Library (Yonge & Bloor). I’ll be selling art prints, copies of the Makeshift Miracle book and also a new mini-booklet about Photoshop colouring/painting techniques.
The guest list is stellar, the panels they have lined up look great and the festival is FREE… yes, FREE.
The Canadian Children’s Book Centre
just released their annual book buying guide called “Best Books for Kids & Teens”.
This guide is an invaluable resource for parents, educators and librarians on recommended new titles to add to their book collections. In their Graphic Novels and Manga section, only 7 Canadian titles made the cut and one of the featured ones is Makeshift Miracle:
Needless to say, I’m ecstatic.
Quite a while back a gentleman named Andrew Armstrong e-mailed me asking if I’d give him permission to adapt Makeshift into a short student film. I told him that would be fine as long as he credited me with the original concept and what-not. A couple times since then he’s sent me small updates about the project and let me know that he still intended to see it through.
Below is the video he sent me yesterday.
It’s his final project for an ‘Introduction to Cinema’ course:
Yes, it’s a student film, with all the limitations inherent in that, but it’s still unbelievably cool and flattering to see some of the events visualized this way. It blows my mind that people I’ve never met would want to film my story. So neat!
I can’t imagine how much work they put into this short production. Film making is incredibly time intensive and finicky. You can see some of the earlier rough cuts, a trailer and other film work by Andrew HERE.
Thanks for the hard work, Andrew and crew.
I finally got a chance to overhaul this website and fix the ancient web code under the hood. Thanks so much to Matt Moylan for his help installing ComicPress and getting it working.
It’s been quite a while since anything changed here at all. Traffic still trickles in as readers sample the story and share it with others. It’s gratifying to see people still interested in checking out Makeshift after all this time away from it.
Since I was rejigging the website with fancy new blogging software and reorganizing the archives anyways, I used this as a good excuse to upgrade the comic images here on the site as well. The pages now in the Archive are from the remastered print version of Makeshift, cleaner and crisper than ever before, with better lettering and sound effects. Head back to the first page and you’ll see what I mean.
I also illustrated a new image of Iris for the front page as a little ‘Thank You’ to everyone who has recommended the site to others or passed their copy of the book to friends to share. Your support has made all this possible.
If you want to stay updated with newer artwork and all kinds of stories and anecdotes, please feel free to visit my livejournal and deviantArt gallery to see what else I’m up to.
Thanks!
