Teacher, comics scholar and former Comics Journal News Editor John Francis Ronan died on May 6 at the age of 62. He was survived by his wife, Jana Smith Ronan, and his children: Elizabeth Marie Ronan, Daniel Thomas Ronan; and siblings, Mary Ronan, Kathy SooHoo, Anne Ronan, Joan Ronan, Margaret Stack, Sarah Rasmussen, Frank Ronan and Robert Ronan. In recognition of his passing, we asked his good friend and Fantagraphics associate publisher Eric Reynolds to put together this brief remembrance – The Editors
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In the distinguished annals of Comics Journal history, John F. Ronan, who passed away on May 6, is not a name that looms as large as other, longer-tenured contributors. He was the news editor of the magazine for a mere three issues (#183-185) and never had the opportunity to leave a signature mark that would be particularly remembered. But he was a dogged reporter and to those of us who worked with him — myself, Gary Groth, and Tom Spurgeon, in particular — he left a mark, and was arguably the biggest personality to work for TCJ in the 1990s.
First and foremost, John was loud. Voluble. Every morning when he came into the office, he would greet everyone personally with their first and last names, in his very thick Boston accent. “GOOD MORNING, ERIC REYNOLDS!” “GOOD MORNING, TOM SPURGEON!” Anyone who ever worked with him, I’m certain, can still hear that voice vividly in their heads. One friend told me last week, “I think he did that to make everyone feel more important; at least, it always made me feel that way.” (On the flip side, I remember this custom always made the relatively quiet Kim Thompson visibly uncomfortable.)
Gary Groth has said that John reminded him of Jimmy Breslin, the legendary journalist and writer. I always thought that “Bugs” Raplin, the investigative reporter played by Giancarlo Esposito in the Tim Robbins film Bob Roberts, was a dead ringer for the Ronan I knew. Between the two, you get the idea: John was a larger-than-life force of nature.
He was also one of my closest friends, before and after his brief time at TCJ. We met when I was 19 years old, via the English department and student newspaper (The New University) at the University of California at Irvine. John was ten years older than myself and most of my undergrad peers at that time (after spending most of his 20s working on various film crews in Los Angeles), but despite the age gap we quickly bonded.
John was a muckraker who was elected class president in high school by running as a communist. That iconoclastic spirit carried him through life. During our college years, I was a radio DJ at UCI. The studio was on the top floor of a campus building that overlooked the administration building where the Chancellor’s office was located. One night I was pulling an overnight shift and happened to notice someone sifting through one of the admin dumpsters behind the building, at around 4 a.m. It was Ronan, searching for any random dirt on the administration that he could find. Because, of course, people in high places didn’t get there without having something to hide. And if he didn’t find out what it was, who would?
John’s anti-authoritarian streak often got him into trouble. In that same parking lot where the dumpster was, John was known to defiantly park in the Chancellor’s personal parking spot. Why? Because (to paraphrase John) UCI is a public university, created for the proletariat for the higher knowledge and advancement of our great civilization. Everyone should have equal access to property, which is really everyone's property. He truly believed that he had just as much right to park in that spot as the Chancellor. Eventually, his car was booted and towed.
It's no coincidence that several of us who orbited John’s sphere in college went on to become journalists and writers. He inspired us. One of our mutual friends who has had a successful career as a writer/journalist, told me, “I once asked John how I should tackle a certain news story. I'll never forget his response: ‘It's more important what you think of it than what I think.’ He really inspired me to think like a journalist to this day.” I know that I would not have had any success as a journalist if not for the contrarian spirit I picked up from John, which prepared me well for TCJ’s adversarial role within the comics industry.
When I stepped down as TCJ News Editor to get more involved with the publishing side of Fantagraphics, it was a no-brainer to lobby Gary Groth to hire John as my replacement. Yes, I wanted my buddy to move to Seattle, but I also thought he would be a perfect fit. In addition to our work at the newspaper, John and I also bonded in college over comics. He wasn’t avidly following contemporary comics, but he had a broad knowledge of underground comix, particularly the more radical/political UG cartoonists, like Spain Rodriguez and the Air Pirates collective, which I knew little about. He was also a big fan of 19th-century political cartoonists, especially Thomas Nast.
Though his stint at TCJ didn’t quite work out, I’m grateful to have facilitated it because his time in Seattle really rekindled his fire for comics (Seattle in the 1990s was a pretty heady time and place for those of us who loved comics), and ultimately set him down the path I think he was truly meant for, which was comics scholarship. Soon after he left TCJ, he applied and was accepted into grad school at the University of Florida.
It was in Gainesville that Ronan, after serving as a mentor to so many of us at UCI, found his own in the professor Donald Ault. Ault was a world-class scholar of the work of William Blake and Sir Isaac Newton, yet is best known in comics circles for his pioneering work on the “Good Duck” artist Carl Barks, which is considered foundational in the development of comics studies as a legitimate academic field.
John was in hog heaven working with Ault at UF. He presented papers at the International Comics Art Forum — one paper continued Ault’s studies, with the memorable title, “How To Read How To Read Donald Duck's Donald Duck,” referencing a foundational text about Imperialist ideology in classic Disney comics. John was one of the cartoonist Tom Hart’s first hires when he and Leela Corman founded the Sequential Arts Workshop to teach the history of comics.
Unfortunately, John’s academic career flamed out a bit, for reasons I can only speculate about. He was defiantly anti-careerist, and borderline self-destructive on that front. I remember in college we once had to write a five-page-or-so term paper in a week. John turned in a twenty-page paper that was undoubtedly the best paper turned in, but only got a passing grade because he was over a week late with it and didn’t follow instructions. I always joked to John that his middle initial must have stood for “fucking,” as in John Fucking Ronan, because he went so hard at everything, often causing us to shake our heads and say, “fuckin’ Ronan!”
Despite this, John continued teaching at the Sequential Arts Workshop for years, out of a sheer passion for sharing knowledge. He loved it. He was a voracious reader, a lover of deconstructionist theory (particularly Jacques Derrida), a hater of capitalism, and one of the most original critical thinkers I’ve ever met. He was messy, and often maddening, but had a palpable love for connecting with people. I will miss him dearly, though his voice will bellow in my head for the rest of my life.
The post Remembering John Ronan, 1962-2024 appeared first on The Comics Journal.
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