Charlie Hebdo Cover Cartoonist: 'We tried to do an issue without playing victims'

The new Charlie Hebdo cover was drawn by the longtime CH cartoonist "Luz" (Renald Luzier), who survived the attack in part because January 7 was his birthday and he was running late for the editorial meeting.

Earlier today, just prior to the cover being finalized, he gave an interview with the lefty French daily Liberation, which is housing Charlie Hebdo temporarily under heavy police guard. Here are some excerpts as quickly translated by Emmanuelle Richard (who is my wife):  

Everything is moving forward by micro detail of trait, because that's what a Charlie Hebdo cover is about: drawings, details, each ass hair.

We tried to stick close to the news (laughs). Today is wrap day, and we're trying to do our best. Our best is doing a bit better, in fact—we have good news: [CH cartoonist] Riss [who was injured in the attack] is back at drawing. He sent a strip, he's sending drawings. It means that someone else has joined in, meaning that we're all hanging in there, including those still in the hospital.

It was complicated, very complicated, that's why we kicked out all the journalists and didn't want to answer questions, because we needed to be among ourselves. […]

 I don't know if some people are being teased more than others in this issue. We tried to do an issue without playing victims. We mocked ourselves, we tried to find positives and negatives in this kind of shitty situation. I don't know if anyone gets slammed in this issue.

What we really would like is for our next readers to follow us for the right reasons. We'll make the Charlie, the cover, for the right reasons. Voila. We will try to be as radical as possible so that people can understand why they buy Charlie, why some people will never buy it, and why we've been around for so many years.

The French rock mag Les Inrockuptibles interviewed Luz a few days ago and translated it into English; it's a bracing read. Also, Michael Moynihan alerted me to this terrific site that you should recommend to any friends making snap judgments about a publication they hadn't heard of seven days ago: Understanding Charlie Hebdo.

Comments

[Hyperion]

the lefty French daily Liberation

Ok, that's it. The Europeans are just too weird to figure out, I give up trying.

[C. Anacreon]

About 25 years ago, I used to write for a Charlie Hebdo-style publication in San Francisco, which among other claims to fame was the starting point for now well-known cartoonists Tom Tomorrow and Keith Knight. The magazine was Harpoon.

PapayaSF may remember the publication, which had a circulation of over 50,000 in the early 90's -- or maybe one of the other Bay Area commentariat (perhaps even Sevo?)

I've been thinking about the mag a lot in the past few days, as you might expect. We certainly never did anything as ballsy as Charlie Hebdo, but just the idea that someone we might have pissed off because of our jokes could have come after us is disquieting.

[Agile Cyborg]

but just the idea that someone we might have pissed off because of our jokes could have come after us is disquieting.

Larry Flynt was paralyzed in '78 by a bullet to the spine because of an interracial porn pic.

Living at any time in the human history whether ancient or contemporary is a challenge for the creator of content that goes against one of the multitude of grains this strange planet produces.

However, modern tech makes it possible for the entire planet to view your/our colorful fucking philosophies... This isn't the 70's and old print tech, boys and girls.

Free speech is entering a new horizon and it ain't going to be a fucking sleigh ride into Santa's shop of toys.

Free speech and the future are about to have an intervention and the future is going to win. Sadly.

Free speech might go the way of the wooden wagon wheel.

Free speech future is likely going fragment and granulate humanity into millions of chunks where chunks 'get' chunks.

[Irish]

About 25 years ago, I used to write for a Charlie Hebdo-style publication in San Francisco, which among other claims to fame was the starting point for now well-known cartoonists Tom Tomorrow and Keith Knight. The magazine was Harpoon.

You have much to answer for.

[C. Anacreon]

Dan (Tom Tomorrow) was actually a pretty good guy back then, and his comics hadn't gone way prog overboard yet.

I do recall he hated coming to our offices, where everyone was smoking nonstop (cigs were still pretty popular in those days), because he didn't want to be around cigarettes. Perhaps that should have been a tip-off of things to come.

[PapayaSF]

I was vaguely aware of Harpoon, but admit I never read it.

[Sevo]

Somehow, after subscribing to National Lampoon, Ramparts, Reason, Skeptical Inquirer, I still missed it entirely.
Youse guys needed better marketing; there was an audience that didn't get your memo!

[Sevo]

Not you, PSF; them.
But Tom Tomorrow?! Tom Yesterday.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

No TI thread?

[GILMORE]

The Independents Attire Review, 12 January 2015

Go Buckeyes

[userve32]

Sounds like one heck of a plan to me dude.

http://www.Web-Privacy.tk

[Derpetologist]

Our good friends at MEMRI are on top of what Muslim preachers really think about the attack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OIG-EX9Cxk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE4tUJuEKZQ

[Francisco d'Anconia]

WTF Matt. TI repeat? Does Lou Dobbs repeat his shows?

[Derpetologist]

I will link to the funniest portion, but the whole thing is worth watching:

http://youtu.be/7iJO0Oe_Mnc?t=7m36s

[Irish]

That is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. I love that they know so little about the subject that she calls it a first person shooter when it's actually an overhead view.

