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Wonderdick, along with a cast of Mr. Winters’ dysfunctional characters, appear regularly in an alternative magazine in Edmonton called VUE Weekly — and Edmontonians eat Wonderdick up.

“[The comics] seem to be more popular in Edmonton than they are here,” Mr. Winters said while sitting for lunch in a Toronto restaurant that boasts meals with fewer than 650 calories (“So Toronto,” he says).

“I can’t measure it, but I seem to get an enthusiastic response from Edmontonians for it. More retweets and [Facebook] likes,” he said, although VUE’s associate publisher, Eden Munro, admits it’s a bit odd to be running such a Toronto-centric cartoon in Alberta. But “it’s a commentary on certain types of people that works well wherever. Probably better in larger cities,” he said.

Mr. Winters suspects the Edmontonian affection for the Wonderdick comics reflects a kind of lazy mockery other cities in Canada level at Toronto for its reputation of habitual, navel-gazing self-importance — a lack of grit and common sense that seems surreal to those who move there.

Still, it’s probably difficult for most young Torontonians to read a Wonderdick comic and not cringe: certainly, Mr. Winters does.

“I am Wonderdick,” he said. “I catch myself having Wonderdick thoughts and I get mad

at myself.”

After graduating from the University of Alberta, where he spent several years creating cartoons at his student newspaper, which he now finds regrettable, Mr. Winters drifted into various jobs — lastly in a video store — before eventually deciding to move to Toronto.