Weltschmerz is a weekly comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, written and drawn by cartoonist Gareth Lind. The strip, which is published in alternative newsweeklies such as Eye Weekly

Eye Weekly

Eye Weekly was a free weekly newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was owned by Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, and was published by their Star Media Group until its final issue on May 5, 2011. The following week, Torstar launched a successor publication, The Grid.-...

, offers political and social satire with a regular cast of characters, similar to Doonesbury

Doonesbury

Doonesbury is a comic strip by American cartoonist Garry Trudeau, that chronicles the adventures and lives of an array of characters of various ages, professions, and backgrounds, from the President of the United States to the title character, Michael Doonesbury, who has progressed from a college...

 by Garry Trudeau

Garry Trudeau

Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.-Background and education:...

, 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

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper

Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

 and Dalton McGuinty

Dalton McGuinty

Dalton James Patrick McGuinty, Jr., MPP is a Canadian lawyer, politician and, since October 23, 2003, the 24th and current Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario....

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.