Also, we should remake that game where a female protagonist shoots heterosexual rapists, in other words, make the exact same game with the gender of the protagonist switched, and see what the progs have to say about that. I think they'd support it for calling attention to rape culture.

[Irish]

"Are you telling me that Google's terms and conditions allow you to make games where you shoot gay rapists in the face? Tsk, tsk. That is not very progressive."

My God, this is amazing.

[Irish]

Holy shit, the best part is when the progressive flat out says 'yeah, violent games don't cause violence. We basically know that at this point, it's essentially been proven. However, I still think this game will make people homophobic.'

Then the Asian guy goes 'Maybe I'm just in an LA bubble so I don't see this as being that big a threat. But I guess it's possible some kid could play this and think "yeah, let's go kill some gay kids."'

Translation: Those hick bastards in fly over country are just itching to massacre the homos, and this game might activate the homicidal quadrant of their tiny lizard brains.

[Suthenboy]

A couple of decades ago I had a 'Kill Barney' game.

After three years of relentless Barney I developed a white hot hatred of that purple fucker. I got to cut him in half with machine guns, blast him apart with rockets and grenades. Endlessly cathartic.

When my son was about six he was tired of Barney too...until he discovered 'Kill Barney'. He loved it too. He would wait until Barney sang "I love you! You love..." *BLAM* End. of. Song.

Then my son would say "Suck on that!"

I am a monster, arent I? I'm going to hell, right?

This makes me wonder why such a game can't be made where you copy and paste the image of anyone you want into the game along with some of their dialogue and start blasting away.

[SusanM]

Every game has a robust modding community. There's bound to be something out there to suit your needs.

[PapayaSF]

The cartoon was published after a National Front politician Facebook-shared a photoshop of Justice Taubira, drawn as a monkey, and then said on French television the she should be "in a tree swinging from the branches rather than in government" [Le Monde] (she was later sentenced to 9 months of prison).

My, those French really are pro-free speech, aren't they?

[SIV]

The person depicted is French political activist and comedian Dieudonn?. He has been convicted for antisemitism in France.

I'm assuming he was convicted for telling Jew-jokes and not for bombing a synagogue.

[SIV]

In France edgy humor magazines exercise their freedom to caricature those convicted of crimes against the state.

[Pinky]

While reading at the "Understanding Charlie Hebdo" link I was struck by one of the explanations to a drawing skewering the Front National political party. The explanation mentions a Front National activists had been sent to prison for nine months because of having published something offensive about a French Justice Minister. Then I remembered, oh yeah, despite the events of the last week, the French don't give a fuck about freedom of speech.

[Pinky]

Oops

[Agile Cyborg]

Why oops?

[PapayaSF]

Perhaps because I made the same point five minutes before him, right above.

[Agile Cyborg]

A juxtaposition of multitudinous revealed intellect makes for a succinct merging of atomic thought.

[SusanM]

Voil?! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

[C. Anacreon]

Very vell done!

[Derpetologist]

OT: pro vegetarian MTV commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdLRrUocOA

[Suthenboy]

It is easy to sell that horseshit to people who have never hunted and haven't been on the farm for three generations.

Just like Maduro's shills telling the people that the grinding poverty they are in are not the death throes of their society, in fact it really isn't all that bad, the leftists here will tell the same to future generations.

[LynchPin1477]

We tried to do an issue without playing victims.

The entire American left is very, very confused. And I'm rethinking my default assumptions about the French!

[Gordilocks]

Thanks for sharing the interview with Luz, Matt.

And further to Lynchpin's observation above, the left are very fucking confused. The CH massacre has presented a conundrum for them, and many of the discussions I have seen online are full of qualifications and SJWsplaining (progsplaining?)

Cheers for the decent coverage here at Reason.

[Suthenboy]

They were confused before the CH massacre. Reading around about their views on free speech I am a little surprised that more of them aren't victim blaming or even cheering.

Social Democracy is just a slight turn of phrase for a tweaked National Socialism and they sure show it.

[Gordilocks]

I think many of them have come very close to victim blaming, but the smarter among them know this, which is where the qualifying comes in.

'I support free speech BUT ...'

I've been pretty merciless in reminding my online associates that it's pretty black and white. Free speech IS or it ISN'T. Qualifications be damned.

[Harold Falcon]

I've seen this too. "I support free speech, but..."

Fuck you, no you don't.

[Warrren]

They should have run a full page help wanted ad.

NOW HIRING FOR THESE 11 POSITIONS: Cartoonists (4 places available) and so on.

[PapayaSF]

OT: Sorry, liberals, Scandinavian countries aren't utopias

[wadair]

That's Scandinavia for you, folks: Bland, wholesome, individual-erasing mush.

Because: equality.

[Timon 19]

From the book of Ezekiel, 24:6...

Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the bloody city, to the pot whose scUM is therein, and whose scUM is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.

[mariuspacker]

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