Graphical terrorism? Bazooka, punk and the quest for radical change in 1970s France

This article considers the work of Bazooka, a small art collective comprising artists, graphic designers and strip-cartoonists who worked in Paris between 1975 and 1980. It thereby illuminates connections between youth and politics on the one hand, and emergent youth subcultures such as punk on the other. Its particular focus is on the group’s quasi-terroristic presence at the left newspaper Libération in 1977, and its challenge to key elements of post-1968 leftist practice. Drawing on this challenge, the article argues that debates about the meaning and legacy of the 1960s in general, and 1968 in particular, should incorporate understanding of the 1970s as a key period for the contested transmission of the legacies of 1968, alongside the more common focus on the generational trajectories of the so-called 68ers themselves.