See that picture up there? That’s the first story page of Jim Zubkavich’s The Makeshift Miracle, which ran online in 2001 – 03, as photographed in my copy of the 2006 print collection.

This is page one of The Makeshift Miracle¹, running online from today. In case anybody was wondering what a decade’s experience and networking in the comics industry gets you, it’s the opportunity to get redone art from the likes of Shun Hong Chan. If perchance you’ve never read The Makeshift Miracle, you now officially have no excuse — two pages a week, with a new print of the book coming from Zub’s studio, UDON next year, which will sit proudly on my shelf next to the original.

• From one page (so far), let’s jump up to three: Hurricane Erika posted one of her older comics works late last week, Orienteering, which was written by Sara Ryan and originally ran in the anthology Snow Stories.

  But Gary, I hear you cry, surely you can’t call a three page comic a longform story, or even long-ishform!² To which I say, go read it, and tell me there isn’t a hell of a lot of story that just didn’t make it into those three pages. He that left her in the snow, they have a history. And she and the skier have a future set of stories all their own — you just got a little snippet in what’s clearly a very long story, so quit whining and get to reading.

• Know what’s been missing for far too long? Family Man. When last we saw the redoubtable Luther Levy (so don’t think you can ever doubt him just once — you need to doubt, then re-doubt or it doesn’t stick), things were happening, including sexytimes with naked people! Then Dylan Meconis took a summer break.

  Boooo.

  But she came back with a 23 page complete story, not involving Luther or any of his, but perfectly in character with the fairy tale that she’s telling³. Outfoxed has lessons for those that are brave (or foolish) enough to dig for them, just like all the best fairy tales.

• Can’t read it yet (at least not in the form that we’re talking about right now), but if you’re looking for a longform story that’s just sheer fun (and features the best tagline of any comic ever), you can’t go wrong with Dave Roman & John Green’s Teen Boat! For those of you that have never experienced the angst of being a teen or the thrill of being a boat, TB! will be published next year, has a newly-revealed cover, and even a few review copies up for grabs.
• Finally, for those of you that haven’t read enough yet, how about what may be the most comprehensive list of webcomickers that I’ve ever found? You may be familiar with the work of webcomics überfan Michael Kinyon; by day he is a mild-mannered professor of mathematics, by night and a goodly chunk of the next day, he reads more webcomics than me by about an order and a half of magnitude. Pert-near every Friday you can find his list of webcomickers (and webcomics characters) getting #FF’ed in his twitterstream, and now he’s engaged with a similar list on the Google Plus. Even more lucky for reference nuts (like myself), he built on the works of an earlier list. Attend:
  

  The most common complaint heard about Google+ is the difficulty some have in finding people to follow. Now it is a bit easier to find webcomickers on Google+ and thus to find new webcomics too. Your readers might be interested to know that there are two comprehensive lists of webcomics people with Google+ accounts, both hosted at Ralf Rottmann’s Google+ Counter.

  The first list is Cartoonists (Webcomics/Web Cartoonists) and is managed by Bearman, the creator of Bearman Cartoons. His is a list of “cartoonists with a webcomic or who regularly post non-freelance work on the web”.

  Since I already manage six lists of great webcomics pals and fine webcomics folks over at Twitter, I was inspired by Bearman’s example (and his gracious endorsement) to create my own list, entitled simply Webcomics. Mine is “a list of webcomic creators (current and lapsed) and other people associated with webcomics (bloggers, podcasters, etc.)”

  The two lists overlap considerably, of course, but the point is that each of us hopes that people will find them to be a useful resource. Any cartoonist who meets Bearman’s criteria and would like to be on his list can contact him at Google+ or by his website’s contact page.

  Similarly, any webcomicker who wants to be on one of my lists can contact me at either G+ or Twitter.

  Warning: extensive lists at those links. Perhaps you might try to set up an Archive Binge feed and take it in manageable chunks.

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¹ Damn, that’s pretty.

² Don’t call me Shirley.

³ Which is to say, a real-damn-fairy-tale, the kind that we used to get before successive generations of redactors and censors and happy-makers, the sort where you are not guaranteed a happy ending. A very good example of the form was recently written by Ursula Vernon (of the concluded but always-in-my-heart Digger) at her LiveJournal, starting here and concluding here. Warning: no pictures, and so good it will make you squirm.