Our regular readers are probably wondering what happened to us at the beginning of April 2013. That’s when our site suddenly disappeared from the Internet. Conspiracy theories began to circulate: according to one, the entire Cabal was a pseudonymous effort by Jess Franco, which ceased to exist at the same moment he did. Other rumors said basically the same thing about Roger Ebert. These rumors may be ignored.

In fact, what had happened is this: the brilliant technicians at the B-Masters’ Internet hosting company suddenly started wondering what would happen if they pushed the big, red button marked SELF-DESTRUCT. The results were spectacular. They told us all about it in an email composed by the light of our burning backup tapes — the only email any of us had ever read that came through written in crayon.

OK, OK: venom aside, it seems the very same technology that was supposed to keep our data safe malfunctioned and killed it all instead. Apparently everybody else whose site was hosted by this company was in the same situation… with no site, no backup and no recourse. This means we’re scrambling to reconstitute as much of the B-Masters’s site as we can, while we look for a slightly more reputable host.

If you registered to post on this site after February 2012, I’m sorry to say your account and your comments have disappeared into the void. We’re deeply upset by the loss of so many discussions with our readers. We may be able to restore our posts that have temporarily disappeared; but we will not be able to bring back those vivid and lively interactions we’ve had in the comments. Please do not let this dissuade you from rejoining us and participating in future discussions! We’re going to be much more careful about backing up our data from now on.