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Ed Wexler Explains his Cartoon at our Exhibition

Read on to see a video of our cartoonist, Ed Wexler, explaining his “All Votes Must be Counted” cartoon to some French fans at the exhibition.

We had two lovely exhibitions at the “International Center“, Press Cartoons museum in St Just le Martel, France this year. One of the shows was about Donkeys and Elephants.

American donkey and elephant cartoons make no sense to foreign audiences. Our exhibit in France was curated by cartoons historian Olivier Auvray, who invited six cartoonists in our group to show their best donkey/elephant cartoons, which were presented with explanations –even with the explanations, the cartoons seemed seemed pretty difficult for the French fans to comprehend.

Here’s Ed.

See CagleCartoonist Jeff Koterba explaining his cartoon at the exhibition in France.

Here’s our historian/curator, Olivier Auvray explaining elephant cartoons by CagleCartoonist David Fitzsimmons.


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Disappointment in France

I was saddened to learn that the highly anticipated, new, national center for editorial cartoons in France was granted to the city of Paris, rather than the village of St. Just le Martel in the French countryside. Cartoonists from around the world have been writing letters and drawing cartoons, in support of St. Just’s bid for the new “Maison” or “House” of editorial cartoons, which will be a combination of a museum and center for events and lectures about “press cartoons.” St Just le Martel is the home of the only museum dedicated to editorial cartoons –and the home of a wonderful, annual “Salon” where international cartoonists have built friendships with a charming local community of fans that chose to support our profession decades ago.  Clearly, what the world’s cartoonists wanted wasn’t important to the decision makers in France. I’m putting cartoonists’ protest cartoons at the bottom of the page.  Scroll down.

French president Emmanuel Macron announced the selection of Paris this week. There isn’t any other nation with a national center for editorial cartooning, and our troubled profession should appreciate that anything is being built at all.  Still, what should be a happy day is a sad day for us. The fear is that a much bigger and better funded “Maison” will overshadow our beloved Salon in St. Just le Martel.

Here’s a statement from our friends in St. Just le Martel, followed by a statement by my friend and CagleCartoonist, Pierre Ballouhey, who is the president of “France Cartoons,” the professional organization for cartoonists in France.

INTERNATIONAL CARTOONING CENTER – SAINT JUST LE MARTEL – France – Press Statement January 2022.

The management of the Center is stunned by the notification of French President Emmanuel Macron to refuse the implantation of the European Cartooning House in Limousin area. Paris localisation was prefered was preferred, even though the infrastructure already exists in Limousin, and had many advantages, of security, experience, and recognized legitimacy.

It is a feeling of contempt and injustice that prevails here at the Caricature Center among all the volunteers. Seeing over 40 years of investing in the defense of Freedom of Expression through the cartoonish swept away by political choice without any justification leaves you speechless.

This choice goes against all the announcements, all the considerable assets, know-how, memory, commitment of the population of Saint Just Le Martel and local elected representatives of Limousin, to defend what already existed since 1982.
It is also a slap in the face to the 250 cartoonists who every year are travelling in september to Saint Just Le Martel for the International Festival, and who where mobilized in their large majority in favor of this place of meeting and celebration of Freedom of Expression.

The management of the Center dispute this decision because it fundamentally contravenes the interests of this project, in particular through a decentralization supposedly promised in the general policy speech of the Prime Minister.

We contest this project, because it goes against the flow of cultural opening up, even though Saint-Just Le Martel is easily and quickly accessible being at 1 hour from Paris by plane, or 3 hours by train or road.

We contest this project, because it discredits and denies all the experience of organizing exhibitions, and the very strong link that binds the community of designers to the International Center of Saint Just Le Martel, with more than 2,500 partners through the five continents.

Finally, we dispute it, because it goes against all the previous investments, made jointly, by European funds, the state, the Region, the Department, the Municipality in 2011. All had testified to the recognition and legitimacy of this place to make it the sanctuary of the defense of Freedom of Expression through satirical drawing.

________________________

Here’s the call for cartoonists to submit drawings protesting President Macron’s decision, by France Cartoons’ president, Pierre Ballouhey.

