Billy DeBeck

William Morgan DeBeck , better known as Billy DeBeck, was an American cartoonist. He is most famous as the creator of the comic strip Barney Google, later retitled Barney Google and Snuffy Smith. The strip was especially popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and featured a number of wellknown characters, including the title character, Bunky, Snuffy Smith, and Spark Plug the race horse. Spark Plug was a merchandising phenomenon, and has been called the Snoopy of the 1920s.

William Morgan DeBeck was born on April 15, 1890 on the South Side of Chicago, where his father, Louis DeBeck, was a newspaperman employed by the Swift Company. The elder DeBeck was French, and the name DeBeck was originally spelled DeBecque. His IrishWelsh mother, Jessie Lee Morgan, had lived on a farm and was a schoolteacher.

Source: Wikipedia