Barney Google — The Washington Times, June 27, 1920

Billy DeBeck's Barney Google appears here as a full Sunday page syndicated by King Features, printed in The Washington Times. Twelve panels follow the bug-eyed, top-hatted Barney through a single comic sequence: mistaken for a long-lost nephew by a rich uncle who promises him a million-dollar inheritance, Barney is unmasked as an impostor, flung out a window, and left walking ten miles home. He tries hitching a ride — refused — then sabotages the car with a log, sending it into a ditch, only to learn the driver is his lawyer-client. The strip's ink line is crisp and kinetic, speech balloons integrated cleanly into action. Launched in 1919, Barney Google helped establish the recurring-character Sunday page as commercial and narrative engine — the direct forerunner of the comic book format that would crystallize by the 1930s.