It was on this day in 1867 when Ally Sloper first appeared; Britain's first ongoing comics character. Created by Charles Ross for Judy magazine and later drawn by his French wife Emille de Tessier. The character become so popular he featured in three early films (long lost), had his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (that ran from 1884 to 1916), mostly drawn by William Fletcher Thomas, and there were numerous items of Aly Sloper merchandise produced from brass door stops to clay pipes. Attempts to revive the character haven't lasted (you may remember Denis Gifford's four issues in 1976/77) but to celebrate his 158th annversary, I've done a brand new illustration of him, shown above.
Happy Birthday, Ally Sloper!
4 comments:
I do remember the Dennis Gifford magazine. I think it lasted three or four issues? Maybe not, I only had the first one and it's long since lost, along with my youth. But if I remember correctly, it's where I first saw Hunt Emerson's work on his Dog Man character. At 20p it was more than twice the cost of my usual Marvel's or DC's but worth it for the intro to a British artist who's entertained me for decades.
Yep, as I said it lasted four issues. It had an interesting mixture of material and I really liked it but like you said 20p seemed expensive at the time. Admittedly the imported Marvel monster mags like Tales of the Zombie and Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction were also 20p but they had twice as many pages than Ally Sloper.
Can you post things from my childhood?
I don't know when your childhood was. You could be 106 for all I know. :)
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