The Makeshift Miracle is an idea I've had jangling around in my brain for several years now. It's had several false starts and never had the potential to reach a wider audience, until now with this website.

Part 6: Making It Web Worthy

I had thought previously about doing something on the web. I had created several webpages in the past about artists I admired, resources for drawing and lastly a portfolio site for myself. But making a web comic meant something altogether different.

A webpage could have tons of exposure without worrying about publishing problems. It could have feedback from people to keep me motivated and thinking about doing the work because people would be waiting to see it. It would grow or shrink based on the strength of what I do. A nearly ideal solution.

So, I did research. It may seem silly to do research on web comics, but I think it's important to be well informed before you do anything. I had to know what it could be like and what I could offer in comparison to what else was out there.

I had no idea that there were so many web comics on-line. So much content, good or bad and it was intimidating just on sheer volume alone. Would I be able to stand out? Could I create content on a regular basis?

Before the site started, I created 12 pages of the story. First, just to see if I could force myself to do the pages on a regular schedule and secondly to have a buffer of completed work so that the page would update regularily no matter what distractions came up.

Thumbnail Drawings: Page 4 and 5

The Makeshift Miracle website launched on September 10th, 2001. The url makeshiftmiracle.com kicked in a month later.

First Page

I'm pleased to say that this History section has a happy ending.

Thanks to some hard work and incredible links from high profile sites like Player Versus Player, Chopping Block, Cool Cat Studio and The Wandering Ones, I've gotten a healthy sized audience in a short amount of time. People have been incredibly supportive and their praise and appreciation has given me the momentum I needed to create and keep creating.

As I write this, I've just completed Page 40 of The Makeshift Miracle. Even though the page won't be up on the site until mid-December, it's a milestone for me. I never thought I'd be able to create this much content and update the site on a regular basis. I'll be taking a short break at Christmas, but other than that, the site will be full steam ahead.

And I can't wait to see where it goes...

I wrote this section at first as a record for myself. I've been surprised at how many people have commented that they like this part of the site a lot. I hope it inspires other people to create things that have been bouncing around in their heads.

Thank you.

Jim Zubkavich
November 24th, 2001

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The Makeshift Miracle is hosted on Keenspace, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.