Articles from and news about the premier and longest-running academic journal devoted to all aspects of cartooning and comics -- the International Journal of Comic Art (ISSN 1531-6793) published and edited by John Lent.

Wednesday, June 3, 2026

IJOCA on hiatus

I just spoke with one of John Lent's executors and son and they would like to complete the final issue at least if it's possible, possibly only digitally. The family is also dealing with grief and all the normal activities of a father's passing, so it will take some time to resolve what is going to happen with the Journal. John had a contract to send his library and archives to a museum in China, and that is another thing to be dealt with. 

Those of you who knew John probably know he ran the Journal on a shoestring, using his own money and an aging computer, and kept it all in his head. As I have written, he did 95% of the work on it. He had articles printed out for him, hand-edited them, and then had the corrections typed in by an assistant. The Journal then was formatted by a volunteer editor in Korea. It was not a sleek, modern publishing operation and it's amazing how much he achieved with it. 

Literally, neither the family nor I know what has been submitted for the issue.

If you see this, and have submitted a piece, please let me know with your name, email, title, and whether or not John had edited it (if you know). If you want to recall your submission to submit elsewhere, let me know. 

If you submitted a piece directly to me, I'm still planning on editing them for publication on the blog, and then they will be included in the final issue if that happens. If you would like to recall your work to submit elsewhere, please let me know.

At the moment, new subscriptions, purchases of past issues, and submissions of articles are all suspended. 

Mike Rhode
ass't editor 

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