Billy DeBeck created which popular syndicated strip cartoon character in the early 20th century?

Billy DeBeck (15 April 1890 - 11 November 1942,) was a Chicago-born newspaper comics artist, most famous for his popular series launched on June 17, 1919, titled “Take Barney Google, For Instance”. This was shortened to “Barney Google” and was later retitled “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith”. Barney's much-loved horse "Spark Plug" debuted in 1922 and the hillbilly character, “Snuffy Smith”, was introduced in 1934. "Snuffy" eventually became the principal player in the series. As of 2019 it is the 2nd longest, currently-running, uninterrupted comic series of all time, after Frank King's "Gasoline Alley" (1918), with a span of over 100 years.

Certain expressions from “Barney Google”, like "time's a-wasting", "balls of fire", "goo-goo eyes", "heebie jeebies", "horsefeathers", "hotsy-totsy", "jughead", "sweet mama", were either coined or popularized by the comic strip. The series made the name “Sparky”, after "Spark Plug", a popular nickname.

It is thought that the word “googol”, introduced by the mathematician Edward Kasner in 1920 to name the huge number (10¹⁰⁰), was also derived from the comic strip, at the suggestion of Kasner’s 9 year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta. He, like his uncle, was known to be a follower of the comic strip at the time. It is thought that Kasner, concerned over comic character copyright infringement, changed "google" to "googol". The naming of Google LLC came about through a misspelling of "googol". Such can be the influence of the comic strip.