And… Finally… Ethan is back. 
I was going to wait, as I have about a thousand more Arron vs. Gregg comics to do… BUT, it’s not really Disassemblance without at least a little bit of Ethan. And besides, Ethans about to get a visit from an old friend…
I always kind of pictured Ethan in a skirt…
Hrmmmm… alright. That was stressy but aside from obliterating my sidebars… I think everything survived the upgrades. Also, the pharma hacks that were previously pointed out to me seem to have been corrected.
So the site is going to look a little screwed up for the time being, my sincere apologies. Hopefully I can find some time in the days ahead to fix what did go EXAPLODE!!!!
Hey all… I’m not dead. All my spare time has been dedicated to two new sites I’m working on (more on this later). So sadly Dis has fallen to the wayside.
Eli found more remnants of the pharma hack, so that has inspired me to take some time tonight and do a major upgrade to the backend of the site. So don’t be scared if the site goes down… or explodes. Hopefully this will get rid of any lingering malicious code as well as increasing security to prevent future annoyances. The upgrades should also make the site work better… so that’s definitely reason alone to do this.
If the upgrades don’t take too long, I’ll likely work on a new comic tonight. Though the upgrade will completely reorganized how the site is structured behind the scenes… so it very well could require a few days to get everything back in order.
Thanks for your patience.
After attempting (and failing) to log into the old Dis forums, I decided that Dis was long over due for a new forum. After reviewing the options, I’ve implemented a new forum that is built to work seamlessly with WordPress. This means that you can use the same login for the forum that you use to comment here on the blog. If you have any issues, then let me know.
Though I will miss the old Dis Forums that Ambrose so kindly wrote for the old Dis site, it’s definitely time to move into something new. It’s not much to look at now, but I’ll be tweaking the layout and look of the forum in the days to come.
So move on in… start up some discussions. Fill the new forum with flying flaming couches!
What little time I am finding lately has been going into working on the site itself, then getting new comics done. But, I’ve nearly got all my obsessive tweaking done, so hopefully I will have more time for the comicing in the near future.
As you will notice, I added those oh-so popular “repost” buttons at the end of entries so that you my pimp out my comics as you see fit. Also, I created a Dis Twitter (@disassemblance – follow me!) and added it to the sidebar so that, in the absence of posts, you can confirm that I am still alive and working on SOMETHING, if not new comics.
Also, given the infrequent comic updates, I highly recommend you add the RSS to your favorite reader.
Hack has been fixed! I gutted out my database and replaced EVERY WordPress PHP file from a fresh install and the hack has been corrected. (Essentially, one step short of a “scorched earth” approach). And those weird redirects to top-pharm-somethingarather.con are no longer.
So far the only causality is that I fucked up my sidebar, so I will need to recode that… but a small price to pay. If you see any other weirdness with the site please let me know! As such weirdness could be parts of the hack I missed OR it could be the result of my over-zealous anti-hack measures.
Thanks so much to everyone who reported the weirdness.
I’m still looking into the “pharma hack” everyone is seeing. I’ve actually started seeing it as well. Mucho thanks to Nezumi for pointing out where the issue is in the comic list.
Unfortunately I still haven’t found a fix, but I have gone through and enacted every security precaution I could find. So hopefully I can avoid further hacks. If anyone has any info about how to clear this up. This is not the same “pharma hack” as others are getting, because I already found some info on the interwebs and followed the directions. Namely, deleted suspicious code in my database. All that got me was destroying the sidebar to the side (which I will fix tomorrow).
Blah. :\
I’ve had a couple of readers report that while browsing through the comics they occassionally are seeing ads for prescription drugs in place of the comics. And these ads link to sketchy sites. So just to be clear…
I did not place these there. They are not my ads. Do NOT click the ad!
I went through all the comics, both logged into the site as the administrator and nit logged in at all, and from different computers and I have yet to see this abberation. As well, upon inspection of my entries, I see no evidence of a hack.
So I am wondering if it is some kind of malware on the visitors side that hijacks the display of WordPress blogs in the browser. This is just a theory, but if you see this, you may want to run a scan for malware/adware.
And PLEASE report any further weirdness. Let me know exactly what point in the browsing you see the ads.
And, to repeat… These are not my ads.
As you can see, I spent the evening mucking about with the default theme in a desperate attempt to give the site a little more personality and flair. Though I will claim to have been a professional “web person” for quite some time, being new to WordPress, I’ve had to really wrap my head around some alien concepts to affect the nuisances of look and layout.
Still very much a work in progress.
Been working on more stuff behind the scenes. Got all the old RWG comics loaded into the new site. And tomorrow I’m going to be working on more new comics… or at least working on the look on the site. I have yet to personalize it from the InkBlot default. :\
My goal is to start getting back into the habit of doing at least Dis every Monday. With other random projects (like new RWG!) as often as I can.
I’ve been working on my novel-like-thing (AKA novic, novel-ish…) 90 Degress for well over two years now. And thirty-odd chapters into it, I’d like to start publishing it here on the site. Still debating what form it will take. But I would love to start doing it regularly. It’s been pretty much my major creative project in the downtime of Dis.
So, fear not. Updates are going to be a little all over the place for a while… but I swear I am still here and not flaking out again. Not only is it difficult to get back in the mind frame of “comic schedule” but my life is far busier now than it was two years ago. Stupid responsible adulthood.
One of the big reasons I really needed a new platform for the Dis site is the ability to take advantage of modern technologies in self-publishing. Of particular importance: RSS feed.
So if you use any sort of aggregator/reader, make sure you hit “Subscribe” to the upper right side of the comic! You’ll be kept up-to-dat on all the goings on surrounding the rebirth of Dis and also get all the comics piped right to you.