Remembering John Lent, part 2

 

Saluting John Lent

Ian Gordon and ct lim raising a shot of whisky to John Lent in a Philippines pub in Singapore on 18 May 2026. John was a champion of Philippines comics. His book on 100 years of Philippines comics is still much referred to. - CT Lim

 My memory is hazy but I think I first met John in person at ICAF at the Library of Congress in 2007 when he introduced the Malaysian cartoonist Lat. I hadn’t been travelling to conferences or for research in the USA and so this conference was the first time I met a lot of folks including Sarah Duke and Martha Kennedy from the Library of Congress, Charles Hatfield, Matt McAllister (with whom I had already co-edited two books), Marc Singer, Rusty Witek, and Ben Woo. That was quite the line up and also reflected the time when the still emerging comics studies hadn’t yet become a field where the majority of presenters at conferences tend to be women.  For me the conference was a revelation of the maturing of comics studies and it was clear how much work John had done to make that happen. I did not know John as well as many and I might use being based in Singapore as an excuse but he was here in Singapore and Southeast Asia often enough that should have connected more with him as my friend CT Lim did over many years.  CT and I got together for a drink in John’s memory and I heard a few stories for the first time. 

My abiding memory of John is from the Congreso Viñetas Serias at the University of Buenos Aires, in October, 2014 where he presented the keynote address. It was an evening presentation and there were at least 200 people present. John was not fully recovered from an illness, but dynamic. He urged the scholars present to do more work on Argentinian comics (and by extension Brazilian comics since there were so many Brazilians there) and take this to the world. It was John’s evangelicalism of interviewing the artists, gathering the information, and spreading the word and in my visual memory of the night he was a commanding presence using his platform to rouse the crowd. Even if this memory is somewhat colored by a distance and John’s death, it reflects who he was.  As an Australian who works primarily on American comics, I’m a historian of the USA by training, I was not in complete agreement that a national focus should be the only work of comics scholars, but I took the larger point that comics have an international history and presence and this needs to be better examined and those closest to the material are well suited to do so.

Over the years John asked me to contribute to the IJOCA and I was on the editorial board from issue 1. I did write an exhibition review, but it was only in the most recent issue that I finally published an article, an article inspired by Waldomiro Vergueiro’s article in the first issue of the IJOCA. Indeed, my completion of this piece was driven by John urging me to stay busy after I was retired on reaching the compulsory age here in Singapore. As best as I can tell John was the last of the pioneer generation who broke open the field. I don’t believe in an afterlife but it is fun to imagine Don Ault, Martin Barker,  Tom Inge, David Kunzle, and John in conversation with each other. 

Ian Gordon

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   I'm just a poor uneducated boy who loves comics for what they gave me (and millions of others) - the gift of yearning for literacy, years reading, unwanted intense arguments with parents, teachers and a professor or three over the value, or lack there of, of comics.

    John Lent, his scholarship and writings were like legendary Knights of old who fought for the repressed, the ignored and the little kid who who knew "comics is great stuff." John's work, his voice and credentials made arguments for including comics in the pantheon of literature. His research opened doors others would follow through. John Lent, and so many of you on the Platinum Comics List, have, in my lifetime, brought comics up from the swampy infested dungeon they were consigned to. John Lent, with help, reformed not comics but the scholarly and popular view of them. John fought the fights I am too puny, slightly educated for and ill equipped to win. John Lent fought for more then himself - that is the mark of a true Knight.

    We who are about to read salute you.

Miron Mercury

San Francisco, CA

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John was a pioneering scholar, for sure - his international perspective was ahead of its time, his writings have left a rich legacy, and IJOCA never ceased to amaze. He helped a generation of scholars, and in his quiet way shaped the field, He was also charming, and funny - my lingering memory of him is sharing an elevator for a few floors, during which time he fulminated about the Bushes, and then stepped out and calmly carried on. He will be missed.

Roger Sabin

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So sad to learn of the passing of John Lent, an academic titan in the world of cartooning whose influence stretched far beyond his native USA to Africa, Asia and across the globe. I met John on his visit to South Africa in 2012 and later had the pleasure of serving with him on the board of Cartoonists Rights, where his valuable contributions continued into this year - at age 89. World cartooning has lost a true giant.

John Curtis

Founder, Africartoons. 

Director, Cartoonists Rights (CRNI)

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Me and John E Lent at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, October 2008.

"Someone stole your book while I was in the toilet" – John E Lent.

I first met John A. Lent in 1995, when he came to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to interview me for his journal. Since then, we have maintained our friendship through email and at international cartoon conferences. During my difficult times as a political cartoonist - when I was arrested, jailed, charged in court, and placed under a travel ban - John was someone who always did everything he could to help. I deeply appreciate everything he has done for me.

