Horst is back!

To the disappointment of a lot of people, Guelph cartoonist and illustrator Gareth Lind pulled the plug on his long running comic strip Weltschmerz last year. Those of us who enjoyed the doom and gloom sobriety offered through perpetual glass-is-half-empty advocate Horst, the strips protagonist (or maybe antogonist), have missed Lind's spin on issues facing Canadians.

Well just when you thought you'd never hear (so to speak) Horst's naisally leftist whine ever again, he's making a triumphant comback, albeit in a new, leaner package.

Dear former Weltschmerz readers,

I have started a new comic strip called This Bright Future, appearing every week at The Canadian Charger. Think of it as distilled Weltschmerz. Tighter. Sharper. And I hope just as funny.

Horst and his friends return -- Frank, Cosmo, Raj, Donya and even maybe Celia. But the strip will be more focused on current affairs, less on personal foibles. Not surprisingly, Stephen Harper has put in an appearance more often than any of the above.

You can find This Bright Future on the front page of The Canadian Charger, a web magazine aiming to expand the range of discourse in our corporate-dominated media. The first panel of this week's cartoon is attached below. (There are a number of seed comics to check out as well.)

If enough readers request it, this new strip could appear on local newsprint (hint intended).

Please visit the Charger Thursdays to for your satire fix. You can become a fan at the TBF Facebook page. And please spread the word.

Thanks for reading,
Gareth

And suddenly, all is right with the world again. Welcome back, Horst! (Gareth too!)