The Charlie Hebdo cartoonist who drew the magazine's front cover following the terrorist massacre at the publication's Paris office in January told French newspaper Libération on Monday that he is to quit the publication.
In an interview published on Libération's website, Renald Luzier — better known as Luz — said that drawing for the satirical magazine had become "too much to bear."
Luz : «Je ne serai plus Charlie Hebdo mais je serai toujours Charlie» http://t.co/54lZorCRiE (@quentingirard)
"There was hardly anyone left to draw; I found myself doing three front pages out of four," Luz added.
"Each issue is torture because the others are gone," he said.
"Spending sleepless nights summoning the dead, wondering what Charb, Cabu, Honore, Tignous [colleagues who died in the attack] would have done is exhausting."
Luz, who had been at the magazine since 1992, described the decision as "a very personal choice."
Days after the attack on the magazine's offices in central Paris, which killed 12 people including many of his high-profile colleagues, Luz drew a cover featuring a tearful prophet Muhammed holding a sign saying "Je Suis Charlie," featuring the headline "All Is Forgiven."
Last month, he told French magazine Inrocks he would stop drawing pictures of the prophet — an act which is considered offensive by many Muslims — as it "no longer interested him."
He will leave Charlie Hebdo in September.