In July 2019, I produced a book titled Fight Through Cartoons. I sent a free copy to John as a gesture of appreciation. A week later, he wrote back and said this:

Dear Zunar, How are you? Congratulations on your new book which your publisher sent me. I packed it to read while I was at a conference in Madrid. Unfortunately, a passenger on the plane stole it from my seat while I was in the plane's toilet. Please send a replacement copy as I can read it and review it for IJOCA. My address is below. All the best, my longtime friend - John. 

To which I replied that it would be my pleasure to replace it.

RIP John E Lent.

Your kindness and light will always shine on.

Zunar

Award winning international cartoonist

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It was at the 1998 ICAF that John Lent announced the upcoming launch of a new journal to be published and edited by him, the International Journal of Comic Art. Thus began his twenty-seven-year run with that journal, a run brought to an end only now, by his passing.

John faithfully attended ICAF, originally the International Comics and Animation Festival, now the International Comic Arts Forum, for many years. There he gave papers and plenaries, introduced guest artists such as Fang Cheng (2005) and Lat (Mohammed Nor Khalid, 2007), and, from 2005, co-presented ICAF’s Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies. You could say that John was the patron saint of ICAF, even though he was not officially involved in organizing it. Speaking as someone who worked on ICAF for twelve years (1997-2009), I can say that John’s cosmopolitanism and breadth of knowledge were aspirational ideals for us. Moreover, John generously helped arrange guest artists and programming, in the process cementing ICAF’s reputation as the premier comics studies conference of that time. ICAF only felt complete to me when John was there.

In my admittedly nostalgic memory, that year, 1998, was a banner year for ICAF: the first year that the nascent Executive Committee really assumed responsibility for running the conference, the first time ICAF was held entirely on-site at the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland, and a terrific year for international guests, including, among others, the collectives Strip Core (represented by Igor Prassel and Klemenčič), AMOK (Yvan Alagbé and Olivier Marboeuf), and Actus Tragicus (Mira Friedmann, Batia Kolton, Rutu Modan, Yirmi Pinkus, and Itzik Rennert). French scholar Jean-Pierre Mercier gave a keynote, as did Rusty Witek, as did, of course, John. Artists and works I learned about that year quickly found their way into my dissertation-in-progress.

Yet what stands out most vividly in my memory was John’s announcement of the new IJOCA. This was thrilling news. It was sobering, too, in that John was, basically, challenging us all to walk the walk, to earn the “international” in ICAF’s name by opening our eyes, and our horizons, as we never had before. IJOCA was not only about filling the gap left by the cancellation of the groundbreaking journal INKS (in its first incarnation, 1994-1997) but also about taking an emphatically transnational perspective on comics and cartooning. In a way, John was chiding us, albeit gently, for the narrowness of our focus, for the parochialism of our studies. I recall that John had sounded much the same note at a previous Popular Culture Association conference, where he had pointed out how much comics scholarship in the US was blinkered by, essentially, recency basis and perspectives inherited from American comic book and superhero fandom. He was right to encourage a bigger, more inclusive perspective—and IJOCA was his practical means of modeling that perspective, as well as solidifying his international network of contacts among artists and scholars (which made for the most incredible journal masthead I’ve ever seen).

In short, John not only encouraged us to do more, and better, but he enabled us to do it. IJOCA, of course, went on to have a transformative effect on comic studies.

I recall my colleague Ana Merino doing her best, both in 1998 and in later years, to draw attention to IJOCA and build up its subscriber base. She was a sort of evangelist for it! Ana understood right away, and very clearly, what I grasped only vaguely: that IJOCA was a decisive break with the past and a necessary springboard to the future.  

I was proud that John asked me to serve on IJOCA’s Editorial Board, and I’m saddened to think that I did not do more for the journal over the years. I came to take it for granted, as indeed I think many of us took John’s energy and guidance for granted.

There’s about five feet of IJOCA on my office shelf behind me as I type this: a glorious long run of chunky issues in white-and-blue dress. Good lord, what a treasure trove.

RIP John. And thank you. Comics conferences and comics studies will not feel the same, going forward. Your warmth, your endless, surprising stories, and your mentorship will be dearly missed.

Charles Hatfield

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I just learned that John A. Lent has passed away, he is one of the most generous, humble, and genuinely good human beings I have ever known. A pioneer in academic comic studies. I was lucky enough to meet him at ICAF 2019. I was amazed at how much he knew about Cuban comics, and learned later he had interviewed and published about cartoonists I had known and loved growing up in Cuba. I was happy to collaborate with him when I published in The International Journal of Comic Art. So many of us owe John for his love of comics across all cultures and languages. RIP John, an extraordinary human being.

Tania Perez

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth