Old Doc Yak

This Sunday page features Old Doc Yak, a goat character who anchored an early newspaper comic strip. The strip employs the visual conventions newly standardized in the 1910s: sequential panels arranged left-to-right, speech balloons indicating dialogue, and repeated characters in absurdist situations. Here, Doc and companions debate the practical uses of a million dollars—a framework that allows for rapid gags and visual comedy across six panels. The strip's loose pen line and caricatured animal protagonist typify the humor comics of the era, which appeared in Sunday editions and daily papers, establishing the narrative and graphic structures that would become foundational to the comic book medium.