London, April 30 (IANS) A cartoonist who designed the front page of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, said he will no longer draw the Prophet Mohammad, media reported on Thursday.
The magazine’s office in Paris was attacked on January 7. The two Islamaist attackers — Cherif and Said Kouachi — killed at least 12 people including its chief editor.
Renald Luzier has told French magazine ‘Inrocks’ that drawing Mohammad “no longer interests me”.
Within days of the attack, the satirical magazine’s surviving staff produced a defiant edition with the headline “All is forgiven” above Luz’s cartoon showing the Prophet weeping, while holding a sign saying “I am Charlie”.
“I’ve got tired of drawing Mohammad, just like I got tired of drawing Sarkozy. I’m not going to spend my life drawing them,” Luz said.
Luz is about to release a book of cartoons entitled “Catharsis”, which he says in his interview, was his way of expressing himself after the murder of his colleagues.
Following the January attack, the magazine’s normal print run of 60,000 eventually climbed to eight million.
A new format of the magazine is set to release in September.