“El Chigüire Bipolar is playing an increasingly crucial role in resisting Maduro’s campaign to stifle free speech. Its raw humor and exacting analysis demonstrates the great power that satire has in criticizing authoritarian regimes,” said Havel Prize Committee member Garry Kasparov.

The original animated series, created to run along the 2016 Presidential campaign, brings a fresh and humorous perspective of the US candidates in a setting that is “out of this world.”

As Venezuelans battle growing inflation, violence, and shortages, comedy proves a brief but significant respite. From satirical websites to comedy shows, people are looking for outlets to laugh away their anger.

Internet has become the last refuge of political satire in Venezuela after being expunged from open TV channels —under threat of expropriation. Briceño, with Reporte Semanal, and Manuel Ángel Redondo, with Pero Tenemos Patria, each week revolutionize the web.

Having garnered a total viewership of more than 30 million its first two seasons, the series will premiere all-new episodes on YouTube via Electus and Latin WE Hispanic pop culture and lifestyle channel NuevON.

The rise of Chigüire Bipolar, which has already drawn the wrath of state-controlled media here, and a handful of other popular Venezuelan sites focused on politics is taking place within a journalistic atmosphere here that international press groups say is marked increasingly by fear, intimidation and self-censorship.

Millions of people have spent their entire lives ruled by leaders they detest. So we asked a group of comedians, cultural commentators and political satirists from around the world to share their experiences and to offer a tool kit of coping mechanisms for American liberals.