Thursday hijacked. Click to see complete
Front cover of the magazine El Jueves 1.573 with drawing by Guillermo and script by Manel
A cover for (shameful) history
The cover of the 1.573rd issue of"El Jueves" will surely be the most viewed in the history of this magazine, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. I have no problem writing another 30 years about the absurdity of the measure of hijacking the magazine, so this will be a longpost.
In the image and under a red text that reads "2,500 euros per child ", alluding to the aid that the Government will grant to the families of children born from now on, there is a caricature of Felipe practicing the "doggy style" with Letizia while he comments to her:
"Do you realise? If you get pregnant? This is going to be the closest thing to work
I've ever done in my life!"
I will treasure my original. An exclusive piece of evidence of the coronary heart disease in this country. I have already deposited my magazine in the safe and made myself strong at home to keep the kidnappers out.
Destroying "the mould", it all looks like a cartoon from El Jueves
Judge del Olmo has asked for the "mould" of the cover to be destroyed so that it cannot be reproduced again, the judge believes that the cartoons are drawn with a chisel on marble, which has brought millions of visits to the magazine's website and has ensured the full sale of next week's edition and maybe two or three more. A master of the viral.
Download Preliminary Proceedings Order(PDF)
Guillermo Torres (resident in Seville), author of the drawing with script by Manel Fontdevila (author of "La parejita") has answered the 43 questions of the readers in a digital meeting in El Mundo that curiously has given a very complete coverage to the matter. (I sent a couple of questions but there was a long queue)
Del Olmo, that great publicist, has been spared the kidnapping as it has sold out at all points of sale in just 20 seconds.
Hijacking
The Spanish constitution forbids prior censorshipof publications, but allows for seizure once on the street if a judge determines that it violates certain fundamental rights.
Prosecutor Miguel Angel Carballo, who has acted at the behest of the Attorney General's Office, plans this afternoon to extend the request for the magazine's withdrawal to websites and wherever it is displayed.
If they intend to remove it from the internet, they should start hiring people because I fear they have work for years, the image is being reproduced at breakneck speed.
The reactions follow one after the other on the web, which once again gives a lesson in monitoring the traditional media and barely gives time to follow them. Thus the veteran Mauro Entrialgo in his El País blog, as well as creating this great cartoon on the issue of the "mould", was very active in blogs and communities adding his point of view.
Reactions
José María Varona, vice-president of FECO Spain, the national branch of the federation of European cartoonists, believes that the magazine "has gone too far" with the cover and that "it is in bad taste", an expression that has been repeated by many media in an attempt to stay looking from afar but taking advantage of the media's pull in the hunt for readers, listeners or viewers, but yes, all of them showing the cover.
Varona also adds:
"I contacted my colleagues at El Jueves when I found out what they had done and told them that, in my opinion, they had gone too far, that the cover was vulgar. The President of the Government and his wife, for example, and any of us and our families would not like to be depicted in a situation like the one in which the Prince and Princess of Asturias appear"
These statements by Jose Maria Varona, FECO vice-president, leave his partners and pencil-pushing colleagues in a very bad place. Not only for turning their backs on them, but also because I believe they have not been consulted, (See Malagón's e-mail to FECO asking if these statements are from FECO or a personal opinion). Whether you belong to FECO or not, I suggest you take a stand on these statements by leaving Malagón your opinion on the communiqué on his blog.
FECO finally replies to Malagón by issuing this statement that closes this matter.
Official FECO statement
The undersigned, members of FECO SPAIN, declare:
That the opinion of Mr. José-Mª Varona, 2nd Vice-President of FECO ESPAÑA, in relation to the kidnapping of the magazine "El Jueves", published in "El Pais" last Friday does not represent at all the feeling of this Federation of Cartoonists, being a totally particular opinion.
That freedom of expression is a constitutional right and the seizure of the satirical magazine "El Jueves" is a clear attack on it. That the limits to freedom of expression are the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That this attack takes us back to times we considered to be past and causes us shame and embarrassment.
Enrique Pérez Penedo "ENRIQUE" President of FECO SPAIN
Juli Sanchis Aguado "HARCA" 1st Vice-president
Marçal Abellà "MARÇAL" Marçal Abellà "MARÇAL" Marçal Abellà
Antonio Marrugat "MARRUGAT" Antonio Marrugat "MARRUGAT" Ermengol Tolsà "MARRUGAT
Ermengol Tolsà "ERMENGOL" Ermengol Tolsà "ERMENGOL" Jesus Zulet "ZULET
Jesús Zulet "ZULET
Xaquin Marín "X.MARIN" Xaquin Marín "X.MARIN" Joaquin Aldeguer "ALDEGER
Joaquin Aldeguer "ALDEGUER" Joaquin Aldeguer "ALDEGUER" Melchor Prats "MELCHOR PRATS
Melchor Prats "MEL"
"MALAGON"
Press release from Ficomic on the hijacking of the magazine.
