I went to my comic shop, Empire Comics today. I mentioned the lighting that broke, and the store owner offered to come back to my place after work to replace the light. He did, and it works again.
One problem solved, and a new one pops up: suddenly, Word Perfect 2000 is crashing on my system. I even tried refreshing my setup from CD, but it still isn't working... and this is the program I use for my Comicopia zines. Lovely.