Bad Taste: John Lennon

The scan: sc-n177-dec-17-1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

This text was corrected by hand against the scan: the strip at the foot of page 2, which the machine reading did not see; image taken from the scan and its lettering transcribed (18 Oct 2026). One of Cormac's Bad Taste strips: John Lennon. Note: no number printed; the title panel carries the slogan "Remember Armagh and H-Block".

page 2 of the scan

Five-panel cartoon strip after the murder of John Lennon: a man is moved by the death of a superstar musician and finds the comparisons with the Kennedy assassination inappropriate — ludicrous: Lennon was not responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese peasants. — Cormac, "Bad Taste" (unnumbered), Socialist Challenge no. 177, 17 December 1980, page 2. From the Marxists Internet Archive scan.

The strip, panel by panel

1. BAD TASTE by Cormac. "Remember Armagh and H-Block".

2. "I didn't think that I would ever be moved by the death of a superstar musician but when I heard of John Lennon's death —"

3. "— Ah well — and I suppose the comparisons with the Kennedy assassination were inevitable if inappropriate."

4. "Inappropriate?! Ludicrous and tasteless in the extreme!! I mean to say —"

5. "— John Lennon was not responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands Vietnamese peasants!"