The pen is mightier than the sword

On January 7, 2015, Islamic militant gunmen killed twelve people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, presumably in response to controversial cartoons published by the magazine.

Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker:

“The French cartoonist Stéphane (Charb) Charbonnier liked to say, when jihadis repeatedly threatened to silence him, that he’d rather be dead than live on his knees or live like a rat, so he kept right on drawing and publishing his loud, lewd, provocative, blasphemous caricatures of theocratic bullies. And now he’s dead – he and nine of his colleagues at Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine he edited in Paris – massacred by masked gunmen, who came for them in broad daylight, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ and also killed two policemen before fleeing with a cry, ‘The prophet Muhammad is avenged.’”

Artists and cartoonists from all over the world have responded by paying homage with the indomitable spirit of free speech, identifying their creative tributes on Twitter and Instagram with #jesuischarlie.

I am Charlie.

Gathered from numerous sources, here are some of those imaginative cartoons.