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

last updated 14 January 2015

"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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While I drew this, I was thinking, I am Charlie. That idea was on my mind, but it wasn't enough, not enough for a front page. This was no longer the only topic. So I thought of drawing Mohammed with "I am Charlie" — I saw him; he was crying. And then I wrote, "All is Forgiven." And then I cried. And that was the front page — that was it. We finally found our goddamned cover. [Luz, as translated by AFP]

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:

I saw this character who had been used in spite of himself by nut jobs who set shit on fire, by terrorists.... Of course everything is forgiven, my man Mohammed. We can overcome, because I managed to draw you. [Luz, to Libération]

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."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.