[1] In 1908, he signed on as a sports cartoonist at the Chicago Examiner where he created a talking goat in a feature, Buck Nix, which involved continuity: "What will tomorrow bring?"

In 1911, Smith moved to the Chicago Tribune, where he introduced a new goat character when Old Doc Yak began as a daily on February 5, 1912, with the Sunday page starting a month later on March 10.

At the Chicago Tribune on October 28, 1914, he started a panel, "Light Occupations", which ran alongside an untitled local sports-oriented feature.

The strip, its merchandising (toys, games, a popular song, playing cards, food products) and media adaptations made Smith a wealthy man.

Wearing a coonskin cap, Smith threw large parties at his estate, which also had a log cabin, a caretaker's home, a four-car garage and a statue of Andy Gump on the front lawn.

Sam Carr Polk wrote: Smith's strip was adapted into a live-action/animated film series in 1920–21 by Wallace Carlson, starring Joe Murphy (Andy) and Fay Tincher.

During production, Carlson formed a partnership with Gumps writer Sol Hess, and together they launched The Nebbs, a Gumps-like family comic strip which began May 1923 and continued until 1946.