A Long Overdue Explanation

Guess who finally
checked in?
Uploaded by Biff Humble

Editor's Note:
Biff had planned to make an appearance at the Wizard World Chicago convention, but was unavoidably ... ahhh ... detained when trying to reenter the country. While he "vacationed" in Tijuana, Joe Willy and I (James Hitchcock) attended the convention in his stead. Biff did send along the following note:

Dear Readers:

The emails have been pouring in, asking where I've been, and what I've been doing. While I don't normally feel obliged to explain myself to anyone, in this circumstance, I decided to break my silence.
You see, a good friend of mine in the radio business (who will remain nameless, but I will henceforth refer to as R.L.) and I were traveling through Southeast Asia doing research for my new college psychology textbook titled, The Three Feminine Personality Types: Bitches, Dykes, and Hoes.
One evening, having completed my research before R.L. (who is meticulous about traveling every path during an investigation), I was sitting in the waiting room of a local service establishment. I was browsing through the pile of magazines, looking for an issue of Asian Mail-Order Brides that I hadn't already read, when I came across a comic book.

But not just any comic book. This was no cape-and-underpants jaunt, but a voyage into the psyche of an artist coming to grips with his deeply religious upbringing, and his discovery that all might not be as he was led to believe.

Red Flag Publishing
Presents Matjaz Bertoncelj's
Eppur Si Muove (And so it Moves)

My first reaction was, "Man, this is dark." My second reaction was, "Man, this is funny!" My third reaction was, "Man this is FUCKING GREAT!!!"

Imagine The Inquisition, with soft, furry animals. You can't? Matjaz Bertoncelj can. And he has created a religo/socio/politcal masterpiece titled "Eppur si Muove" (And So It Moves) to do it.

I decided right then and there to put my academic research on hiatus and track down this artist. R.L. and I set off following the trail that this comic book had traveled to land in the waiting room at Girly To Go. The hostess there said it had been left behind in a room by a client who exited rather quickly after asking for a double dip when only having paid for a single. She said she thought the gentleman was Japanese, and was able to locate a credit card receipt from Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan.

After making sure our luggage was free of prescription medications other than our own, we clambered aboard the first airliner to Japan. Within 24 hours, we were canvassing every comic book shop in the city of Hakodate. Luck was with us, in the sixth store in little over a mile, the clerk spoke a bit of broken English, and told us he had bought the book from a Russian tourist who was down on his luck and trying to raise bail money for his traveling partner. He wouldn't tell us any more than that, so while R.L. distracted him with a search for a particular X-rated anime book, I rifled his file cabinet, and found a Xerox of a Mordovian drivers' license with an address in Saransk. Close enough to Russia, I thought.

The hero of our story, Lupus

I won't trouble you with our journey from Hakodate to Saransk, but suffice it to say there is NO direct route, and no cheap way to get there ... and the price one cab driver charged was more than even R.L. would pay - and he's usually up for anything that involves a dirt road and a 1950s Volga.

So, tired, dirty, and in R.L.'s case slightly worn, we reached Saransk, only to discover that English-speaking comic book store clerks were about as common as hot water from the hotel bathtub tap. After a week of pantomiming and speaking VERY LOUDLY, we found a clerk less surly than the others, who pulled out an atlas, and pointed out Skofja Loka on a map of Slovenia.

The route from Mordovia to Slovenia proved the previous leg of our journey to be the easy one, but after $1,500 in bribes, a case and a half of vodka and the promise to smuggle a barrel of caviar with us on the return trip, we arrived in picturesque town of Skofja Loka. Located at the confluence of two rivers and with an imposing castle looming over it, I fully expected to see Julie Andrews break into song in the middle of the street at any moment.

The people of Skofja Loka were a refreshing change over the previous locales through which our journey had taken us. Helpful and friendly to a fault, they would have made it an enjoyable vacation, simply wandering the steep, winding and slightly mysterious streets lined with quaint 16th century buildings - but I was a man on a mission.

I stopped everyone I met on the street to ask if they knew this artist. Finally, famished, we stopped for lunch at a stone-walled wine cellar, the gostilna-galerija Plevna on Spodnji trg (the Lontrg/Lower Square) in the historic Kašča, or granary building.

Every hero must have
a trusty sidekick

I had set the comic on the edge of the table while I perused the list of Slovene wines, when the waiter exclaimed, "You know of Matjaz??" I very nearly knocked the carafe of mountain spring water from the table in my fervor to find what this man know of Bertoncelj. When I finally calmed down enough to be intelligible, I explained that I was, in fact, searching for the artist.

The waiter immediately took me upstairs to a gallery hung with the hauntingly dark visions of painter France Mihelič, who was born nearby, and introduced me to the curator. A lithesome young Slovene of full lips, hazel eyes and wild brunette hair, I would probably set immediately to work on gaining admittance to the valley created by the two cream-colored peaks straining beneath her white silk blouse, but I was too excited to be this close to finding the subject of my quest. I will never again say her name, "Irena," without seeing her beautiful face.

With the waiter interpreting, the Slavic goddess soon understood the object of my search, and offered to take me to him. We walked for nearly an hour in the waning afternoon sun, through narrow shadowed streets and alleys, checking the darkest corner of each bar and pub and saloon we passed. When we finally reached a point that I was sure I would never find my way back, we stopped in a little hole-in-the wall bar, where she led me to the rearmost booth, which was occupied by a man, dressed in black, with his head on the table.

"Matti! Matti!" Irena said, striking him about the head and shoulders. He stirred, and lifted his head, and for the first time I stared into the eyes of a genius.

Even a story about
the Inquisition needs
a little T & A

Irena made the introductions, and then, as Matjaz was fluent in English (perhaps nearly as fluent as he was in his native tongue at that moment, considering the level of his intoxication), scurried off to wherever it is curvaceous Slavic goddesses go in the evening, leaving me alone with Bertoncelj.

I showed him my dog-eared copy of his book, the book that had led me so far to find him, and told him I was a comic book publisher from the U.S. I told him just how important it was that his work reach an American audience. I told him that my publishing company was just the right company to do it.

And, because he was drunk, I talked him into signing a contract that paid nothing up front.

Hey, business is business.

So, I hope you enjoy the brilliant work of Matjaz Bertoncelj that we are presenting, in downloadble form, on our website. Please check it out, and read the free sample pages from the first episode. We think you will be as blown away as we were.