Where should cartoonists draw the line?

The most profound struggle among the cartoonist community is where to draw the line, says John Kron.

The creator and creative hand behind the popular series The Cartoon Kronicles, Kron says the constant inner battle within a cartoonist is whether his work is comical or offensive – something he says varies for everyone in the business.

The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo perhaps drew their line slightly differently than he would have.

“While I personally, as a cartoonist, would never have done the drawings they have published, I completely defend their right to do them as part of the principle of free speech.”

Kron, an Australian Jew, admits that last week’s massacre at the weekly magazine’s office in Paris affected him not only as a cartoonist, but first as a human being. It took him a number of hours after the attack had happened, he says, to reflect on what it meant to him to see fellow news artists be taken down for using their right to speak freely. He knew he had to express how he felt somehow, and chose to express it – as many other cartoonists did – in the best way he knows how: He drew a cartoon.

“I really looked at the issue in terms of its very essence, and that is freedom of speech,” he explains.

While many within Kron’s profession used their pens as a symbol of protest against the massacre, flooding the Internet with response cartoons, some say this attack will hinder freedom in journalism and in the press, particularly among cartoonists.

“Undoubtedly, there will be an increased level of fear among some cartoonists. But I think once things settle down, cartoonists will return to their expression of free speech, which is the lifeline of what makes a cartoonist be a cartoonist,” he says.

At the end of the day, Kron maintains, “This attack is about the power of the pen.”

The terror that ripped through the offices of Charlie Hebdo clarifies for him what a strong doctrine this is.

“The fact that freedom of speech has been attacked through the killing of innocent people, in particular journalists and cartoonists and people who work at a newspaper, says how strong freedom of speech is in the Western world,” he notes.

While it is important to understand the line between making an audience laugh and offending someone, it is equally as important to respect where each artist draws that line.

“Obviously at Charlie Hebdo, they pushed that line to the very limits,” he says. “But I completely defend their right to do them [cartoons] as part of the principle of free speech.”

Kron says he will not let this intimidate or inhibit his work in any way, and wants to tell other cartoonists that this is the only way to protest this horrible tragedy.

“Keep doing what we’ve always done. Draw cartoons – it is our strength.”