Nothing in the mail

While I know it's very fashionable to talk about how we are all living in a late-stage capitalist society, (haven't we always been?), I do think the fact that the global mail system is getting exponentially shittier says something about the times we live in. 

I live on the arse end of the world, with only a tiny local market for entertainment, so most of the comic thrills I get have to come in from overseas. That's always been the way, and it's always been a dodgy process - in pre-internet days it would literally be years before I tracked down issues of the New Warriors that never showed up at the local bookstores. 

Now, I can go direct to the source and order the comics myself over the internet, through ebay, or mycomicshop.com, or from the 2000ad shop. And that's worked well for years, but now it's getting so much less reliable. 

I dropped almost a hundred bucks on Judge Dredd Megazines, Sci-Fi Specials and Zenith collections at the 2000ad store, and somehow less than half the order showed up, with no explanation. And the only way I can get my regular dosage of Empire magazine (not counting digital, which is no fun at all), is through the subscription service, and it's now been four months since I got an issue. 

I have gone back to both of these providers,  and they have assured me they were sent out and they will  still replace anything that has disappeared, but all these packages are getting lost at the same time, and it feels like something has broken down. It's never been a perfect service, getting things this far across the oceans, but it's never been as bad as this.. 

I'm not giving up, I have a 30-year-old habit of buying Empire every month and my history with 2000ad goes much deeper than that, and I'm not going to stop now, but these things are not sold in any shops anywhere near to me, and the only option left is through the post. And when that fails, there's nothing left. Just the cultural wasteland and an empty letterbox.