Another bottle containing a comic from the Herceg Novi Comic Festival has been found, this time near the Italian city of Ostuni, more precisely in Marina di Ostuni. This time, the drawing was created by Italian artist Luana Vecchio, and the bottle was found by Anja Koster.

“Today, on the beach near Marina di Ostuni (in the Italian region of Puglia), I found a bottle with a message. To my surprise, inside I found a drawing by Italian artist Luana Vecchio (unfortunately, I had to break the bottle to get the paper out). After searching online, I learned that it was part of your ‘Comic in a Bottle’ initiative. This is a precious souvenir that I will take with me to the Netherlands after my holiday in beautiful Italy. Please pass on my gratitude to Luana for her drawing.

Kind regards,
Anja Koster”

Koster wrote this in a message she sent to the HSF email address.

This is the second bottle from this year’s festival to have been found in Italy. HSF organisers threw the bottles into the sea on 8 September as part of the “Comic in a Bottle” programme, in which all participating guest artists are invited to draw a comic strip and place it in a glass bottle with a cork stopper before throwing it into the sea.

The programme draws on the old maritime tradition of sending messages in bottles, while at the same time symbolically connecting different shores and worlds through culture and art. Bringing people, artists and different cultures together is one of the goals of the “Comic in a Bottle” programme, which continues to create new stories even after the festival has ended.