The massacre of 11 people at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this month, in a series of terrorist attacks that also saw the murders of four Jewish hostages in a Paris kosher store and the executions of two police officers, has brought worldwide attention to a publication hitherto little-known outside of France. But the history of the magazine and its outstanding cartoonists remains obscure to many in the Anglophone world. Dan Israel presents here (cartoons included) the five-decade, two-generation story of an eclectic gang of irreverent, anarchic and unapologetic artists who made up the cream of post-war French cartoonists, and questions what will be their legacy.
