Posts Tagged Extra!
Kind of a slow day at Mission Control. The parking lot is nearly empty.
That statue, by the way? Here’s a sketch I did of it from a few years back:
Here’s a little chart I put together featuring the skulls of some of Planet X’s inhabitants. Not everybody we’ve encountered is represented since they don’t all have brain helmets.
Bonus: we get to find out Ernie’s species name! Click the pics to bigafy . . .
Here’s another scan from the current book I’m reading, Strang Tales, the biography of Dr. Cornelius Strang, discoverer of Planet X and creator of Ellie. I’ve skipped ahead a few chapters to read about the famous group of heroes the Doctor gathered together, Strang’s Mystery Alliance of Science.
I want to thank all my buds at the Comic Creators Mini Group for helping me dig up additional info on the Phenominal Five. Go check out the Tumblr we started featuring a weekly sketch challenge.
And if the image from the book above is a little small for you to see, click the pic below for a larger version. We’ll be back to Ellie on Monday!
Not the most flattering of nicknames, the Strang Institute’s main computer CPU, the Egghead 2000, received that handle back in the days when the number 2000 was meant to mean something was futuristic. The egghead part was meant as a bit of a joke that unfortunately stuck.
Built in the 1960s, unlike most of its contemporary supercomputers the EH2000 didn’t become obsolete. That’s because it works like a human brain, constantly learning and growing, using technological secrets that the Institute keeps closely guarded (my security clearance doesn’t allow me access to that information).
Ellie’s central processing unit uses similar technology.
In case, dear reader, you weren’t aware, the Strang Institute CPU was hacked a week back (see the last two installments here and here) . With the help of Dr. Marek Kozak, we were able to find the source of the hacking, but not before international hacker supreme, The Kangaroo Rat, was able to make off with some of our closely held scientific knowledge.
We’re not sure who The Kangaroo Rat was working for and it’ll be some time before we can determine exactly what information she swiped. Professor Strang, founder of the Institute and the man responsible for sending Ellie to Planet X, had rivals in his time. It’s possible they’re still seeking to learn his secrets. We may have to deal with them some time in the future.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kozak is working on beefing up the CPU security and can’t stop talking about The Kangaroo Rat. I think he’s got a crush.
We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled Ellie broadcasts on Thursday!
As some of you have noticed, the Strang Institute, home of Ellie’s Mission Control, has had its computer system hacked. Dr. Marek Kozak, Chief Software Engineer, has dragged me down to the computer core. With his skills in computer wizardry, we hope to discover who or what has hacked into our CPU and why so we can get Ellie’s transmissions back online as soon as possible. . .
Yikes!
As impenetrable as we’d like to think that the Strang Institute’s computer system is, there’s always someone trying to break in. This time they appear to have succeeded. Their calling card? A string of spam left in our system about “how to ask for verification of Faxless Bad Credit Payday Loans” and a link to a website in Australia. We have our theories about who would do this and why – there’s plenty of classified information buried deep in our main frame’s memory banks. Right now, however, it’s more important that we track down the breach in our security and stop it.
Dr. Marek Kozak, Chief Software Engineer at the Institute, is entrusted with the job of ferreting out all cyber intruders. But this isn’t just a matter of combing through lines of computer code. He must travel deep down into the heart of the Strang Institute, far below ground, to the very core of the CPU itself.
And he’s dragging me with.