When Frank Shiers Jr. first learned about the shooting at the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, on Jan. 7 in Paris, he was “surprised, shocked and horrified.”
The event, carried out by two masked gunmen, claimed the lives of 12 people, including the publication’s editor, seven magazine employees, two officers with the French National Police, as well as a building maintenance worker and someone who was visiting the magazine as a guest. There were also 11 more people who were injured from the attack.
THEIR JOB TO PROVOKE
The motive for the massacre is said to be the publication’s cartoons, which made jokes about Islamic leaders and the prophet Muhammad.
“The cartoonists were doing their jobs,” said Shiers, a cartoonist himself.
Shiers’ editorial cartoons are featured in a number of Reporter newspapers, including the Redmond Reporter, and other publications with Sound Publishing — which owns the Reporter.
“I’m in 19 newspapers,” he said.
The 59-year-old Shiers, who lives along the border of Redmond and Bellevue, has been cartooning his entire life and said some of his earliest memories are of cartoons. When he was a little boy, he would copy or trace cartoons he enjoyed such as Bugs Bunny from the “Looney Tunes” and various characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip. He also enjoyed satirical comic strips such as “Li’l Abner” and “Pogo,” which featured social and political commentary.
“I got the jokes,” he said about why he enjoyed them (in addition to the cartoonists’ artwork).
Those early days of enjoying the comics helped develop Shiers’ sense of humor and eventually, led to a career as a cartoonist.
He said the job of an editorial cartoon is to incite and provoke and if it is not doing that, it is not as strong as it could be. His section of the newspaper, he said, is the one that most easily can provoke an emotional response.
“I’m not doing my job if I’m not provoking someone,” he said. “That’s what the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were doing. They were prompting an emotional reaction from the reader. That’s their job. And they were murdered for it.”
NO STRANGER TO CONTROVERSY
Since the first time he was paid for one of his cartoons in 1979, Shiers has used his art to comment on a little bit of everything — from the cultural to the societal to the political. And in those three and a half decades, he has faced his fair share of controversy. People’s reactions may not have ended in violence, but Shiers said one actually ended with him losing a job.
In this particular situation, he had drawn a cartoon commenting on undocumented immigrants. The cartoon depicted what institutions such as a school, hospital and prison would look like without undocumented immigrants (with each place having significantly fewer people). After the cartoon ran in a newspaper, the publisher gave Shiers a call.
“He fired me on the spot and told me I was a racist,” he said.
Shiers apologized at the time and said that was not the intention of his cartoon. He said he had made sure to do the research to get his facts correct. He also added that when he submits his cartoons to newspapers every week, he usually sends them two or three options with varying levels of controversy. In this case, the newspaper’s editor chose to run the more controversial of the options he submitted.
AN ATTACK ON ALL JOURNALISTS
Shiers described the terrorists as evil people who did something truly evil. The attack on the French magazine is “really an attack on all of us,” he said, referring to journalists. Shiers, who is also a writer, editor and anchor for KIRO Radio, said if last week’s attacks lead to journalists censoring themselves out of fear, “that is a place that we don’t want to go to in our society.” He said free speech is an absolute value.
“It’s precious and it is important,” he said. “It is necessary.”
Shiers said the events at Charlie Hebdo are deeply troubling. While some claim the publication “had it coming” because of its offensive content, he said that does not justify a shooting or any other act of violence on any level.
“You cannot blame the victim,” Shiers said.
He said the best solution is for cartoonists and others to continue with their work, sending the message that no one has the right to suppress free speech in the name of the prophet, or anyone else.
Shiers also pointed out that the United States was founded on free speech. He said if it weren’t for free speech, we would still be subjects of the Queen. The founding fathers utilized their free speech and it sparked the American Revolution.
“It provoked a war,” he said.
