I have just learned that Brian Moore, better known as the cartoonist Cormac, died recently in Belfast and reading some of the obits that appeared on the situs and elsewhere, it struck me that his role in the development of republican, that is Provo republican, politics was not really given proper recognition by the various writers. He played a small part, for sure, but nonetheless an important one in its way in bringing about the leadership changes in the IRA and Sinn Fein that led us to where we are now.
He was originally a member of one of those Trotskyite groups – don’t ask me which one, but I have a notion it was an offshoot of the post-QUB, Peoples Democracy – which believed that national liberation struggles were more important than class ones, that supporting the Viet Cong and Che Guevara was more relevant than organising in the local Ford plant or giving out leaflets during strikes. In Ireland that meant backing the Provos and so it was that Brian Moore volunteered his services as cartoonist for Republican News and later An Phoblacht-Republican News (AP-RN).
As a cartoonist Brian Moore was strongly influenced by the American underground comix tradition of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s which was especially rich in the San Francisco area. That was no accident since San Francisco was at the centre of the Sixties counterculture ferment which was defined by political radicalism, disdain for mainstream values and liberal attitudes towards sex and drug use, all themes that were meat and drink in the global of underground comix.
The comix were mostly self-published and although they had small circulations the cultural influence of publications like Zap Comix and characters like Fritz the Cat or the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers was immense and stretched way beyond the west coast. One of the best of the underground cartoonists was Robert Crumb whose work and that of Brian Moore are strikingly similar. Two of Crumb’s creations, Mr Natural and Keep on Truckin’ could easily have jumped out of a Brian Moore cartoon in AP/RN or vice-versa.