[3] His caricatures of models drew the attention of his fellow students,[4] and though he had intended to become a painter in the Flemish tradition,[1] he quit the Academy after two years[4] after he got a cartooning job with the weekly paper Show World in 1910.

[5] DeBeck soon left Show World for better opportunities at Youngstown Telegram in Ohio as an editorial cartoonist, then again at the Pittsburgh Gazette-Time[5] in late August 1912.

[6] DeBeck's creations were first adapted to film when an animated version of Married Life appeared in a Seattle Sunday Times newsreel in 1917.

[1] On June 17, 1919, a new comic strip by DeBeck in the vein of Married Life debuted on the sports page; Take Barney Google, For Instance.

[11] It was not popular until DeBeck had Google acquire a race horse named Spark Plug (nicknamed "Sparky"[12]) in a strip dated July 17, 1922.

The dilapidated, blanket-covered horse became such a marketing and merchandising phenomenon that the character has been called the Snoopy of the 1920s—toys, balloons, and games were among the popular items adorned with Sparky's image.

Over the years, DeBeck was credited with introducing more neologisms and catchphrases, such as "heebie-jeebies", "horsefeathers", "balls of fire" and "time's a-wastin'".

[13] In 1923, Billy Rose penned a Tin Pan Alley pop hit called "Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)".

[15] DeBeck had included a topper called Bughouse Fables[6] (signed "Barney Google)"[16] with his main strip since 1921, though he soon handed it off to assistant Paul Fung.

[19] As a golfer since 1916, DeBeck spent time on courses with such notables as Harold Lloyd, Walter Huston, Rube Goldberg, Fontaine Fox, Clarence Budington Kelland and bridge authority P. Hal Sims.

[3] Barney Google's popularity persisted into the Depression era; in 1933, Fortune magazine reported DeBeck's weekly earnings at $1200.

Fred Lasswell was a confirmed hayseed from the sticks with much kinfolk wisdom, make-do humor, a talent for drawing clean lines and blending funny images with text.

DeBeck sent him to apprentice with some of the great illustrators, to study at the Art Students League in New York, and to walk the streets of the city with a sketchbook to capture the movement, personalities and situations he saw.

Under Lasswell Barney Google and Snuffy Smith has become the longest continuously produced comic strip in American's newspaper history.

[21] DeBeck gained a growing interest into the culture of Appalachia in the 1930s and amassed a library on the subject that he later donated to Virginia Commonwealth University.

[1] Just as the strip's circulation was starting to flag,[1] DeBeck introduced Snuffy in a storyline in which Barney inherited an estate in the mountains of North Carolina.

[1] Hillbilly culture enjoyed much popularity in the 1930s; Snuffy Smith appeared the same year as Al Capp's Li'l Abner.

[27] DeBeck's drawing style falls in the "big-foot" tradition of American comic strips such as The Katzenjammer Kids, Hägar the Horrible, and Robert Crumb.

[12] The number of newspaper that carried it had been flagging in the years leading to DeBeck's passing, partly because the hillbilly dialect in the dialogue was difficult to read for many.

[33] DeBeck is credited with introducing or popularizing a number of neologisms and catchphrases via Barney Google, including "heebie-jeebies", "horsefeathers", "hotsy totsy",[1] "balls of fire", "time's a-wastin'",[19] "touched in the head", and "bodacious".

She also made the annual presentation of engraved silver cigarette cases, with DeBeck's characters etched on the cover, to the winners (Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Chic Young, Alex Raymond, Roy Crane, Walt Kelly, Hank Ketcham and Mort Walker).