last, lost or late? lame!

We are having this little project called „the last match“ where we invite selected comics artists to send us small drawings on a special paper in the size of a matchbox. So far so good, but now I am considering making a parallel project called „the lost match“. Somehow more and more contributions get lost on their way to Latvia and it is taking up absurd dimensions. A while ago a contribution from the fanzine godfather John Porcellino got lost on it's way to Latvia. He was so nice to do it again and he even sent us a great bunch of his books (really recommended, go order them on his page, they are very inexpensive). 

Well this is not so special yet, another matchpaper from Karlien de Villiers from South Africa got lost, even though she sent it registered. Also a match from Romania got lost (mail from Eastern-Europe to Eastern-Europe is very very unreliable).  At least Matei made a picture of it (before colouring and sending).

Nick sent me his contribution a week ago with express mail, and it still didn't arrive. Let's hope this nice contribution is just late and not lost.

Daniel Bueno from Brazil didn't even receive the blank paper from us, only when I sent it the third time, he received the second mail I sent (with three months delay). Now the story from Inés Estrada is the cutest so far. She sent us this paper below, but after a week she got it back from the Mexican post telling her „Latvia does not exist“. When she wrote me that, I was on the countryside and was already wondering if Latvia really had disappeared under the permanent snow. 

Inés went back to the post office to resend it, but they said it is not possible, now she will go to New York sending it from there. I hope this will be more succesfull, but I have my doubts. Today I received a book I ordered from Jesse Moynihan (you should too, it is rad!) with three weeks delay, and on the next picture you see the reason why.

People mixing up Latvia with Lithuania and even Estonia is quite usual, but El Salvador? Now I start to completely lose my already fairly diminished trust in human intelligence or is there anyone backing backing my theory that post staff is particularly dull and careless?

The irony of it all is, that I almost lost this blog entry. Thanks to file recovery I didn't. Would be nice if the Latvian post could also offer some recovery....