Old Doc Yak Automobiles Painted

Sidney Smith's *Old Doc Yak* follows a goat and his human companion Leon through slapstick adventures in automotive painting. Across twelve panels, Doc Yak and Leon attempt increasingly absurd vehicle decorations—oyster shells, polka dots, a checkerboard pattern—each scheme ending in comic disaster. Smith's sequential storytelling uses consistent character design, clear panel progression, and dialogue balloons to build gags across the Sunday page. The strip exemplifies early newspaper comics' visual vocabulary: recurring characters, escalating complications, and sight gags rendered through economical linework. Published in the Tribune Company's syndication network, *Old Doc Yak* reached millions of readers and helped establish the Sunday comics page as a distinct medium, bridging the gap between newspaper humor and the emerging comic book format.