Gravedigger by Mills & Burchett
Dick Tracy by Curtis & Staton
Perils on Planet X by Mills and Gonzales
Lady Sabre by Rucka & Burchett
Ace Kilroy by Kelly & O'Connor
Simone & Ajax by Andrew Pepoy
Trekker by Ron RandallThis is a remastered – re-colored and re-lettered – presentation of the original Femme Noir webcomic, originally posted online in 2003-2004.
Colors by Michael Watkins
Originally serialized at the Supernatural Crime website, 2003-2004
5 Comments
Dear blog owner and visitors,
This blog had been infected to serve up Gootloader malware to Google search victims, via a common tactic known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) poisioning. Your blog was serving up 300 malicious pages. Your blogged served up malware to 389 visitors.
I tried my best to clean up the infection, but I would do the following:
- Upgrade WordPress to the latest version (one way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
- Upgrade all WordPress themes to the latest versions (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server)
- Upgrade all WordPress plugins (another way the attackers might have gained access to your server), and remove any unnecessary plugins.
- Verify all users are valid (in case the attackers left a backup account, to get back in)
- Change all passwords (for WordPress accounts, FTP, SSH, database, etc.) and keys. This is probably how the attackers got in, as they are known to brute force weak passwords
- Run antivirus scans on your server
- Block these IPs (5.8.18.7 and 89.238.176.151), either in your firewall, .htaccess file, or in your /etc/hosts file, as these are the attackers command and control servers, which send malicious commands for your blog to execute
- Check cronjobs (both server and WordPress), aka scheduled tasks. This is a common method that an attacker will use to get back in. If you are not sure, what this is, Google it
- Consider wiping the server completly, as you do not know how deep the infection is. If you decide not to, I recommend installing some security plugins for WordPress, to try and scan for any remaining malicious files. Integrity Checker, WordPress Core Integrity Checker, Sucuri Security,
and Wordfence Security, all do some level of detection, but not 100% guaranteed - Go through the process for Google to recrawl your site, to remove the malcious links (to see what malicious pages there were, Go to Google and search site:your_site.com agreement)
- Check subdomains, to see if they were infected as well
- Check file permissions
Gootloader (previously Gootkit) malware has been around since 2014, and is used to initally infect a system, and then sell that access off to other attackers, who then usually deploy additional malware, to include ransomware and banking trojans. By cleaning up your blog, it will make a dent in how they infect victims. PLEASE try to keep it up-to-date and secure, so this does not happen again.
Sincerly,
The Internet Janitor
Below are some links to research/further explaination on Gootloader:
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/03/01/gootloader-expands-its-payload-delivery-options/
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2021/08/12/gootloaders-mothership-controls-malicious-content/
https://www.richinfante.com/2020/04/12/reverse-engineering-dolly-wordpress-malware
https://blog.sucuri.net/2018/12/clever-seo-spam-injection.html
So far, I’m only scheduled to appear at one comics convention this year, and that’s the Bangor Comic & Toy Convention at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, Maine on April 9th and 10th. It looks to be a good show, with some big name media guests like Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols and Denise Crosby, Doctor Who’s Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, wrestler Kevin Nash, and bunch of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers cast members. Comic guests include Marvel inker Bob Wiacek, Chris Sprouse, Rich Woodall and Paris Cullins.
I’ll be there with my wife, Brandi, and will have a bunch of stuff for sale, including Femme Noir, Gravedigger, Kolchak The Night Stlaker, Shadow House, and the brand new Perils On Planet X comic books. I’ve even had a new display banner made for the occasion.
Right now, I’m scheduled for a Comics Creators panel on Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening, I’ll be hosting a 50s sci-fi movie double feature of Cat-Women of the Moon and Teenagers From Outer Space! I’ll be dropping some knowledge/trivia about the films and pretending to be an authority on the subject.
So, if you live in Maine or Northern New England, I hope you’ll come to the show. I’d love to see you there!
