Ahoy, Lorain!

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I’ve posted a lot of Gene Patrick’s Passing Scene comic strips from the Lorain Journal over the years. The weekly cartoon first appeared in the Journal in the mid-1960s, and continued right into the 1970s.

And back on this post, I wrote about a similar comic feature by Perry Carter highlighting local happenings that ran in the Elyria Reporter in the late 1890s.

Well, did you know that in the early 1950s, the Lorain Journal had a predecessor to the Passing Scene?

I didn’t either, until I ran across a few of them on vintage microfilm at the library. It was called “Ahoy Lorain” and appeared on the first page of the second section of the paper. I like the fact that the comic’s name plays up Lorain’s nautical heritage.

Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the artist, who signed his name, ‘Krueger.’ I suspect that it was John C. Krueger, a reporter with the Journal at that time.

Here’s the “Ahoy Lorain” comic from Saturday, May 9, 1953. It includes a Bascule Bridge gag and a pretty good looking cartoon horse.

As you can see, "Ahoy Lorain” is a little offbeat in the humor department.

Some of it is completely baffling to me, such as the bit about the cigar hand-outs. I think it has something to do with 1953 being the Year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac. The engineer with a train for a head is bizarre as well; I guess he’s standing at attention while being inspected.

Here's another edition of the strip, from July 11, 1953.

Krueger was a very talented cartoonist; he conveyed a lot of emotions in his little characters. He's also a witty disciple of the 'pun' school of humor.