For a long time after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, on January 7, 2015, the burden of guilt weighed heavily on Corinne Rey, aka Coco. Held at gunpoint with an AK-47, she had opened the door of the satirical newspaper to the Kouachi terrorist brothers. She found refuge after that in drawing and in the team spirit of a newsroom team fundamentally enamored of freedom.

Fill in the blank: I wouldn’t have gotten here if…

… If I hadn’t held on to on drawing, and if I hadn’t been supported in that direction. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to make a job out of it, but I didn’t know which one in particular. A professor at the Ecole Européenne Supérieure de l’Image in Poitiers was instrumental in advising me to apply for an internship at Charlie Hebdo. My father, a salesman, also encouraged me a lot. He played guitar and saxophone in several bands in Haute-Savoie, and he was receptive to drawing. Drawing can be perceived as something for clowns, not as a “real” profession. That can thwart vocations, but I never doubted mine.

Why?

Because I love to draw. Even when I’m not working, I draw for the pleasure of drawing, like a hobby. Drawing creates a bubble in which I feel at ease. At the time, it was also an way out, an escape from many a pain, sometimes.

What are they? A few years ago, you mentioned “alcohol problems at home”…

It’s true, even if I’ve never liked talking about it. It’s incomparable, but drawing also proved to be a form of escape after the attack. We had to carry on making the newspaper and escape from all the images we had in our heads. Drawing is about exercising the imagination, concentrating and thinking. It takes up mental space, and can help you escape from very difficult, even appalling, situations.

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