Update: A nice farewell note appeared in this issue of Eye. Choke.

M@B, a comic strip that also appeared in the same weekly, is leaving as well. It was fun bookending the paper with such a wry observer of city life. Best wishes to Matt as he devotes himself to his excellent magazine, Spacing.

This is the last cartoon that will appear in Eye Weekly. After 11 years of printing Weltschmerz (about 550 cartoons), Eye has decided to drop the comic strip.

Thus ends a remarkable relationship. It is unusual for a publication to demonstrate such a long-term commitment to one voice. Eye gave me unfettered creative freedom. There was never a hint of censorship nor requests for changes (though a few cartoons were vetted by lawyers before going to print).

In Weltschmerz, Ontario Premier Mike Harris devoured the severed leg of a squeegie kid and engaged in kinky, cuts-fetishizing sex with his then-wife. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin sat down for a meal with George W. Bush that included "cluster bomb-seared baby Iraqis bathed in a tortured detainee-sweat sauce." And, closer to home, former Toronto laughing-stock Mel Lastman used his hyper-tongue to lick the boot of a visiting International Olympic Committee official (accompanied by Gaul emissaries Asterisk and Obelix). This, of course, in addition to the painfully personal life of Horst and Celia, which reaches a low-water mark this week.

Creative freedom like this is unusual in corporate-owned, litigation-fearing print media (Eye is owned by Torstar). I am grateful that Eye has given me this opportunity to offer my often bleak (but, I hope, often funny) satire to Toronto readers every week for so long. And I am especially grateful to Toronto readers for their guffaws and groans.

Which brings me to the fact that I am looking for another print outlet in T.O. You can help by requesting that the paper you read picks up Weltschmerz. The comic is more national in scope now, its focus a little more personal -- and no politician has eaten any humans for some time. (Cannibalism is so yesterday.)

Please spread the word. Weltschmerz will continue, here, next week. Thanks for reading.

10 Years Ago This Week: April 3, 1997
At the Casino Hospital, patients come to have their appendix removed and end up losing their life's savings as well.