The Passing Scene – June 1968

There's only three "The Passing Scene" strips that ran in the Lorain Journal in June 1968. But what's strange is that cartoonist Gene Patrick only drew two of them!

Here's the June 1, 1968 edition, which shows Gene at his prime. There's a funny gag involving midges (those pesky lake bugs that look like mosquitoes) and two panels that feature well-drawn shapely gals. And the first panel (with a guy about to be tarred and feathered) is pretty funny too.

Next up is the June 15, 1968 strip, which innocently pokes fun at a Japanese visitor to the Ridge Tool headquarters in Elyria (but in a way that is considered racist and unflattering today). 

And lastly, here is that strip drawn by someone else, which ran in the paper on June 22, 1968. Maybe Gene just wrote the gags but was too busy to illustrate them.

While the 'guest artist' was certainly talented, the gags simply don't work as well. It shows how critical Gene's clean, simple, cartoony style was to the humor of the strip.

In the past, I've posted "Passing Scene" strips from the 1970s that Gene drew, so perhaps this was a one-shot deal. We'll see next month.