Running Gag, Cut Short

While the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo massacre was unfolding in the media in real time, I came across this drawing (depicting an editorial meeting on a Wednesday, no less) from a 1967 comic by Goscinny and Gotlib. Cabu being late (en retard) with his drawings was evidently a running gag that lasted for half a century, and to which fellow cartoonist Zep has now given a final twist:

Meanwhile, this made-for-social-media bloodbath clearly has the desired effect of strengthening the proponents of ideological Kulturkampf on all sides, and making any genuine social and political analysis and action extremely difficult. Olivier Roy has a good, level-headed take on the situation in Le Monde, but the online version is behind a paywall. In the New Statesman, Žižek displays his knack for dialectical acrobatics in thinking beyond the ideological opposition between Liberal West versus Fundamentalist Islam.