The Christmas ALLY SLOPER'S HALF HOLIDAY (1898)

The wheezy old Blimey-Timey Machine has taken a pounding this Christmas, whizzing back and fourth across the years to bring you samples of comics from yonks ago. Now we've arrived at our final destination for Christmas and we've travelled so far back in time that I think the old machine will need a week to recover, and plenty of mince pies and wobbly pop to refuel.

Here we are then, 120 years in the past, in the year 1898 for the Christmas issue of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday! To see the pages full size, click / tap on the images and zoom in.

British humour has always been at its best when it's been a bit dark and subversive, and long before Viz and 2000AD, there was Ally Sloper's Half Holiday delighting its readers with covers like this. Between Ally "stuffing" the goose with hot mulled cider (wassail), his son smoshing a Christmas pud on his sister's head, and the bugs crawling on the bread, it's festive chaos, lovingly illustrated by W.F. Thomas. 

(I should, at this point, mention to anyone new to comics history that comics were aimed at adults back then, but I suspect even some grown-ups of a nervous disposition would have nightmares after seeing that scene.)

As I've mentioned before, the closest equivalent today to Ally Sloper would be Private Eye. Both feature a mixture of cartoons, short strips, socio-political rumour and comment, and a healthy dose of satire.

This Christmas issue was "enlarged to 12 pages" from the usual 8, for no extra charge. Here are a few extracts from inside...

Another comic-horror scene, this time to promote Ally Sloper's Christmas Holidays, which was an additional special edition with 20 pages for 2d (1p).

There was even a letters section!

More ads for the special. They were really pushing it! 

The back page of this issue features Ally Sloper surrounded by his artists and writers dressed as jesters, wishing each other, and the readers, compliments of the season...

...and on that note I too will wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope you've enjoyed all the recent posts showing old festive comics and that you'll come back again next weekend for the traditional end-of-year comics I'll be showing! In the meantime, remember I've also posted some of my own Christmas strips from over the years on my other blog. Take a look:
http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com

A trio of Ally Sloper covers

I'd promised myself I wouldn't buy any more old comics as I already have far too many unread, but how could I resist these issues of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday? Over 100 years old and in superb condition! (Paper preserves well if looked after.) Items like this don't turn up on eBay very often so I snapped them up. 

Ally Sloper was the first ongoing British comics character, and his 'Half Holiday' comic paper was pretty much the Private Eye magazine of its day; making wry digs at politicians and the establishment with a mixture of satirical cartoons, commentaries, and mini strips. He was created by Charles H. Ross and his wife Emile de Tessier in 1867 for Judy magazine, graduating to his Ally Sloper's Half Holiday paper in 1884. William Baxter illustrated Sloper for the Half Holiday, succeeded in 1888 by W. Fletcher Thomas after Baxter's death. It's W.F. Thomas' excellent covers we're looking at today. 

The first cover of this selection (above) is issue No.476, dated June 10th, 1893. Always topical, it sees Sloper reference the then-upcoming marriage of The Duke of York and Princess May (married a month after this was published) by trying to convince the public to shell out for presents for his son's wedding. (Did Alexandry actually marry Evelina? Possibly not, as she was his cousin and no doubt part of the scam.)

Our next cover is issue 498, dated 11th November 1893. Spoofing the Lord Mayor of London's parade, Sloper decides to have his own procession. Excellent penmanship by Thomas on this. 

Finally, this one displays the dark humour that Ally Sloper was often known for, as he attempts to con the public into believing he's a wounded soldier by begging on Southsea prom. Issue No.903, dated 17th August 1901. 

Even today, over a century later, the satire still works, and the quality of artwork is incredible. I would suggest that the artist currently coming close to this detailed technique today is Phil Winslade, with his Lawless strip in Judge Dredd Megazine. (See here.) 

In humour comics, artistic techniques have gradually become more simplified and basic, - even abstract in some cases, - over the past 100 years. Either way works, when done well. 

I hope you've enjoyed this look back into the distant past! Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

'Appy Anniversary, Ally!

It's the anniversary of Ally Sloper, Britain first ongoing comics character, who made his debut this week in 1867. Thanks to John Freeman for discovering the following website that's full of Sloperness and has a scan of that very first story...

https://allysloper.co.uk/2018/08/14/the-compleat-history-of-ally-sloper-2-some-of-the-mysteries-of-loan-and-discounts-14-08-1867/

Earlier this year I had a go at drawing the esteemed Mr.Sloper myself, which you can see at the top of this post.

The Ally Sloper revivals of the late 1940s

Ally Sloper had a bit of a choppy history as a comic. The character, created by Charles H. Ross and his partner Emile de Tessier (AKA Marie Duval) started out in Judy, then graduated to his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday from 1884 to 1914. It was then simplified to Ally Sloper from 1914 to 1916, when it ceased. A new, short-lived series of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday then resumed in 1922 to 1923. 

Then, in 1948, the character was revived again, in an 8 page Ally Sloper comic, printed in red and black. Although intended as a series, only No.1 was published. This version of Ally Sloper turns up a lot on eBay. I bought one myself many years ago, and was told that there had been a pile of them found in an old distributor's warehouse, which had never reached the shops. Unfortunately, it's a terrible comic. 