Varona on FECO's communiqué to El País:
ATTENTION: CORRESPONDENT OF "EL PAÍS"
Dear friend:
Following our telephone conversation this afternoon, I am sending you the requested note with the request that you send it to the newspaper's website.
In relation to the news item that appeared yesterday in elpais.com, about the cover of the latest issue of El Jueves, I would like to inform you of the following:
That at no time have I spoken on behalf of FECO ESPAÑA (member of the International Federation of Cartoonists) or any other cartoonists' association to which I belong.
Any statement that I have made or may make on the matter, are exclusively private, as other colleagues have done.
That at no time did I use the word "foul", although I did express my disagreement with scenes such as the one published -and with that one in particular-, in which members of the royal family, the government or any of us may appear -out of respect for the human condition-.
That at all times I have stated that I am against the kidnapping, firstly because it is useless, since it has multiplied by a thousand what it was intended to repair, given the national and international coverage of this affair, and especially because I am a fervent defender of freedom of expression.
It is the same position I adopted when it came to the Muhammad cartoons.
At no time did I claim that on this occasion I had called the colleagues of El Jueves. I did say, however, that on a certain occasion I had approached a colleague from that magazine to comment on certain content.
I think that the lady who phoned me must have made a mess of everything, probably without bad intentions, and ended up mixing up concepts, giving rise to a text with which I cannot agree.
With best regards
José María Varona
Other stragglers, such as El Listo, showed their solidarity in a funny attempt to call on Judge Del Olmo to "publicise" his cartoon in support of the magazine.Statement by the AACE (Spanish Association of Comic Book Authors)
El Listo explains it like this:
"Hey, you may have heard by now that Judge Del Olmo has ordered the withdrawal of a humour magazine because he didn't like the cover, as in those wonderful years.
Today's comic, rather than a comic, is a little parida as a tribute and provocation, lest this also works for us and we suddenly get more visits"
That's why a group of fellow cartoonists in a common blog started to compile them: http://comicsenblog.blogspot.com/search/label/el%20jueves and among others you can see vignettes like this one by Runtime-error, who on his page invites anyone who wants to use it on his blog to do so freely:
The friends of the magazine CRETINO publish this "tuning"
of the cover of the discord adding new identities and script to the cartoon giving it a touch of actuality not yet "exploited" by the multiple versions that already circulate around.
In case you don't read the text properly:
"Imagine, my dear, with this money..."
"The number of limpet bombs we're going to be able to buy"
There is also a succession of "political" reactions as Eduardo Madina, PSOE deputy also defends El Jueves although he takes the opportunity to ask Del Olmo to act against Jimenez Losantos
for an article published in Libertad Digital, entitled EL GOLPE DE ESTADO DEL PSOE y ERC (THE COUP OF STATE OF THE PSOE AND ERC)
It seems that there is a disguised unwritten pact to abandon the kidnapped to their fate, as if not wanting to get involved... it seems ugly, very ugly to me.
However, I have been able to obtain some statements from the Royal Household on the kidnapping decision which I reproduce verbatim here:
The seizure of publications by order of the judges after Franco's death for information related to the Crown considered injurious is nothing new, although the last time it happened for this reason was more than 20 years ago.
In the media
It is assumed that all media editors already have their opinions well thought out, but...
Arsernio Escolar, 20 Minutos: "I don't think there are grounds for the prosecutor's request, nor for the judge's decision" ,adding that the magazine has been subjected to a huge marketing campaign
José Luís Rodríguez Zarzalejos, ABC: The cover of 'El Jueves' is 'absolutely denigrating, not only because it is a caricatured representation of the Princes, but also because they are two citizens who have the right to privacy and to their own image and honour, which this cartoon violates in a crude and explicit way'.
"Moreover, being the heir to the Crown, there is 'an additional reason that the Penal Code includes as insults to the Crown" promise an editorial on 21 July (we have to make some money)
La Razón , for the same reason as ABC did not even want to make statements to EFE and reserves them for its editorial on 21 July.
El Mundo does the same, although it already anticipates that the kidnapping measure "seems wrong to it"
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