Ally Sloper

Alexander "Ally" Sloper is the eponymous fictional character of the British comic strip Ally Sloper. First appearing in 1867, he is one of the earliest characters in comic strips. Red-nosed and blustery, an archetypal lazy schemer often found "sloping" through alleys to avoid his landlord and other creditors, he was created for the British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross, and inked and later fully illustrated by his French wife Émilie de Tessier under the pseudonym "Marie Duval" (or "Marie Du Val";. The strips, which used text narrative beneath unbordered panels, premiered in the 14 August 1867 issue of Judy, a humour-magazine rival of the famous Punch. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, in 1884. Ben R Dilworth has previously drawn Sloper for Black Tower but here he gets right back to what Sloper was all about and anyone familiar with Dilworth's work will realise that he is probably the only modern era artist who could do Sloper along with social commentary.