Create a directory with command expansion: quoting issue - shell

Question

I have the following typical problem with my workflow: I want to copy some files to a directory that is not yet created. Mostly I do it in this way:
cp *.JPG /some/path/[oops, I recalled that the directory does not exist, ^C]
mkdir /some/path/newdir
cp *.JPG /some/path/newdir
To avoid this I created a script called md that creates a directory and returns its path:
#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p "$*"
echo "$*"
Then my workflow looks like this:
cp *.JPG `md /some/path/newdir`<TAB><ENTER>
When I press <TAB>, md is executed, the directory created and line with backticks substituted with its path, then I can press <ENTER> and execute cp.
Everything works fine unless I have spaces in the path of the new directory. In that case, after expansion, I have unescaped spaces on my command line.
I tried to overcome this by putting the path in quotes like this (in md):
echo "'$*'"
But in this case after expansion I have quotes escaped:
cp *.JPG \'/Users/user/temp/one two three\'
Is there any way to avoid escaping of quotes on command expansion in zsh? I tried $() and different types of quotes (" instead of '), but nothing works.
Of course, I can just do it in this way:
cp *.JPG "`md /path/with spaces`"
But I want to save a couple of keystrokes, if possible.

Answer 1

I think the easiest way to solve that is by creating a script/function for the whole thing (I'd prefer a function, because you're presumably going to be using it only from an interactive shell session):
#Ensures Targetdir exists and then copies into it
#Usage: cp_t Targetdir FlagsAndFiles...
cp_t()
(
targetdir="$1"; shift || return 1
[ -d "$targetdir" ] || mkdir -p "$targetdir" || return 1
exec cp "$#" "targetdir"
)
(This is POSIX too, so you should be able to use it with other POSIX shells as well.)