'Rocky'.
Rénald Luzier is a French cartoonist and press artist, who works under the pen name Luz. Fascinated by rock, Luz has been a collaborator of the cultural magazines Les Inrockuptibles and Magic, but also of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In 1991-1992, he also published in the anti-Gulf War magazine Le Grosse Bertha. He edited his own fanzine, called Cambouis, collected in book format by L'Association in 2002. He is additionally a contributor to Ferraille magazine and L'Écho des Savanes. His clubbing guide 'Le Dico de la Hype' was published in Fluide Glacial, the magazine to which he has regularly contributed work since 2003.
Work by Luz has been collected in book format by Charlie Hebdo, but also by Hoëbeke and Les Échappés since 1998. Among the titles are 'Les Megret Gerent la Ville', 'Monsieur le Baron', 'King of Club' and several more. Luz has created a biography of Mark Edward Smith, the singer of the band The Fall. Luz is also active a DJ at the Élyssee Montmartre, the Pop In or the Truskel.
On 2 November 2011, Charlie Hebdo released a special issue poking fun at Islam, more specifically Islamic extremism gaining power in Libya and Tunisia. They had previously mocked the religion, were sued for it, but the judge ruled in their favor that their cartoons fell under the right to satire. In this new issue, named 'Sharia Hebdo' for the occasion (referencing Islamic religious law sharia), Luz designed the cover, portraying the Prophet Muhammad promising potential readers: "100 whiplashes if you don't die from laughter." The same day, the magazine received death threats, while their website was hacked and their office victim of a terrorist petrol bomb attack. Nobody was wounded and the editors firmly stated they would not be intimidated.
The situation went way out of hand on 7 January 2015, when Muslim terrorists invaded Charlie Hebdo's office in Paris and murdered nearly all editors and cartoonists inside. Luz was lucky: he was late for the planned meeting and thus escaped the tragic event. However, in the press he was frequently confused with another Charlie Hebdo contributor who escaped the event, Willem. While Luz had merely missed his train, Willem never attended Charlie Hebdo's meetings in the first place, but was in Paris that day, because he went to a meeting of another magazine he published in: Libération. In the very next Charlie Hebdo issue after the attacks, Luz drew a cover depicting a Muslim terrorist kissing a cartoonist, with the title "Love is stronger than hate."
'L' Écho des Savanes' (2006), poking fun at French socialist politician Ségolène Royal. The comic refers to a real-life incident where a French pupil was beaten with a coathanger. Royal says she wants to ban coathangers in school. Someone in the crowd feels this is stupid: "Why not ban suitcases altogether?", outraging Royal who doesn't want to give conservative politician Nicolas Sarkozy the monopoly on this coathanger matter. She insults the man in the crowd by ironically calling him "leftist".