Renald Luzier, who drew Charlie Hebdo magazine’s front cover picture of prophet Muhammad following the attack by two jihadists in January, says the job without his colleagues is ‘too much to bear’, reports Agence France-Presse.
BACKGROUNDER: Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz, who drew the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s front cover picture of the prophet Muhammad following the murders of its editorial team in January, has said that he is leaving the publication.
Renald Luzier said his departure in September was unconnected to internal tensions at the publication, but rather that the job without his slain colleagues had become “too much to bear”.
“This is a very personal choice,” Luz, who joined Charlie Hebdo in 1992, said in an interview with French newspaper Libération on Monday.
“Each issue is torture because the others are gone. Spending sleepless nights summoning the dead, wondering what Charb, Cabu, Honoré, Tignous would have done is exhausting,” the cartoonist said, referring to his colleagues killed on January 7.
The weekly magazine became a household name when two jihadist brothers gunned down 12 people at its offices.
Luz drew the magazine’s first cover image a week after the attacks, portraying Muhammad with a sign saying “Je suis Charlie” under the words “All is forgiven”.
Press record
The issue had a print run of eight million – a record for the French press. In late April, however, Luz announced that he would not draw the prophet again, saying it no longer interested him to do so.
“Many people push me to keep going, but they forget that the worry is finding inspiration,” Luz said.
While he had thought about leaving a long time ago, he said he “continued in solidarity, to let nobody down. Except that at one point, it was too much to bear”.
The resignation of someone who had in recent months become the newspaper’s leading cartoonist will come as a blow for Charlie Hebdo, which wanted to attract new talent after the attack.
Having been on the verge of bankruptcy before the shooting, the magazine subsequently saw donations pour in from around the world as the Twitter hashtag #jesuischarlie went viral and became a symbol for freedom of speech.
Charlie Hebdo has been split over the use of the money, however, with some staff members accusing management of not being transparent enough about its plans.
Fifteen of the magazine’s 20 staff members, including Luz, called in April for all employees to become equal shareholders in the magazine.
Charlie Hebdo’s management said on Monday that €4.3m (£3.1m) in donations, received from 36,000 people in 84 different countries, would be “handed over in full to the victims”.
Earlier Charlie Hebdo reports on Pacific Media Centre Online
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