Old Doc Yak, Boss Mechanic

Sidney Smith's *Old Doc Yak* strip follows a goat mechanic and his assistant Frenchy through automotive repair mishaps. The narrative unfolds across nine panels using sequential art conventions—speech balloons, motion lines, and recurring characters—that defined early newspaper comics. Smith employs slapstick pacing: tightening bolts leads to loosened parts, repeated failures mount toward chaotic resolution. The strip exemplifies how Sunday pages translated vaudeville and silent-film comedy into graphic narrative, establishing the visual grammar that would become foundational to comic books and the medium itself.