while (<CONF>)
{
    next unless ( /^(.+)\s(http:\/\/\S+)\s+(.+)$/ ); # just skip unusable lines

    my ( $NAME, $URL, $ALT ) = ( $1, $2, $3 );
    $http->reset;
    if ( $http->request( $URL ) != 200 ) {
        warn "cannot read from $URL ($NAME)\n";
        next;
    }
    if ( http->body() =~ /.../ ... ) {
        my $IMGURL = $1;
        ...
        $http->reset;
        if ( $http->request( $IMGURL ) != 200 ) {
            warn "drat! tried to get $IMGURL (for $NAME) but couldn't\n";
            next;
        }
        # OK, got the image... and so on...
    }
}

##</code><code>##

my %name;
my %alt;
my %bad;
while (<CONF>) {
    if ( /^(.+)\s(http:\/\/\S+)\s*(.+)$/ ) {
        $name{$2} = $1;
        $alt{$2} = $3;
    } else {
        $bad{$.} = $_;
    }
}
close CONF;
if ( keys %bad ) {
    warn "unusable config data at line $_:\n  $bad{$_}"
        for ( sort { $a <=> $b } keys %bad;
}
warn "Loading ",scalar( keys %alt )," comic sites\n";

for ( keys %alt ) {
    # ... and so on
}