Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Luz explains his enigmatic 'All Is Forgiven' cover

"The problem with cartoonists is that they draw because they're not good talkers," said Luz, Charlie Hebdo's surviving cartoonist, at a news conference on Tuesday to discuss the latest edition of the French satirical weekly. He then went on to explain the instantly famous, slightly enigmatic cover he drew for the issue:

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"Our world is complicated, and we make little drawings to explain the world, just like when we were children," Luz explained. The terrorists that murdered his Charlie Hebdo colleagues and friends drew pictures as children, too, until "one day they lost their sense of humor," he continued. "Perhaps they lost the children's soul that let them see the world from a distance." So what about the cover?

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In an interview with Isabelle Hanne at Libération, the Paris newspaper where Charlie Hebdo has been working since the attack, Luz said that this cover wasn't his first attempt. In one of his 20 earlier sketches, the terrorists get to heaven and demand their 70 virgins, only to be told: "They're with Team Charlie, losers!" The cover they used was "my last-ditch effort," he said (according to Slate's translation), and the person being forgiven is Mohammed:

The cover "looked like us, and that didn't look like everyone else or like the symbols that have been imposed on us over the last few days," Luz concluded. "Not a cover with bullet holes, but just a cover that makes us laugh."