If I try to print the original, I get the block. If I resize it, I get the block.
That narrows it down even more to the mask. I thought somehow scaling it might have been part of it. But since you get the same result when it's not scaled, that really points to the mask.
If you have access to Illustrator, you can try what Moini suggested. Although I guess you wouldn't be using Inkscape if you did.
Would your friend be able to send you the file in some other format, besides AI? Maybe the man would be made differently, in a different format, and it would print better?
Oh! I'm not sure if this is possible, but it might be. Open it in Inkscape again, and try saving as PDF. If that works, open the PDF with whatever you use to view PDFs. Often printing goes better from the PDF viewer.
Otherwise, as I said, I can think of a way to fix it as it is. But it would take a bit of time, and possibly be a bit tedious.
Hhmm.... I went to search if this has been reported as a bug before. I didn't find anything about printing something with a mask. But unfortunately, I found a couple of bugs about saving a file as PDF which contains a mask (including one about using a raster image as a mask). So that solution might not work. I think it's still worth a try, because it would just take a few minutes to try it. If the new PDF displays ok, then it should print ok.
But let us know what happens. There's still the long way around to a solution.
