"Rival" comic hosting website DrunkDuck was recently hacked by a SmackJeeves forum regular, Kyo, who also brought the SmackJeeves name into the vandalism. Forum backlash ranged from cheering and general approval from immature forum members to harsh recrimination and even banishment from other members as well as moderators. While no official statement on the hack has been issued by the SmackJeeves administration, a general apology and attempt to spread goodwill was made between forum moderators of both sites.

In a related controversy, a few SmackJeeves users were banned from DrunkDuck due to the hacking incident. Forum opinion on whether or not these banishments were "fair" continues to be split.

While an overabundance of site traffic continues to cause those pesky 503 Errors to crop up regularly, relief may be in sight for SmackJeeves members who browse with Firefox. Resident script guru Izkata has created a Greasemonkey script which will automatically refresh a SmackJeeves page that loads with a 503 error until a proper connection can be made.

The Greasemonkey plugin must be installed for Izkata's custom script to work. A link to the custom 503 Error Page script can be found here - the less-technologically savvy should be warned, however, that this simple script will have to be entered into the Greasemonkey plugin manually.

Citing a lack of personal motivation and a general irritation with several community members in general, Cutething unexpectedly retired from her moderator's position within the SmackJeeves forum. While her decision was generally met with much wailing and lamentation on all sides, the ensuing debate over who would get to replace her within the Moderator's community took an unexpected turn for the worst, as participants in the discussion descended into petty squabbling as well as childish bids for power. In an unsurprising development, forum user "Hitler" - a stereotypical charismatic force of evil - was able to fill the vacuum of power and establish Moderator status for himself despite all conventions of good taste and propriety.

In an unconventional ruling, Trebor decided to leave the fate of Crow13 and Someone-So-Awesome in the hands of the Jeevesians. The polls were neck and neck, but finally it became clear that the community wanted Crow banned, permanently. Despite this, Crow seemed unwilling to let go and move on; though it seems he's made some effort to do so. He has registered new names and attempted to rejoin the community, but he is continually thwarted.

In a related story, Someone-So-Awesome was also perma-banned for being an overall idiot. A brief consideration was made to make his ban only temporary until he 'grew up.' It was later concluded that SSA would, in fact, never grow up and so the ban had to be extended indefinitely.

Kyo was also banned for hacking into the Drunk Duck comic site; in an unusual display of benevolence, Moderator Trebor took the time to create a 3-page "choose your own adventure" detailing the thrilling story of Kyo's banishment; unfortunately all of the stories ultimately end the same way: with the perma-ban.

In yet another flurry of site-wide updates, SmackJeeves service has once again been improved to make life easier for comic creators. Recent improvements have included the addition of buttons to the comic menu for easier comic updates and news posting; the addressing of slow load times inadvertently caused by the addition of Project Wonderful advertisements to the site; RSS feeds for user "favorites" was implemented; a general "Introductions Board" for new forum members was created, and a few of the default templates included in the site were also bug fixed.

In a related story, SmackJeeves also recently sponsored a Horror Movie Parody comic contest. The contest ended on March 25th and saw a respectable amount of participation. The winner, who has not yet been chosen, is slated to receive a free donator code as well as mad props and forum bragging rights, and his or her comic entry will be placed into a brand new (and permanent) Contest Page on the SmackJeeves website.

Forum members have been clamoring for a new look and feel to both the SmackJeeves main site and its forums. While any attempts to change the design of the main site have been met with apathy at best, community members have enthusiastically greeted offers by resident design guru Augest to re-skin the forums. Augest has also been working on providing the SmackJeeves community with a new default template, one which will hopefully allow menu links to be displayed to the side of the comic image for the first time.

In a related story, Sonic260 was the first community member ever to publicly attempt a custom template using only MS Paint. So far his efforts seem to have been met with something less than success. As Dan put it,

Forum member Sandy's Creative Corner poll attempting to gauge the difficulties of the comic creation process was mysteriously "hacked" a month ago to include more options than originally intended. This shameless assault on an innocent post was challenged and met by a flurry of recriminating artwork courtesy of Sandy herself. The thread has since been restored to its original state, but forum goers remain wary of additional off-topic hacker or art attacks.

Recent trends to include every single competition, list, image banner and quote known to mankind in the space of one forum signature has prompted the Administration of SmackJeeves to request forum signatures of 10 lines or less. Sadly, not all members of the forum seem to be able to understand this fairly simple directive.

Forum members Evil Duck and Blingmobile threatened to "leave SmackJeeves permanently" in recent months. Neither seem to have been able to keep this promise despite general community interest or apathy to their offers. As Eggie so succinctly stated:

Forum users declared "Almasy Day" last January, causing a slew of confusion and chaos among users who didn't bother to identify posters by anything other than their user icon. Unfortunately, "Trebor Almasy" day was sidetracked and cut short when, in a collaborative effort, both the real Seifer Almasy and David Bowie took control of the thread and proved that they were much cooler than anyone on the SmackJeeves forums.

Since January, ComicSpace has undergone a slew of fast improvements, from the increase of image uploading size to the hosting of actual comic galleries as well the addition of YouTube video embedding. For a more comprehensive list of updates, visit the official ComicSpace web site.

A project being spearheaded by AFStaff is attempting to gather the best and brightest examples of web comic artwork from the SmackJeeves site and bring it to print in book format. Only comics made within 2006 are eligible for publish in the compilation, however. Though the project has picked up momentum and includes a large number of potential participants, no word has been given on a publish date or the cost of purchasing the final book. We're keeping our fingers crossed for results!

Once again, the two SmackJeeves Frappr maps have been dredged up from the annals of forum history so that users can identify themselves on a global scale. The latest SmackJeeves Frappr map can be found here; the original Frappr map, old but still good, is located here.

Forum members are advised to practice caution and at least a little bit of foresight when posting in the Spamalot forum, as it has been the culprit of most, if not all of the recent SmackJeeves controversies.