Dear Colleagues,

The javelin was thrown by Macron and it was stuck in his feet. The famous Maison du Dessin de Presse et de la Satire will be in Paris, not in Saint-Just. One more cultural space in the Capital.

It’s a pity, the usual franchouillard jacobinism, a foot in the nose of decentralization, contempt for the regions.

Disappointment for most of the cartoonists from all over the world who would have preferred Saint-Just-le-Martel-Limoges. They will continue to meet every autumn in their natural habitat of Limousin…

Send your drawings of disapproval and support to the Center [email protected]. They will be printed and exhibited in an event in Saint-Just, France-Cartoons will be represented by Placide.

Pierre BALLOUHEY
Président de France-Cartoons

Here’s Pierre’s cartoon and more from some other disappointed cartoons. (Note that St Just le Martel is in an area that is known for its cows, and the Salon is represented by a cow mascot, “Justine”.)Pierre Ballouhey

 

Laurent Battistini

 

Rainer Hachfeld

Biz

Batti Babache

 

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Support for our French Museum Friends

Our friends at the charming, editorial cartoon museum in St Just le Martel, Franceare in the last push of a national competition to host a new, national “House” of Editorial Cartoons – something that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. They have asked their cartoonist friends to submit cartoons in support of their bid. Here’s mine.
To explain my cartoon, the story goes that God told little St Just to throw his hammer, which landed in a spot that turned into a spring, where water squirted up, and God instructed St Just to build a church for him on that spot, which became the little town of St Just le Martel (St Just the hammer). I know, its complex, but our French friends will get it.
 

The competition is tough, two spots in Paris, one in Strasbourg and the French National Library also submitted bids – still, St Just should win and I wish them all the luck. Any other cartoonist friends of St Just are encouraged to pitch in with cartoons now (contact the museum). A decision is expected soon.

Here’s a cartoon supporting St Just’s bid from my French cartoonist pal, Pierre Ballouhey – this one needs explaining too. St Just is in cow country, and they use brown cows as their mascot. That’s Pierre getting kissed by the top cow, and that’s the museum at the bottom.


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Trump and Iran

I’ve been working on putting together cartoons for a CagleCartoons exhibition in St Just le Martel’s lovely cartoon museum on the topic of Trump and Iran. Here’s my cartoon from yesterday …

I got the idea for my cartoon while mulling over this wonderful, new cartoon by Pierre Ballouhey, which makes a point that is rather different …

 

I’d like to welcome Canadian cartoonist Guy Parsons, who recently joined Cagle.com and PoliticalCartoons.com with this cartoon poking the Trump-hive …

 

These two cartoons about the Straits of Hormuz by Arend van Dam made me laugh …

Here’s Steve Sack‘s take on the Straits of Hormuz …

 

And here’s Stephane Peray‘s take on the Straits of Hormuz …

 

Here’s my last one on Trump and Iran …

Our photo-realistic cartoonist, Bart van Leeuwen drew this Trump and Iran cartoon …

We’ve got a lot of great Trump and Iran cartoons. It will be a great exhibition – starting the last weekend in September and running for a while.

 

 

 

 

 

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Memorial Cartoons for Gérard

Updated 2/19/19 with new cartoons – Daryl

Cartoonists around the world are drawing memorial tribute cartoons for our dear, departed friend Gérard Vandenbroucke, the founder and president of the Salon at St Just le Martel and long time champion of our editorial cartooning profession. Read my obit here.  I’ll post new cartoons as they come in.

Gérard was also a politician who rose from being the mayor of the tiny village of St Just le Martel to being the president of the Limousin region of France, famous for their brown cows that are an icon of the cartoon museum – that’s why there are so many cows in the cartoons.

This one is by Christo Komarnitsky from Bulgaria

 

This one by Bob Englehart may require some explanation. Gérard was the mayor of St Just le Martel and he championed the cartoon museum and Salon in the tiny village.  St Just le Martel translates to “Saint Just the Hammer.” As the story goes, God told Saint Just to throw his hammer and build a church where it landed; Bob’s cartoon puts Gérard in the St Just role, throwing his hammer to decide where to build the cartoon museum/festival.

 

This one is by Osmani Simanca from Brazil

 

This one is from Gary McCoy

 

Here is my own cartoon.

