Petra Hendrickson
Northern Michigan University
Marquette, Michigan

Lent, John A. 2023. Asian political cartoons. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN: 9781496842534.

Asian Political Cartoons, by scholar of mass communication and comic art John A. Lent, provides a comprehensive overview of the political history, government, and history of political cartoons in almost every Northeast, Southeast, and South Asian country, as well as autonomous territories like Hong Kong and Taiwan. This includes brief vignettes for countries for which more detailed information would be difficult to obtain, like Brunei and North Korea. Democracies and authoritarian regimes alike are covered and each chapter includes a selection of several political cartoons from various historical periods in that particular country. Overall, the book provides a great introduction to the history and politics of many Asian countries as well as some of the uses of political cartoons in those countries and regions.

The countries covered in each of the three regions are:

• East Asia: China, Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan
• Southeast Asia: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam
• South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Of the regions that are covered, the most notable absences are East Timor in the Southeast Asia section and the Maldives in South Asia.

This book also serves as a sort of compendium incorporating aspects of Lent’s other work on cartoon art in Asia, bringing together new insights on material he has covered in previous books (Lent, 1999, 2001, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2025; Lent and Ying, 2017) and work by scholars such as Tju (2000). The book brings a regional focus to a conversation centered on more general discussions of the use, role, and impact of political cartoons, such as that found in Navasky (2013).

The introduction of the book provides the readers with a discussion of the roles and functions of political cartoons in society and broad trends in the limitations they face in reaching domestic audiences. The introduction also provides insight into Lent’s research process. Each chapter is well-sourced with a mix of journalistic and academic sources focused on each country, but Lent also conducted interviews with some of the cartoonists highlighted in the book to gain insight into their experiences so as to provide commentary on their governments given the various domestic sociopolitical environments.

Each chapter provides a historical overview of political cartooning in the country, the challenges facing political cartoonists and their art form, and the contemporary landscape. The challenges facing cartoons and cartoonists obviously have country-specific details, but generally revolve around the status of cartoonists in society and government efforts to control, limit, or otherwise influence the work they produce. Although the section names in each chapter vary slightly, this general format also helps the reader draw comparisons between countries to ascertain intra- and inter-regional trends across the various zones of Asia.

The inclusion and coverage of authoritarian regimes is a particular strength of the book, as political speech is most likely to be suppressed in such countries, and for the same reasons, expressions of dissent are all the most important, as they are not normalized or tolerated methods of political participation. For example, the chapter on Cambodia describes how, despite the presence of political cartooning in Cambodia beginning roughly 20 years before independence, new restrictions arising under Hun Sen’s one-party rule from 2018 have essentially eliminated the practice. The chapter on China does not shy away from perhaps the best known instance of cartoon-based repression, the limitations placed on depictions and mentions of Winnie-the-Pooh on Chinese social media as critiques of Premier Xi Jinping. Even the democratic regimes described in the book, however, like Japan and Nepal, do not get a free pass and unmitigated praise for their press freedoms. Indeed, in the chapters on these countries, Lent provides commentary on the declining prestige of political cartoonists in Japan and the accompanying (or causal) reduction in the number of political cartoons printed in newspapers. With regard to Nepal, Lent discusses the threats and violence political cartoonists faced from both the government and rebel forces during the country’s decade-long civil war.

While the book does what it does well, I was struck by the expectation that the book would be something slightly different. I envisioned a book comprised primarily of political cartoons with contextual descriptions to help the reader interpret the content and importance of each cartoon. As it is, the cartoons themselves constitute only a small portion of each chapter, and are presented with only a small amount of discussion and explanation to help the reader make sense of their appearance at particular moments in time. On the other hand, given Lent’s other work, while I was initially expecting a book only on East and maybe Southeast Asian countries, I was happily surprised to find that South Asia was also included. Given that, however, the omission of Central Asian countries seems curious, especially given that a vignette of Iran is included in the “South Asia” section of the book, despite Iran being far to the west of India and Pakistan, on the western edge of  the Central Asian country of Afghanistan.

I think that the book can serve a number of pedagogy-related goals in multiple academic fields. Perhaps its most natural applications would be in regionally-focused history and politics classes, but as I will discuss shortly, those are not the only contexts in which this book could serve as a valuable resource for instructors and students alike.

While the book would be well-suited to a class on the contemporary history of Asian regions, political science might be a better disciplinary fit, as many of the events discussed are from the recent past or still ongoing. The discussions of the histories of cartooning, challenges facing the cartoonists, and contemporary landscapes would make this book perfect for a comparative politics-oriented class on any of the subregions, as they tap broader political issues related to democracy and authoritarianism, civil liberties, political violence, and colonialism that would likely appear in any such class about these regions. While the book might seem too narrowly focused on political cartooning, this also serves as a strength, as the numerous concrete examples provide students with opportunities to think about how broader political trends play out in practice, with real issues and real people.

Finally, I could see this book being useful for a political communications or journalism class because of its discussions of issues facing these fields in the three Asian regions. The book discusses not just the issues that have found themselves incorporated by the political cartoonists, but also the challenges facing these cartoonists, and to some extent, the press in general, in the countries it covers. In a time of broader democratic backsliding and increasing authoritarianism, it is as important as ever to make students aware of the challenges posed to free speech around the world, especially so for students who themselves are considering careers in the media. Coverage of these challenges can provide such students important information and considerations as they enter the media/communications workforce, and also help them build empathy for those engaged in their desired profession around the world.

The cartoonists highlighted in this book have demonstrated a commitment to their craft as they attempt to be a beacon of truth in a countrywide- and global context in which truth is being increasingly challenged and maligned for its sometimes-unflattering revelations about politics and politicians. For this, political cartoons and cartoonists are as important as they’ve ever been, and students from a variety of disciplines would benefit from reminders of the perils of speaking truth to power, even if through the point of a pen.This book makes such exposure readily available, and it a great asset to instructors teaching a variety of topics.

References

Lent, J.A.(Ed.). 1999. Themes and issues in Asian cartooning: Cute, cheap, mad and sexy. Bowling Green State University Press.

Lent, J.A. (Ed.). (2001). Illustrating Asia: Comics, humor magazines, and picture books. University of Hawaii Press.

Lent, J.A. (2009). The first one hundred years of Philippine Komiks and picture books. Yonzon Associates, Inc.

Lent, J.A. (Ed.). (2014). Southeast Asian cartoon art: History, trends and patterns. McFarland.

Lent, J.A. (2015). Asian comics. University Press of Mississippi.

Lent, J. A. (2025). Comics art in Korea. University Press of Mississippi.

Lent, J.A., and Ying, X. (2017). Comics art in China. University Press of Mississippi.

Navasky, V.S. (2013). The art of controversy: Political cartoons and their enduring power. Alfred A. Knopf.

Tju, L.C. (2000). Political cartoons in Singapore: Misnomer or redefinition necessary? Journal of Popular Culture, 34(1), 77-83.

Author Bio

Petra Hendrickson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northern Michigan University. Their research interests focus on Political Science pedagogy, with an emphasis on active learning, and genocide and mass killing. They teach classes in international relations and comparative politics, including on genocide, American foreign policy, and East and Southeast Asian politics. They have also taught two honors program seminars on interdisciplinary approaches to the social sciences, using Harry Potter and Star Trek as the pop culture vehicles for these discussions.