Breaking News, Some That Sucks
Readers of this page know that I love me some Abominable Charles Christopher (no link, as will become clear momentarily); Karl Kerschl’s artwork is sublime, and the story is by turns heartbreaking, poignant, hilarious, and intriguing.
It’s also dangerous right now.
It’s Wednesday, so during a quick break I browsed over to the ACC site to get my chuckle on (successfully, I might note), and after reading the comic, noticed a blogpost from Kerschl that the site had been hacked earlier in the day. Then I noticed a pop-up warning from my virus scanner. Then I pulled the network cable and started researching.
These things change so quickly, it’s impossible to say if Kerschl’s site was seeded with just one variant of nasty, but at least in my case, I got a drive-by infection with what some call “Netsky Spyware Alert” or “Fake Worm”. Did a bit of research (thank you HijackThis) some repair (thank you, LSPFix), and some cleanup (thank you, Malwarebytes), with invaluable reference info from people who hate badware even more than I do. And this is on a machine that uses Opera instead of Internet Explorer, as well as resident rogue blockers.
Anyway, as of this writing, Kerschl is working on cleaning things up with the able assistance of Official Smart Dude and ComicPress creator Tyler Martin. Karl will let us know when it’s safe to go back in the water, and in the meantime, I need your help. I have promised Kerschl my assistance in beating the snot out of the lowlifes that targeted him in this fashion, and I’ll possibly need bail money at some point in the future; you don’t have to send anything now, just if you have a spare five bucks that could go to the cause, we’ll let you know.
Also, please take this opportunity to double-check your own security arrangements, both on your personal machine and any sites that you may have. We will always have those that seek to do us harm, whether for jollies or for padding their own pockets. We will take hits from time to time. But we don’t have to make it easy for them.
Okay, onto the non-suck:
- Achewood in the real world sighting (thanks to longtime buddy/Best Boy at my wedding Brett g Porter for the heads-up): from the NPR jazz blog (“A Blog Supreme”), Patrick Jarenwattananon notes the eerie similarity between Terence Blanchard and Ray Smuckles.
- Andy (I always assumed it was short for “Andrew”, but perhaps it’s for “Android”?) Bell ups the stakes regarding his Android figures, adding the first of the variant profiles, pricing info ($7.25 a pop, with case discounts) and a sale date (Feb 10 online from Dead Zebra, presumably here).
- You may have heard that Heidi MacDonald had announced that her bloggery would be moving from its Publishers Weekly-sponsored home; that’s been accomplished, and one may now find The Beat at its own site. I always like hanging out and comparing notes with Heidi, and we at Fleen wish her all the best as the archives transition continues.
- You may also have heard of Webcomics Community, one of several open fora that launched in the aftermath of the Webcomics Dot Com shift to subscriptions. Rob Tracy, general in-charge guy at WC, sends word of a pretty interesting series of how-to articles, with one of particular interest: Scott Raymond, Ustream system admin, talking on how to do effective streaming presentations. Good stuff.
Today’s article is one about T-Shirts from a member of the community who works for a print shop but the UStream Article Gary mentioned can be found on our forums here:
http://forum.webcomicscommunity.com/index.php/topic,235.0.html
By Rob Tracy on 02.03.10 4:26 pm
I’m a “hanger-out” at Webcomics Community, and I’d just like to say that Rob has done a great job of setting up a place where folks who like to make webcomics can congregate. Y’all come and see us!
By Jeff Ammons on 02.03.10 5:22 pm
[…] Kerschl writes to tell us that the malware-distributing hack to The Abominable Charles Christopher is sorted out. He also tells us that he’s received news […]
By Fleen: Home Of The Webcomics Action News Team! » Supplementary Post On Today’s Unpleasantness on 02.03.10 8:42 pm
[…] | In the wake of a malware-distributing hack that briefly affected Karl Kerschl's The Abominable Charles Christopher website comes word of a […]
By Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment on 02.04.10 11:27 am
[…] risk of monocultures everywhere — susceptibility to disease. As Rob Tracy (also mentioned in yesterday’s dispatches) notes, Webcomics Community is working up some ComicPress alternatives, which can only be a good […]
By Fleen: Home Of The Webcomics Action News Team! » Fleen Book Corner: SMILE on 02.04.10 3:46 pm
[…] beware: The Abominable Charles Christopher was hacked the other day, and readers may have been infected with a nasty virus. Everything is back to normal […]
By Shenanigans! | Paperless Comics on 02.05.10 8:37 am
[…] second part of the guide to effective Ustreaming (brought to you via the efforts of Rob Tracy, driving force at Webcomics Community, and rumored […]
By Fleen: Home Of The Webcomics Action News Team! » There’s No Place Like Seattle, No Place Like Seattle, No Place Like Seattle on 03.05.10 2:45 pm
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