Paris: cartoons on cartoons

[ by Charles Cameron — free speech, speech balloon style ]

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This one’s background, so we understand the vibe of Charlie Hebdo:

Telling. @Independent illustrates #CharlieHebdo article with pics of magazine's satires on Michael Jackson & Pope. pic.twitter.com/LRtY42ORfZ

— Adam Levick (@adamlevick) January 7, 2015

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Here’s Charlie Hebdo‘s last cartoon before the massacre — probably too recent to be the source of what looks to have been a carefully planned attack:

Meilleurs vœux, au fait. pic.twitter.com/a2JOhqJZJM

— Charlie Hebdo (@Charlie_Hebdo_) January 7, 2015

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And a suggestion: the shortest distance between prediction and prophecy is via instinct:

"Still no attacks in France.We have until end of Jan to present wishes."Chilling prophecy by @Charlie_Hebdo_'s Charb: pic.twitter.com/JpGZ4y4xrk

— François Picard (@FrancoisF24) January 7, 2015

It’s the sense that a scenario is uncannily close to what actually happens later that gives us, in hindsight, the sense that it was prophetic rather than predictive: it’s the frisson, the shiver, that makes the cognitive difference.