 

This one is by Ed Wexler!

 

This one is by Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

 

This cartoon is by Marilena Nardi from Italy

 

This one is by Jeff Koterba of the Omaha World Herald.

 

By Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune.

 

This is by Firuz Kutal of Norway.

 

 

This one is by Tchavdar Nicolov from Bulgaria’s Prass Press.

 

This one is by my buddy, Robert Rousso, who is the dean of the French cartoonists.

This linoleum block print is by Randy Enos.

 

This one is by Danish cartoonist Neils Bo Bojesen.

 

 

This one is by my buddy, Batti Manfruelli from Corsica.

 

Pierre Ballouhey drew Gérard on the left, resuming a conversation with his two deceased pals on a cloud. In the middle is the priest of the lovely, little, medieval church of St Just le Martel. At the right is the late, chain-smoking, French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Loup, a talented cartoonist who curated the exhibitions at the museum for many years.

Here’s another by Pierre, the Limousin cows paint themselves black with grief.

 

This charming cartoon is by the charming French cartoonist, Placide. The village of St Just le Martel is behind the statue of Gérard, with the cartoon museum in the middle and the medieval church on the right.

 

This cartoon is by Romanian cartoonist Pavel Constantin.

 

This one is by Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle.

 

By Oguz Gurel from Turkey

 

This one is by Cristina Sampaio from Portugal.

 

This Gérard tribute is from Brazilian cartoonist and animator, CAó Cruz Alves

From the French cartoonist, my buddy Noder

 

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Our Friend Gérard Passes Away

I was saddened to learn that our dear friend, Gérard Vandenbroucke passed away today. Gérard was a tireless proponent of our cartooning profession.
Gérard started the Salon at St Just le Martel, France, more than 40 years ago with a group of teenagers in the village, who continue to run the Salon. They decided to make a festival for “Press Cartoons” (editorial cartoons) and they invited prominent French political cartoonists to attend. A handful came at first, and the Salon has grown steadily ever since into the worldwide editorial cartoonists convention that CagleCartoonists attend every year.
 
Gérard supported the Salon, along with fund raising and construction of St Just’s lovely cartoon museum, as he rose through the French political ranks, starting as mayor of St Just le Martel, then as president of the Limoges region and then the Limousin region. He has continued to be the president of the Salon all this time, and more recently he was the force behind the founding of the Cartooning Global Forum last year at UNESCO in Paris.
 
It is a sad day for our profession. Gérard was our hero; he was beloved by the cartoonists he loved. He is already missed.

That’s Gerard in the chair next to me, backed by CagleCartoonists.
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Marie Antoinette

The riots in France have been fascinating to watch. The “Giletes Jaunes” (Yellow Vest) protests were triggered by increases in gasoline taxes that French President Emmanuel Macron implemented to discourage people from driving, as part of his battle against Climate Change. The protest movement sees Macron, a rich, former investment banker, as an aloof elite. Those yellow vesters can go “eat cake.”

I love those crazy, historic, giant French hair-doos with depictions of ships and birds and crazy, coiffed, exotic stuff.

Poor and rural “Gilets Jaunes” who must drive to work, donned the yellow vests that they are required by law to keep in their cars for roadside emergencies, as a theme for their protests against Macron and the rich elite that they see as out of touch with their reality.  Here’s a class warfare cartoon by my buddy Robert Rousso, the dean of the French cartoonists (“jaune” or yellow, rhymes with “Jones” in French.)

Marie Antoinette is a great cartoon cliché. Here’s a “TRUE!” cartoon I drew back in 1995. This really is true.

Here’s Marie Antoinette as a cow, in a poster I drew for the Press Cartoon Festival in St Just le Martel, France, side by side with a cow sculpture that festival organizer, Blanche Vandenbroucke, dressed to match my poster. I think Blanche did an impressive job!

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Cagle Cartoonists in France

Every year a big group of cartoonists from our syndicate meet up in France with cartoonists from around the world.

This year 23 CagleCartoonists were there. The “Salon” at St. Just le Martel has become a Cagle convention as we meet with the French cartoonists at their “National Assembly.” There is a great atmosphere as the townsfolk all turn out to support the editorial cartoonists at their very impressive, municipal cartoon museum. We did an exhibition about “guns.”

