Who Is Charlie Hebdo?

Stéphane Charbonnier, the late editor of Charlie Hebdo           Michel Euler/AP

By now, news of the horrific massacre at a Paris-based satirical weekly called Charlie Hebdo has made the rounds, and protesters around the world are holding signs proclaiming "Je Suis Charlie," or "I am Charlie." So who is this Charlie Hebdo? Simply put, no one. The "Hebdo" is a common abbreviation of the word "hebdomadaire," which means "weekly" in French. And the "Charlie"? A little more complicated. It's an allusion to Charlie Mensuel (Charlie Monthly), a magazine co-founded by Georges Bernier, who also founded the magazine that became Charlie Hebdo. The "Charlie" was for ~ who else? ~ Charlie Brown, the main character in the Peanuts comic strip that the magazine ran. It was also a joke about former French president Charles de Gaulle, and that part is a longer story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo