Barney Google Sunday Page, 14 February 1932

Pre-Snuffy Smith Sunday pages by Billy DeBeck are farily rare, especially those with horses in them. I know of less than a dozen pre-1934 Sunday page originals to exist. This example, from the very end of what I consider DeBeck's peak period (1930-early 1932), is one of the very few complete Sunday originals with both Spark Plug and Pony Boy.

I was told that this is one of the comic strips which was once part of the holdings of Syracuse University in New York. The university once had a large group of high end animation art, Disney cels and backgrounds, which had been donated by the Courvoisier family. They sold a number of the cels to an Ohio collector in c. 1981, who, in turn sold many to dealers in animation art. The ostensible reason for the university's deaccessioning the first group of Disney cels was to raise money to conserve and frame the remaining, more important pieces. Those remaining pieces were ultimately sold to Jeff Lotman, who later sold many of them through an online auction by Sotheby's.

Syracuse University has also been the recipient of comic strip originals. Jack Gilbert tapped into this source, and he sold me this Google and my McManus Spare Ribs and Gravy Sunday page from the several strips that Syracuse deaccessioned. To my knowledge, the university still has the large number of Prince Valient orginals, including the first strip, which were donated by Hal Foster