Here are a few pics of the cartoonists. The first is a group shot of the CagleCartoonists who happened to be there on the last day. That’s me in front, with festival president/founder Gerard Vandenbroucke. There are 19 CagleCartoonists in the photo, which were all we could round up at the moment. A nice French lady who is a courtroom artist wandered into the photo by mistake, so I replaced her head with the head of Angel Boligan, who should have been there but was confused, in the other room. Trying to get cartoonists to do anything together requires mastery in cat herding.

Above, from left to right: Tom Janssen (Holland), Jos Collignon (Holland), Jeff Koterba (USA), Pierre Ballouhey (who is also the president of the French cartoonists association), Gary McCoy (USA), Gatis Sluka (Latvia), Emad Hajjaj (Jordan), Joep Bertrams (Holland), Rick McKee (USA), Bruce Plante (USA), Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Osama Hajjaj (Jordan), Ed Wexler (USA), Nate Beeler (USA), the head of Angel Boligan (Mexico), pasted on top of a lady who wandered into the photo, Pat Bagley (USA), Brian Adcock (Britain), and Christo Komarnitsky (Bulgaria).

Above, a group of us are having dinner on the first night, taken by a waiter who was rather challenged by the very difficult idea of getting everyone’s face in the photo. That’s me on the left, brave Russian cartoonist Sergey Elkin, who is blocking the face of his wife Tatiana, then there’s Sergei’s son, Toni and Ed Wexler, Nate Beeler and 1/3 of Bruce Plante’s face.

Above, a bunch of us are having dinner at Chez Denise on our last night there – from left to right, Jeff Koterba and his girlfriend Christine, me wearing my son’s band’s t-shirt, Ed Wexler, our waiter/cartoonist/host Noder (Cyril Redon), Cristina Sampaio, Toni Wexler (Ed’s wife) Nate Beeler, brilliant French cartoonist Jackie Redon (Noder’s father and name spelled backwards), and Yves Frémion who publishes the cartoon journal on the table under Jeff’s phone. The restaurant is great, and festooned with 1970’s illustration art like I grew up with in college.

Funny how so much of the internet is devoted to pictures of people eating.

The pic above is the room where the Paris City Council meets, in the Paris City Hall – it is the “Tignous Room” named after the famed, late, beloved Charlie Hebdo cartoonist, Tignous, whose cartoons adorn the walls. I can’t imagine a City Council doing something like that in the USA. We had a cocktail party there.

 

The pic above is a panorama photo from my seat at the Cartooning Global Forum at UNESCO in Paris – this shows about a third of the 100 people there. It is very difficult to get cartoonists to agree on what issues face us, even as print is dying for all of us and our colleagues are brutalized around the world. Also, the USA pulled out of UNESCO. Any talk about cartooning issues is a good thing and it looks like this conference will be an annual event. That’s good.

Below are a couple more from the Cartooning Global Forum at UNESCO, from Nicolas Jacquette, one of the tireless, heroic organizers …

And another from Jacquette and his “Studio Irresistible” (with brilliant co-organizer Jerome Leninger) … I’m hidden in this one.

Below are 7 Cagle Cartoonists at an exhibition opening in Limoges, from left to right, Nate Beeler, Me, in the background, the tiny head of Jean-Michel Delambre (the French cartoonist who won the cow/grand prize at St Just this year), Rick McKee, Gary McCoy, Jeff Koterba, Pat Bagley and Emad Hajjaj.

Regrettably, the tradition of a live cow for the grand cow winner in St Just has come to an end. Last year, when Angel Boligan won the cow, the cow went a little “vaca loco” and charged away from its handler, a kid who broke his finger handling the wild cow leash. This year there was a much better behaved inflatable cow for Jean-Michel Delambre.

In the pic below, a bunch of us are drinking at 1:00am in a cafe in Paris. From left to right are Jeff Koterba, the two wives of Tom Janssen and Jos Colignon (Els and Irma), Bruce Plante, Pat Bagley and his lovely girlfriend Kate, Gary McCoy, Ed Wexler, Rick McKee, Christo Komarnitsky, Jos Collignon, a tiny face of Toni, Ed’s wife, me, Gatis Sluka leaning back, Tom Janssen, Jeff’s girlfriend Christine and Nate Beeler. It looks like our waitress is in the back room, throwing up, or “boofing” as Justice Kavanaugh would say.

