Old Doc Yak

Sidney Smith's *Old Doc Yak* strip follows a goat and his small companion through daily misadventures. Here, the doc's throat troubles—first a swallowed tack, then cucumbers—generate escalating physical comedy across twelve panels. Smith's visual storytelling relies on sequential action, speech balloons, and repeated character types that became standard in newspaper comics. Published during the Sunday and daily strip boom that directly preceded the comic book industry, *Old Doc Yak* exemplifies how artists developed the visual grammar of panels, pacing, and recurring personalities that would define comics for decades.