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Charlie Hebdo 1st cover since attack: Prophet Muhammad caricature, cry, holding sign 'all is forgiven'

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 13, Jan 2015, 17:39 pm IST | UPDATED: 13, Jan 2015, 18:15 pm IST

Charlie Hebdo 1st cover since attack: Prophet Muhammad caricature, cry, holding sign 'all is forgiven' LAST WEEK, upon celebrating his birthday, the longtime Charlie Hebdo cartoonist 'Luz' was running late for an editorial meeting at the French satirical weekly’s Paris offices. By the time he got there, masked gunmen had killed 12 people, including five of his cartooning friends and colleagues. Because Luz was born on Jan. 7, he was a survivor.

This week, Charlie Hebdo is publishing what it is reportedly called “the survivors’ issue.” The cover is illustrated, perhaps fittingly, by Luz.

It was 'Luz,' who in 2011 responded to a firebombing of the publication’s offices by drawing a Charlie Hebdo artist kissing a Muslim man - in a direct attempt at returning fire through a cartoon instead of a cannon. On that cover were the words: 'L'Amour plus fort que la haine (love is stronger than hate).”

For Wednesday’s issue, Renald Luzier, who goes by the pen name 'Luz,' has again responded to an attack with a French phrase and a provocative image for his cover. Pictured is a caricature confirmed by French media to be the Islamic prophet Muhammad, shedding a tear and holding a sign that — invoking the global rallying cry — reads: “Je suis Charlie” (beneath the words “Tout est pardonne,” or all is forgiven).

Monday’s cover reveal comes the day after an estimated 1.5-million people, including numerous world leaders, marched in Paris in a record show of unity — as “Christians, atheists, Jews and Muslims stood side by side, sending up shouts of ‘Charlie, Charlie, freedom of speech!,” according to The Post.

“Now, after the deaths, the shoot-outs, the violence, everything has changed,” Luz said in an interview with the French culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles. “All eyes are on us, we’ve become a symbol, just like our cartoons.”

Charlie Hebdo, with support from the French government and other French publications, including Libération, plans to publish at least 1 million copies of the edition, and perhaps as many as three times that — a huge spike from its usual run of about 60,000.

# Source: The Washington Post