In the pic below are Cagle Cartoonists Cristina Sampaio (Portugal), Chris Weyant (New Jersey) and Neils Bo Bojesen (Denmark) in the St Just parking lot next to the giant lunch/dinner tent where big, heavy construction vehicles are parked, to prevent a terrorist from driving a truck into the dinner tent. Editorial cartoonists are always under threat, and always hungry.

Here’s a group of cartoonists in a pic from the St Just Salon folks …

I must thank the inspired volunteers for the Salon at St Just le Martel, and the heroic volunteers who put together the Cartooning Global Forum, which I hope to see continue as an annual event!

 

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CagleCartoonists Meet in France

Every year, CagleCartoonists get together at the big editorial cartoons (they call them “Press Cartoons”) convention in St Just le Martel, France. The small village has dedicated itself to our art form, building a grand cartoon museum and hosting a great party for us. The museum is run by local volunteers; the townsfolk put most of the cartoonists up in their homes and they cook for us, and give us an open bar, and the teenagers in town are our waiters! I can’t imagine anything like that happening in the USA.

It is a delight to visit St Just and see our profession held in such high esteem.  Because of the generosity and support of the village, it is actually cheaper for the cartoonists to come to the convention in St Just than to go to our own, American cartoonist conventions.

This year we had 17 CagleCartoonists from around the world at St Just –you can see 14 of them in the group photo above. That’s our bovine Statue of Liberty looking us over, in the cartoon museum, at our “Trump: Nine Months Later” exhibit.

Our own Angel Boligan went home with the cow –the big annual prize in St Just. Congratulations to Angel!

The CagleCartoonists above are, from left to right: Manny Francisco (Singapore), Angel Boligan (Mexico), Christina Sampaio (Portugal), Pierre Balouhey (France), Pat Bagley (Utah), Gatis Šļūka (Latvia), Steve Sack (Minnesota), Osmani Simanca (Brazil), Monte Wolverton (Washington), Bill Schorr (California); Ed Wexler (California); Jeff Koterba (Nebraska) and Emad Hajjaj (Jordan). I’m seated in the front. Missing from our group photo (and probably hiding in the museum’s bathroom) are Rainer Hachfeld (Germany), Jos Colignon (Holland), and Christo Komarnitski (Bulgaria).

 

 

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My Exhibition in Belgium

I’ll be having an exhibition of my work in Ville de Virton, Belgium. If you’ll be around – come and meet me! The exhibition opening is May 18th at 6:30pm at the Caves de l’Hotel de Ville de Virton.

I’m a guest of the excellent Festival International de la Caricature de la BD du Dessin de Press et d’Humour in Rouvroy-Virton Belgium, near Luxembourg, May 19, 20 and 21. I’ll be sitting around doing drawings for folks and I’ll probably give a couple of lectures. This festival is organized by France-Cartoons, the association of French cartoonists that I got to know from the editorial cartoonists Salon in St Just le Martel, so it is my old buddies I travel to hang with. It is cool, and it looks like they have a Trump theme this year! heir poster is funny.

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St Just and Georges Wolinski

I’ve been attending the editorial cartoonists convention in St. Just le Martel, France in recent years, and it is always great fun – but this year it had a somber tone, along with the biggest attendance ever, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo murders.

mewMoineHebdoPortraits
That’s me in front of portraits of the five slain cartoonists drawn by Moine, the brilliant, French architect turned cartoonist who had a huge exhibition of cartoonist caricatures in the main gallery. Thats Honore, Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous and Charb in the portraits; I’m obscuring Wolinski. Moine has drawn portraits of most of the regulars at St Just, and had the drawings published in a book that is treated much like a high school yearbook at the convention, with everyone signing their own pages in other cartoonists’ books.
Georges-Wolinski300x300
Georges Wolinski

 

George Wolinski was a regular at St Just every previous year I attended. He was a convention friend who enjoyed encouraging my wife to drink much more and he stood out as a star of the convention, highly respected by his French colleagues.

