Old Doc Yak

Sidney Smith's *Old Doc Yak* followed the misadventures of an anthropomorphic goat and his jalopy through early Sunday newspaper pages. This strip exemplifies the visual vocabulary emerging in the 1910s: sequential panels advancing a continuous narrative, speech balloons carrying dialogue and thought, and recurring characters in episodic plots. The automobile—still novel—becomes both comedic prop and narrative engine. Smith's economical linework and slapstick humor typified the newspaper comic that preceded the bound comic book, establishing the formal and commercial foundations upon which the medium would build.