Remembering John Lent, part 6

 

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 I never met John Lent. I have no stories to tell about him. I have nothing relevant to add to the contributions of those, friends and family, close to him. That is why, besides being saddened by the awful news, writing something in his memory was not my intention. I meant to write nothing that is, until I remembered how much I admired him as a defender of cartoonists' rights. More than that, how much I admired him as a defender of freedom of speech, against corporations, against dictators, against the powerful who, everyday, everywhere, stifle us by any means available to them: by the use of force, or, simply, denying cartoonists a forum to publish their satire and criticisms, including editorial policies which lead to self-censorship. 

The disappearance of John Lent's voice in his "Editor's Notes" and other features in IJOCA will be sorely missed. We all know the sorry state the world is right now. To the best of my knowledge, I see no one replacing him in this sea of conformity and hate we are living in...
 

Domingos Isabelinho

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 As the editor of the International Journal of Comic Art, John Lent provided a venue for comics scholarship when there were few other options. IJOCA became one of the pillars of the newly emergent field of comics studies, and much of what came after rests on his work. John published my first academic article, as he did for so many other scholars, and he continued to support us throughout our careers. He was a role model for passionate, engaged scholarship, setting an example for us all.

There’s one story from the early years of IJOCA that will always stick with me. A graduate student contributor (unaware that John always favored a muscular interpretation of academic fair use) requested permission from DC Comics to reprint four panels from their comics. The company denied his request, likely because the article addressed the comics’ response to allegations of Batman and Robin’s homosexuality in the 1950s. 

John, unwilling to risk the new journal’s future on a legal challenge, found a novel way to register his protest while keeping the lawyers at bay: he ran a large blank box where the images would have appeared, with the caption “DC Comics would not grant permission for the use of this four-panel series.”

That wasn’t the end of John’s objections. The story of DC’s denial ran in The Comics Journal and Lingua Franca before getting picked up by the Advocate. Long before anyone had heard of the Streisand Effect, John was making sure that DC’s attempts to censor our scholarship would backfire. I’ve always admired that response and the lessons that it taught me about working in academia, or any other institution: Don’t comply in advance, and always make the bastards do their own dirty work.

I’ve had many occasions to tell that story to other scholars, most recently at a comics conference in May. I didn’t know it at the time, but John was already in the hospital. He’s gone now, but the story lives on. So does the work he leaves behind, the many friends and scholars he mentored along the way, and the field that would not exist in its present form without him.

Marc Singer

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 RIP John A. Lent

John was a super human who played major role in getting comics studies on a steady footing in academia. He was also a very generous man. He will be very much missed.

I will post a few images I drew almost 20 years ago of John appearing within various images from old-style Japanese manga history. These were done for the Interplanetary Journal of Comic Art (IPJoCA) , a festschrift in honor of John Lent on his 70th birthday  put together by Michael Rhode in 2006.

Figure 1. Newly discovered 12th century picture scroll pre-dating the Choju Giga (John being chased by a rabbit and frogs. A Chojugiga "Scroll of frolicking animals”parody.)

Figure 2.“Bubbles” from Toba-e Akubi-dome Paato tsu (1720) by Takahara Satchusai. (John blowing speech balloons)

Figure 3. “The Other Side of the Person Who Preaches Prohibition of Alcohol as Seen by a Cartoonist” (ca. 1920) by Futokibara Seiki. (John as the artist and first manga historian Hosokibara Seiki)

Figure 4. Shimaga Keizo’s 1940 comic strip Neko-nana Sensei. (A parody of a popular Shimada Keizo strip, Neko-shichi sensei strip, in which the protagonist expresses anti-American sentiment. An angry John Lent appears in the final panel.)

Figure 5. Untitled 1956 cartoon by Oshima Ko from his weekly strip Sennin Mura.(John appearing in a redrawn version of one of Kojima Kou's Sennin Mura strips. In it the running character blurs into a seeries of speed or movement lines. In panel 3, John Lent yells the character, "Hey! Stop!". In panel four, as the character has stops, the movement lines all fall like sticks to the ground.)

Bonus image an illustration I sent to John celebrating his 70th birthday.

 Ronald Stewart

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John's bookshelf of his books and publication. Photo by Xu Ying.