The museum built a lovely memorial to Wolinski by recreating his Paris studio, pictured below. The furnishings were moved to St Just and every detail was replicated, including the positions of the books and the art materials on his drawing tables.

WolinskiStudio1

 

WolinskiStudio2
Visitors look through two large windows into either side of the studio enclosure. The windows inside the studio recreate Wolinski’s view of Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris’ trendy Rive Gauche. Wolinski’s wife came to St Just to make sure every detail in the studio was correct.

WolinskiBook2WolinskiStJustPosterSmall
Wolinski was a prolific cartoonist and his work stretched well beyond Charlie Hebdo. He was known for his sexy cartoons. The book cover at the left is typical of Wolinski’s work. On the right is a poster that Wolinski did for the St Just festival. The poster for the festival is drawn each year my the winner of the “Humor Vache” award, a cow.

This year’s cow winner is “Coco,” another Charlie Hebdo and St Just regular; this was the second cow for Coco, who was a popular choice after her terrible ordeal during the attack, and her excellent work coming back after the horror. I’ll do another post on Coco.

The appreciation for the editorial cartooning profession that is on display at St Just is wonderful to see. Each convention is like a cartooning family reunion, and the loss of five members of the family was an awful blow to the community.

 

perfectmassage
This is typical Wolinski. I took this photo of one of his pieces titled “The Perfect Chinese Massage” from his exhibit at St Just. A lot of his work is wordy with lots of French that I don’t understand – but this one I can understand.

 

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France, Cartoonists and Murder

I woke up this morning to the news of the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo Magazine office in Paris. Twelve people were killed and eleven wounded, including two of my French cartoonist friends, Tignous and Wolinski. Cartoonists around the world are grieving.

Americans treat editorial cartoons as a trivial daily joke in the newspaper – in France, editorial cartoons and loved and respected. The Louvre has a branch museum devoted to cartoons; imagine if the Smithsonian had a cartoon museum, that’s the way cartoons are revered in France.

My new editor.

 

“Charlie Hebdo” is a silly name; it is a weekly magazine filled with editorial cartoons, easily found on news stands everywhere in France. “Hebdo” means “weekly” in French, and “Charlie” comes from France’s love for the comic strip “Peanuts” and Charlie Brown – therefore “Charlie Hebdo.” The top cartoonists in France vie to be on the pages of Charlie Hebdo.

There are cartoon festivals all over France – the best one for political cartoonists is in the small town of St Just le Martel; I’ve been attending for years, along with other cartoonists I syndicate. The townspeople pitch in to throw a festival for the editorial cartoonists every year; villagers put cartoonists up in their homes, and they award a live cow to the “Humor Vache” cartoonist of the year. One greatly respected winner of the cow was Georges Wolinski, a brilliant cartoonist with a masterful loose, swishy, wordy style, highly respected by the French. We were fellow cow winners, having a beer together last October; it is hard to imagine that he is gone.

The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are a diverse group of charming characters; they are the heart of the French cartooning community. There are not a lot of editorial cartoonists. We get to know each other; the murders are a blow that strikes close to all of us.
The Charlie Hebdo artists were energized and incensed by the Danish Muhammad cartoon fracas a few years ago. French cartoonists have a macho attitude, seeing themselves on the front lines of a free speech debate. One Charlie Hebdo issue, touted as “edited by the Profit Muhammad” had all blank pages. One Charlie Hebdo cover featured a drawing, by French cartoonist “Luz” of the magazine’s publisher/cartoonist “Charb” having a sloppy kiss with a Muslim Man, under the headline “L’Amour plus for que la haine” or “love is stronger than hate.” Charb was among those killed in the terror attack.

Terrorists have no sense of humor. Cartoons loom large in the Arab world, typically on the front pages of Arab language newspapers. It is no wonder that our cartoons seem to bother the terrorists more than our words. Sitting behind a beer with Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, the talk often turns to Islamic extremeists and their assaults on press freedoms. No one can doubt that editorial cartoonists are leading the fight for press freedoms now.

Today we are are grieving, but as we move forward, I hope that our cartoons won’t be chilled by these murders and that the cartooning community will step up to this challenge with even more brilliant and insightful work – I’m sure the French cartoonists will do that; they are my heroes.