Weltschmerz (comic strip)

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Weltschmerz is a weekly comic strip in Canada, written and drawn by cartoonist Gareth Lind. The strip, which is published in alternative newsweeklies such as eye, offers political and social satire with a regular cast of characters, similar to Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, but with more emphasis on caricature.

Characters in the strip include computer geek Horst Weltschmerz, his girlfriend Celia Jones, his friends Frank, Cindy, Cosmo and Max, and Max's partner Des. Political figures such as George W. Bush, Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty also appear as characters.

Current storylines include: Horst and Celia attempt to have a child (so far unsuccessfully); Raj is first held in prison on a security certificate, then extradited to Pakistan on suspicion of being a terrorist, then kidnapped by terrorists; and Frank runs for Liberal leader on a porn-based platform.

The Weltschmerz web site has recently been expanded to a blog-based format, allowing an archive that can be sorted by theme and character.

The first Weltschmerz collection, Attack of the Same-Sex Sleeper Cells, was self-published in spring 2006.