Remembering John Lent, part 8

John A. Lent with his book Asian Comics (2015) at the Art and Design International Conference (AnDIC) in Malaysia in 2016.  

 

 Thank you John Lent

 ”Thank you very much, Muliyadi.  With that amount, I have to stay alive for five more years.  [...] I appreciate your loyalty and friendship.  John”. 

Those were the words of John A. Lent in an email sent to me on Thursday June 24, 2021 at 12.20 am, after receiving a remittance of USD300 from me as payment to continue the subscription to the International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) which was founded and published by him.  Unexpectedly, his words came true when he passed away on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at the age of 90.

In 1991, two Mass Communication lecturers of Mara Institute of Technology (ITM) namely, Sankaran Ramanathan and Mohd. Hamdan Adnan introduced me to John Lent who was visiting Malaysia.  It was one of the most important moments in my journey as a lecturer and researcher of comics and cartoons as the friendship with John Lent paved a way for me to global cartoons and actively being involved in research on the art form.

In 1997, while doing my PhD research entitled Malay Editorial Cartoons: The Development of Style and Critical Humour at the Cartoon and Caricature Studies Centre, University of Kent, at Canterbury, in the United Kingdom, John Lent invited me to contribute an essay on “The History of Malaysian Editorial Cartoons” to the Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science (National University of Singapore, Vol.25 No. 1 1997) that he was editing, focusing on the subject of Cartooning and Comic Art in Southeast Asia.  John Lent’s invitation gave me an opportunity and a platform to publish the early findings of my research.   

That invitation was the beginning of many other projects and collaborations with him, including the book entitled Animation in Asia and the Pacific (London: John Libbey, 2001), the Society of Animation Studies conference in Australia (1999), essays in the International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA), the book entitled Transnationalism in East and Southeast Asian Comics Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 edited by him, Wendy Siuyi Wong and Benjamin Wai-ming Ng) and many more.  John Lent was a great supporter of my career and I am enormously indebted to him.

In 2016, while still teaching at the Faculty of Art and Design, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), as the Chairman of the Art and Design International Conference (AnDIC) organized by the faculty, we were able to to invite John Lent to deliver the keynote at the conference entitled ”Cyberology Relative to Themes and Issues of an Art Form Upstart-Comic Art” at the Concorde Hotel in Shah Alam, Malaysia on October 10, 2016.  It was indeed an honour to me and the faculty that he had agreed to come to the event as well as meeting with some local comic artists and cartoonists.    

John Lent was a role model who continously encouraged and inspired me to write and research.  His works have always been references for me as well as for my students, especially those who are doing research in visual culture, comics and cartoons.  He inspired us on the potential and the future of comics and cartoons as an art form as well as a field of study. 

John Lent was a very reverend and humble person who was very approachable especially in discussing academic matters related to comic art, the world of cartooning and media studies. He was a role model and inspiration for others. His passing is a loss to the world of comics and cartoons and his contributions to the field of study will always be remembered.  Thank you John!

 I send sincere condolences to his family and friends.

 Muliyadi Mahamood

Former Professor of Cartoon Studies

Faculty of Art and Design

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)

MALAYSIA.

 

John A. Lent

To:  me · Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 12:20 am

Message Body

Thank you very much, Muliyadi. With that amount,

I have to stay alive for five more years. 😏I will

change your address.

I appreciate your loyalty and friendship. John

 

669 Ferne Blvd.

Drexel Hill, PA, 19026 USA
http://www.ijoca.net/

 A copy of an email sent by John Lent to me on Jun 24, 2021. 

John Lent with me while visiting an exhibition of Malaysian cartoons at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2012.

 

John Lent with me and some other Asian comic scholars, from left Lim Cheng Tju (Singapore), Karl Ian Cheng Chua (The Philippines) and Hikmat Darmawan (Indonesia) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2018.

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 I was fortunate enough to know and work with John for only a short period of time, but it was something I will always consider a significant honor. As a new comics scholar, the work he did in the comics world felt almost mythic. However, even more special was the fact that he had the rare quality of genuinely embodying that myth up close as well as from a distance. I have no doubt that he will be missed and remembered as long as we continue to study comics. 

 Grace Wright Hulme

Grace updated IJOCA's index for its 25th anniversary 

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"Blistering blue bibliographies! What's wrong with this engine?!?" On back roads in Africa, John Lent generally used a modified engine and gapped his spark plugs slighly smaller to prevent spark blowout under high cylinder pressures.

 Car Tuning in Africa - the lost InterGalactic Journal of Comic Art page by Gene Kannenberg Jr, Rusty Witek and Darko Macan.