- Chris
Another peek at the new graphic novel-in-progress. Introducing two new additions to the Femme Noir rogues gallery: Wilhelm Skreem & E.C. “Ghastly” Gaines. (Actually, Ghastly’s appeared once before….) And both of these guys work for Madame Morella MaCabre’s “Ghoul Squad,” of course!
Art by Joe Staton & Rick Burchett, with colors by Matt Webb!
I’m pleased to announce that the Femme Noir team – Yours Truly, artist Joe Staton, inker Rick Burchett, and colorist Matt Webb – have begun production of a new Femme Noir miniseries, “Cold, Dead Fingers.” I can’t say when it will be finished, but I’m hopeful that it will be completed this year, and probably see print in 2016. No publisher yet, but I have been having some encouraging discussions.
To celebrate this new beginning, I thought you folks might like to take a look at the first page of our forthcoming supernatural crime saga. To make it more special, I’m going to share with you the process that we employ in making our Femme Noir funnybooks.
I. It Begins With The Word: In this case, I wrote a detailed plot, breaking down the storytelling in some detail. No dialogue or captions as yet – I write those after I have Joe’s penciled pages in hand; as I am the letterer as well as writer, I basically do both at the same time. Here’s how the plot described this first splash page:
PANEL 1. And here we go…. We begin with a movie poster-styled splash page. In the center of the image is a full-length shot of Le Femme, hat pulled down low, guns in hands, trenchcoat whipping in the wind. Behind her is a sketched in Port Nocturne skyline. On the left, there’s a huge, spookily-lit “ghostly” head shot of our brutish killer – in this iteration, he’s called “Crusher” Corrigan – and below him, a full-length image of mad scientist Dr. Karl Boroff. On the right hand side of the page, opposite Corrigan’s scary melon, is an equally spooky “ghost” head of Madame Morella MaCabre. Below her, opposite of Boroff, is a full-length figure of plainclothes dick Lt. Rod Riley, pistol drawn.
Below that, room for the title lettering – ‘COLD, DEAD FINGERS’ – and a breathless introductory caption.
II. Joe’s Deadly Pencil: From this florid description, Joe draws the page in pencil, employing his considerable talent and experience, working his magic:
Joe then e-mails me a lo-res jpeg to review. Once I’ve looked it over, and am sure that we’re both happy with it, Joe then e-mails the page as a hi-res image file to…
III. Putting The Noir In Femme Noir: …inker Rick Burchett. Joe and Rick have worked together numerous times before, perhaps most memorably on the 1980s incarnation of E-Man. In this case, Rick is applying his atmospheric blacks digitally, using his Cintique tablet.
Once completed, Rick sends jpeg files to both Joe and I to see if we have any notes. If everything’s cool, as it is here, the image is then sent on to our last team mate.
IV. Dangerous Hues: Colorist Matt Webb gets his hands on the page next, and with the original script for reference (and having colored several Femme Noir adventures before), Matt digitally – and dramatically – colors the page.
Nice, huh? Once again, a lo-resolution copy of the colors is sent out for approval of all and sundry. Then, it all comes back to me.
V. The Final Words: With the finished page in my e-mail box, I take it into Photoshop and fit it into the appropriate page template. Having scripted the dialogue – or in this case, caption – when I got the pencils, I then do the lettering in Illustrator. Finally, I drop the text in on the page back in Photoshop… and voilà!
So that’s how we do it. Repeat for pages 2, 3, 4 and so on… until the book is complete.
Stay tuned here for future updates, sneak peeks and announcements (which will always appear here first!)… and, of course, classic Femme Noir stories (such as the current “Killer In Steel,” serialized each Wednesday!
Congratulations to Femme Noir co-creator Joe Staton and his collaborator Mike Curtis, on their second consecutive Harvey Award win, in the “Best Syndicated Strip or Panel” category, for their marvelous run on Dick Tracy!
– Chris
