El Jueves

El Jueves

Editor	J.L. Martín, Jordi Sellas
Categories	Satirical magazine
Frequency	Weekly
Publisher	Ediciones El Jueves, S.A.
Founder	José Luis Martín Zabala
Year founded	1977
Company	RBA Edipresse
Country	Spain
Based in	Barcelona
Language	Spanish
Website	www.eljueves.es

El Jueves (Spanish for "Thursday") is a Spanish satirical weekly magazine published in Barcelona. Its complete title is "El Jueves, la revista que sale los Miércoles" ("Thursday, the magazine that comes out on Wednesdays").

History and profile

El Jueves was founded by José Luis Martín Zabala in 1977.^[1][2][3] The magazine was acquired by Grupo Zeta in October of the same year.^[4] In 2007 RBA Edipresse acquired the magazine,^[5] of which headquarters is in Barcelona.^[2]

El Jueves has a leftist political stance and a critical approach.^[6]

The magazine has between 72 and 80 pages with about 20 pages about current political, economic or social affairs, always in an irreverent tone and in comic format. The rest are weekly strips. An extra is edited every three months with between 104 and 120 pages about a particular issue: monarchy, religion, videogames or some piece of news related to those or other topics. The magazine has had more than 1,500 issues. Its mascot is the naked jester that has appeared since the beginning on the front page.

Some of the recurring sections of El Jueves are:

• "Te lo juro News", a four-page newspaper parody with comic strips, brief humorous texts and photomontages about current national and international affairs. It's been recently suppressed.
• "Recortes de la prensa seria"(serious press' reports), a section with News of the Weird-like headlines or curiosities published in ordinary press.
• "El gilipollas de la semana" (asshole of the week), about the most ridiculous person of the week according to the El Jueves contributors.
• "En familia" (as a family), letters to the editor. Usually includes the comic "Edgar, working into the Thursday",
• "Tato, sin moto y sin contrato"' Tato, motorbikeless and unemployed), the adventures of a Spanish unemployed man who is always scavenging to somebody else, like his girlfriend.
• "Clara...De noche"(Clara...in the night), about the hard life of a prostitute.
• A poster, generally by Vizcarra.
• The editorial about the current affairs topic that is developed in the first pages of the magazine.

The 2008 circulation of the magazine was 77,495 copies.^[7]

Supplements

With the issue about United States (number 1428), another magazine was published, Mister K, which addresses children and teenagers.

In 2003, El Jueves Campus was first published, a supplement to 20 minutos with several comic strips that focused on students. It is distributed for free on the second Thursday of every month in university areas.

Seizure for insults to the Crown

The 18 July 2007 edition of El Jueves was sequestered by law on 20 July, for an alleged violation of laws 490.3 and 491 on insults to the Crown, since the Prince of Asturias and his wife, who were portrayed with a caricature on the front cover performing a sexual act.^[8][9] This cartoon referred to a new proposal of the government, where €2,500 would be given to parents for each newborn child. As the Prince has never held a paid job, the caption said that if the Princess got pregnant and they got the money, it is the closest he would ever come to working.^[8] The magazine's website was also briefly closed, but soon re-opened. On 13 November 2007, Guillermo Torres and Manel Fontdevila were found guilty of having offended the crown by vilifying "the crown in the most gratuitous and unnecessary way". They were fined €3,000 each.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Reporters without borders discussed the condemation as the first of those that declared that "slightly curtailed" freedom of the press in Spain for year 2007.^[14] The magazine and the journalists appealed to the Constitutional Court of Spain, which, declaring that it “has not been proven that the matter is not of constitutional significance,” refused to hear the appeal, thus confirming the sentence.^[15] The magazine announced that it would bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights, declaring to want to make clear that neither Torres nor Fontdevilla, the two authors, committed a crime, and added "we know it's a long path, but it's necessary to accomplish that the justice declares that a magazine cannot be seized."^[15]

Resignations over abdication front cover cartoon

On 5 and 6 June 2014, 14 senior cartoonists from El Jueves, including former editor Albert Monteys, announced their resignation, citing a dispute over the front cover cartoon with publisher RBA the week King Juan Carlos announced his abdication. A cover of King Juan Carlos passing on a crown of steaming excrement to his son Prince Felipe was agreed upon in a special editorial meeting the Monday morning the king abdicated, but was withdrawn by publisher RBA on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the editorial staff were told no front covers including members of the royal family would be published. Monteys said: “That was a shot right in the back of the neck of El Jueves”, adding that: “The heart, the essence, of El Jueves died on Wednesday”.^[16] A new digital publication, Orgullo y satisfaccion, was started on 18 June 2014 by the cartoonists that walked out from El Jueves magazine.

See also

• List of magazines in Spain

References

1. Salvatore Attardo (18 March 2014). Encyclopedia of Humor Studies. SAGE Publications. p. 474. ISBN 978-1-4833-4617-5. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
2. The Europa World Year: Kazakhstan - Zimbabwe. Taylor & Francis. 2004. p. 3906. ISBN 978-1-85743-255-8. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
3. "Spain's satirical mags back Charlie Hebdo". The Local. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
4. "Grupo Zeta. Historia". Periodismo del Siglo XXI (in Spanish). 9 September 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
5. "Backed into a corner". M&M Global. 21 November 2007. Retrieved 8 June 2015.
6. Martí Domínguez; Anna Marteu (2014). "Are the winds of change blowing in Spain?". Journalism Studies 15 (2). doi:10.1080/1461670X.2013.805014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
7. Alan Albarran (10 September 2009). Handbook of Spanish Language Media. Routledge. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-135-85430-0. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
8. 20 Minutos
9. Carrillo, Marc (2007) Satira y libertad de expresion in El Periódico de Catalunya 2 August 2007
10. "Spain royal sex cartoonists fined". BBC. 13 November 2007. Retrieved 13 November 2007.
11. Recurso de la sentencia de El Jueves
12. "Microsoft Word - Documento1" (PDF). Retrieved 8 November 2012.
13. Una vergonya. "El Jueves" multat. El Pais. 13 November 2007
14. Reporters without borders. Reporters without borders 2008 Annual Report p. 133
15. "'El Jueves' recurre a Estrasburgo la condena por la portada de los Príncipes". Europa Press. 2 November 2009. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
16. Spanish Cartoonists Resign and Journalists are Suspended after Abdication Week Censorship The Spain Report

External links

• El Jueves official site
• censored cartoon of Felipe and Letizia having sex Caption reads: "Do you realise, if you get pregnant this will be the closest thing I've done to work in my whole life."
• Orgullo y satisfacción official site