Czar Nicolai II had read several comics in his youth.  Although they only amounted to a couple X-Mens and 3 or 4 Batman's, comics left a mark on the young czar's mind forever.  Year later, when Nicolai was 14 years of age, he read a piece of prose that he had confiscated from a servent boy in the imperial palace.  This servent's name was Maffei Herzfeld.  The czar was quite impressed by the young boy's talent and his ability to write good (haha...you're funny).  Maffei stole a loaf of bread one day, however, and Nicolai had to punish him.  He decided to make Maffei his personal comic-writing slave and write comics like none other.  Nicolai was to illustrate the comics, of course, because he could draw good (wow...you're just pumpin' em out, man).  This was the first collaboration of the dynamic duo, Nicolai and Maffie.  The two men soon moved to America, the land of oppurtunity, and took up host families.  Maffei changed his name to Matt and got stuck with a pretty strange family, although they are pretty damn interesting and cool.  Nicolai changed his name to Nicholas and got a more normal family.  But, the families don't matter, it's all about the art (and writing, I guess).  Keep on Truckin!

 

*Note to Editor*  Sorry that I used the R. Crumb quote, "Keep on truckin,'" but I couldn't resist.  Although it is not coherent to the story, I had the "uncontrolable urge" to write it (sorry again all you Devo fans.)