At the end of June 2023, covers of foreign publications Charlie Hebdo and Humor Times appeared on the Internet, ridiculing the President of Ukraine. We decided to check if these are real covers.
French magazine Charlie Hebdo
On June 23, a cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo began circulating online. In the drawing, Zelensky stands in front of a bank employee, supporting the corpse of a drowned man from behind and uttering the phrase, as if for him: “I am a survivor from Titan, and I would like to give all my money to Ukraine.” On the wall, to clarify the context, is a TV with a picture of the Titan bathyscaphe, castaway June 18. This deep-sea vehicle dived to the wreckage of the Titanic, and a British billionaire was among the passengers. Hamish Harding. He, apparently, is depicted by the drowned man in the caricature. This supposedly new cover of Charlie Hebdo was reported, for example, by Telegram channels “ZeRada"(252,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ostashko! Important" (148,000), "Nose"(117,000), "Ukraine.ru"(88,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(80,000), "Notepad Russia" (65,000) and "Tsargrad TV"(62,000).
In the upper left corner of the image being distributed, it is indicated that this is a special issue (numéro spécial) No. 1614 of June 23, 2023. According to archive on the magazine’s official website, the most recent issue that had been published by that time was issue No. 1613, dated June 21. Charlie Hebdo is traditionally released digitally on Wednesdays and in print on newsstands on Thursdays. There were no special issues at all in the second half of June.
On cover No. 1613 there was a completely different drawing: a caricature depicting French President Emmanuel Macron.
On June 28th he came out and real No. 1614 - on its cover there is also a completely different cartoon dedicated to armed rebellion founder of the Wagner PMC Evgeny Prigozhin. In the drawing, Prigozhin holds Putin in his teeth, and the caption reads: “Will these two assholes ruin our holidays?”
The viral image added the artist's signature - Juin. There really is such an author in Charlie Hebdo, his name is Pierrick Juin. But in gallery There are no covers by this artist on the website of the publication of such a cartoon, and in general his drawings are made in a different style.
Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, several Charlie Hebdo covers have been dedicated Putin, and none to Zelensky. In the Russian segment of Telegram, meanwhile, over the past year, at least ten fake covers of the French satirical publication appeared, which depicted the President of Ukraine, Ukrainian military personnel and Ukrainian citizens. In particular, the authors of the fake covers depicted Zelensky, stealing the gifts of the Magi, portrayed the President of Ukraine in the form of a dog, ridiculed energy crisis provoked by Russian shelling of Ukrainian cities.
The primary source of the fake cover with Zelensky and the drowned man was the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation", where the post with the cover appeared on June 23 at 18:15 Moscow time (10,000 views). It is in this channel that fake covers of foreign publications most often appear: Charlie Hebdo, El Jueves, Courier International, Eulenspiegel, The New European.
American magazine Humor Times
On June 20, the cover of the American satirical magazine Humor Times appeared on the Internet. The caricature shows a DeLorean DMC-12 from the film trilogy "Back to the Future"Knocks down Zelensky. The film characters sitting in the car say: “On the way to the future, there is only one little thing left to complete.” Telegram channels, in particular, wrote about this cover “DPR 🅉 Info 🇷🇺" (48,000), "TeleDno"(25,000), "Antichips | Live news channel"(22,000) and Abbas Djuma (11,000).
In the upper left corner of the viral image it is indicated that this is issue No. 375, in the right corner there is the inscription “July 2023”. On the official website there is cover archive since 1991, but the latest ones date back to 2022. However, numbers for 2023 can be found in section, where individual issues can be ordered. Issue 375 for July 2023 in this section is now available, and on its cover is a completely different image - a caricature of Mike Pence, the former Vice President of the United States (2017-2021), who recently announced his desire to run for the presidency in 2024.
There are also smaller technical details that distinguish a fake cover from a real one. In particular, this is the font of secondary inscriptions. Above the name of the magazine on all issues it is indicated that previously (until 2007) the publication was called Comic Press News. From number to number the style of this inscription doesn't change. But on the fake cover the font is different from the real ones: the spacing between the letters is larger, and the quotation marks are also different.
As in the case of Charlie Hebdo, the earliest post with this fake cover on Telegram that could be found “Verified” was an entry in the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation", posted on June 20 at 13:15 Moscow time (11,000 views).
Cover photo: collage “Checked”
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky and the Ukrainian church?
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky, Ukraine and Easter?
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky and Ukraine?
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers with cartoons dedicated to Zelensky, the Dalai Lama and Swiss banks?
- Is it true that a Spanish magazine published these covers with Zelensky and NATO leaders?
- Is it true that foreign satirical magazines published these covers dedicated to the words of the Pope about the Chechens and Buryats?
- Is it true that on three covers of Charlie Hebdo the President of Ukraine is depicted as a dog?
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