Lim, Cheng Tju. 1993. Comic Book Confidential: Meet John Lent, who’s giving comics a scholatic (sic) slant. Big O (January): 64-65. Scan online at https://ijoca.blogspot.com/2026/03/ct-lim-interviewed-john-lent-in-1993.html
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| CT's notes from the interview. |
IJOCA's publisher and editor John Lent has been nominated for one of his volumes of histories covering the non-Western world of comics. Congratulations to him.
Best Academic/Scholarly Work
Asian Political Cartoons, by John A. Lent (University Press of Mississippi)
Other awardees can be seen at https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/
A comprehensive and heavily illustrated exploration of Asian political cartooning
2023 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
2024 Eisner Award Nominee for Best Academic/Scholarly Work
In Asian Political Cartoons,
scholar John A. Lent explores the history and contemporary status of
political cartooning in Asia, including East Asia (China, Hong Kong,
Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan), Southeast Asia
(Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, and Vietnam), and South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal,
Pakistan, and Sri Lanka).
Incorporating hundreds of interviews, as well as textual analysis of cartoons; observation of workplaces, companies, and cartoonists at work; and historical research, Lent offers not only the first such survey in English, but the most complete and detailed in any language. Richly illustrated, this volume brings much-needed attention to the political cartoons of a region that has accelerated faster and more expansively economically, culturally, and in other ways than perhaps any other part of the world.
Emphasizing the “freedom to cartoon," the author examines political cartoons that attempt to expose, bring attention to, blame or condemn, satirically mock, and caricaturize problems and their perpetrators. Lent presents readers a pioneering survey of such political cartooning in twenty-two countries and territories, studying aspects of professionalism, cartoonists’ work environments, philosophies and influences, the state of newspaper and magazine industries, the state’s roles in political cartooning, modern technology, and other issues facing political cartoonists.
Asian Political Cartoons encompasses topics such as political and social satire in Asia during ancient times, humor/cartoon magazines established by Western colonists, and propaganda cartoons employed in independence campaigns. The volume also explores stumbling blocks contemporary cartoonists must hurdle, including new or beefed-up restrictions and regulations, a dwindling number of publishing venues, protected vested interests of conglomerate-owned media, and political correctness gone awry. In these pages, cartoonists recount intriguing ways they cope with restrictions—through layered hidden messages, by using other platforms, and finding unique means to use cartooning to make a living.
"In its collection of analytical histories and ‘state of the cartooning nation’ for the most important cartoon art territories of Asia, Asian Political Cartoons represents a highly significant contribution to the literature on the form."
- John Etty, author of Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: “Krokodil”’s Political Cartoons
"In 300 mostly-color and beautifully-laid-out pages Lent takes us deep into the rich and culturally complicated history of the political cartoon in a part of the world that has seen staggering and tumultuous political change over the last century. . . . It’s a grand tour through cartoon territory not very well known by many of us. A journey well worth taking."
- Matt Wuerker, International Journal of Comic Art Blog
"In addition to being a superior one-stop introduction to Asian political cartooning, this book is a pioneering and invaluable resource for visual culture in Asia. Essential."
- J. G. Matthews, CHOICE
"This English-language book will broaden international readers' horizons about cartoons in Asia, a theme that art critics rarely pursue. . . . Coupled with [Lent's] focus on cartoons and comics as well as direct experience in Asian countries, including Indonesia, this book is very valuable, especially for those who want to seriously study the art of visual narrative."
- Ivan Gunawan, Indonesian Journal
"A meticulous scholarly tour de force, Lent's Asian Political Cartoons connects the past, present, and future of the genre in Asia."
- Sheng-mei Ma, Journal of Popular Culture
reviewed by Matt Wuerker
John. A. Lent. Asian Political
Cartoons. University Press of Mississippi, 2023. https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/A/Asian-Political-Cartoons
At the risk of revealing my own shallow occidental ethnocentrism, I have to say that I was largely ignorant of the cartoon culture of Asia. I have always had the general idea that cartooning was something that was particular to Europe, especially England and France, but also Spain, Germany and Italy.
It’s true that what we in the west think of as the political cartoon did come out of Europe. But, like meat pies, macaroni, and beer, cartooning spread from there through colonial expansion to other parts of the world. Some of those colonial territories were very fertile ground for this crude, yet very powerful and popular form of art, I think of South America in particular. But I always suffered from the mistaken notion that Asia was largely not taken with the idea of political commentary in the form of exaggerated drawing combined with humorous word bubbles. John Lent’s new book “Asian Political Cartoons” shows me how wrong that impression was.
In 300 mostly-color and beautifully-laid-out pages Lent takes us deep into the rich and culturally complicated history of the political cartoon in a part of the world that has seen staggering and tumultuous political change over the last century.
While all these cultures enjoyed unique traditions of their own in the visual arts, the arrival of the colonial powers introduced the novel and odd European concept that political dissent can be expressed in funny pictures and distributed in penny sheets and humor magazines. In China for instance suddenly there were China Punch, Shanghai Charivari, and Shanghai Puck all imitating their Western antecedents. The simple power of thumbing your nose at power and authority with arresting caricatures and graphic exaggeration has an innate appeal. It spread quickly.
Ironically enough as Chinese nationalism and the struggle against colonial occupation started to build this same graphic form was turned against the imperialists, and not just those from the West.
Political cartoons don’t always use humor, but instead can express deadly serious outrage. In the war with the Japanese Chinese political cartoonists marshaled their craft to contribute to the war effort. Lent shows how these cartoonists melded their classical Chinese ink drawing styles with more Western cartoon imagery to create devastating war propaganda posters.
The Philippine cartoonists also used a similar kind of jujitsu and turned this colonial art form against those that would colonize them. First sharpening their pens on their nineteenth century Spanish occupiers, they then turned their fire on their twentieth century American occupiers.
Philippine nationalists used
satirical magazines, often graced with cartoons on their front covers to
lambast those who had colonized them as well lampoon their own compatriots who
were going along with and embracing being colonized.
As the book ranges all across Asia, it also highlights the five decades that Lent has dedicated to studying and chronicling the cartoon culture across the continent. He’s met and personally knows many of the prominent practitioners, as well as many of the new generation. It’s a grand tour through cartoon territory not very well known by many of us. A journey well worth taking.
Wuerker is a practicing cartoonist for Politico, and has won the Pulitzer, Berryman and Herblock awards/prizes.
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