Although the Ally Sloper of this 1948 comic resembles the Victorian character, the artwork is crude and extremely basic, and the comic completely lacks the social satire that made the original so popular. The scripting is not only childish, it's poor. Take a look at that cover strip for example (above). Ally says he wants "three coppers" (meaning pennies), three policemen turn up (coppers, see, geddit?) and throw Ally in jail. Why? Makes no sense.

The comic is most surely in the public domain now, so here's the complete thing.

It's no surprise that the 1948 Ally Sloper only lasted one issue. A year later, a different publisher had a go, reviving the full title as Ally Sloper's Half Holiday No.1. Perhaps realising that the attempt to turn Ally into a children's character hadn't worked, this time it was revived as a satirical paper for older readers. Sadly, the poor art on the cover was uninspiring, and Ally looked out of place amongst people of the late 1940s.

The contents of this 8 page comic were mostly reprints from Ally's original publication, and therein lies the problem. Whatever possessed the publishers to think that Victorian cartoons and humour would work in 1949? The world had moved on, and the art style and verbosity of the dialogue of the reprints was extremely outdated.

Unsurprisingly, this version of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday didn't reach a second issue either. 

That was it for poor Ally, until 1976, when Denis Gifford launched his own Ally Sloper comic. This time Ally looked right, but the contents were an odd mixture. The well-intentioned venture only lasted four issues. (Personally I loved this version.) 

The closest publications we have today to the original satirical Ally Sloper's Half Holiday are Private Eye and Viz, proving that even in this mad world, (or because of it) we still need good social satire. Perhaps Ally Sloper should be revived again. I'm sure he'd have a few things to say about Brexit and Trump.

Let's end by remembering what Ally Sloper's Half Holiday looked like in its heyday, with this marvellous (albeit blackly comic) cover by W.F. Thomas for the April Fool issue of 1892...

Bonus: Lonnng before the Dennis the Menace Fan Club, Ally Sloper had his own club (most probably the first comic club) and by cutting out coupons from the comic, readers could send away for a nice metal medal. I plucked one out of the time vortex recently (or I bought one on eBay, you decide) so I thought you might like to see it. It's about the same size as an old penny (31mm diameter). Each one issued had its own number stamped on the back. This one would have been owned by member number 20689, and dates from around 1902 I believe. I've cleaned it up, which apparently devalues it, but they're really not that valuable, and I don't intend selling it anyway.

You can read more about Ally Sloper here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/ally-sloper-goes-digital.html

and here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/115-year-flashback-ally-sloper.html

Ally Sloper goes digital!

Recognised as the first recurring comic strip character, Ally Sloper was created in 1867 by Charles H. Ross and his partner Emile de Tessier (under the pseudonym Marie Duval) for the magazine Judy. The character later graduated to his own weekly publication in 1884 called Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, and acquired a new artist in William Baxter. When Baxter died in 1888, W. Fletcher Thomas took over until the end of the 19th Century, superseded by C.H. Chapman, who drew it until the closure of the comic in 1916. 

Like most early British comics, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was aimed at adults. The publication was full of social satire and humourous commentary, cartoons and short strips. (The closest equivalent today would be Private Eye.) Ally became hugely popular in the UK, with three films (long since lost) and various items of merchandise based on his likeness, including jugs, tobacco jars, pipes, candlesticks, cast iron doorstops, and more. The items are very collectable today. Here's a few photographs of some of them currently on offer on eBay for example...

Match case.

Ally Sloper jug.

Tobacco jar.

Door stops.

The character was revived a few times, most recently by Denis Gifford in 1976 for four issues, but never reached the same level of popularity again. His time had gone. Now, The British Newspaper Archive has put 635 issues of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday on its website in digital form to preserve this significant comic for current and future generations. The issues run from 1885 to 1896, and the scans have been done with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for text, and the artwork is somewhat muddy in places but it's still a great way to see these rare publications. There is a subscription service though, so although three pages are free to look at when you sign up, you'll have to pay for the rest. 

Ally Sloper lives again! A character too important to the history of comics to leave in limbo forever!
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/titles/ally-slopers-half-holiday

 

You can read more about Ally Sloper in a couple of old blog posts of mine here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/115-year-flashback-ally-sloper.html  

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/christmas-comics-ally-sloper-1976.html

Just for fun, I had an attempt at drawing Ally Sloper myself a few weeks ago...

If you want to find out more about Marie Duval, the co-creator of Sloper, there's an excellent archive of her material here:

http://www.marieduval.org/home

...and next month there's a new book being published about her. See the review on the Down the Tubes blog here:

http://downthetubes.net/?p=42480

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My thanks to Garen Ewing for bringing the news of digitised Slopers to my attention. (Garen's a long-established comics artist himself and you can check out his work at his site here: http://www.garenewing.co.uk/ ) 

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Over "100 Years of Fun" at the Lakes

At this year's Lakes International Comic Art Festival I'll be presenting a talk on over 100 years of British humour comics, from Ally Sloper to Toxic. Plans are for it to be illustrated on screen with images from my collection. 

It'll be good to see some of you there if you can make it. Here's the details:
http://www.comicartfestival.com/hundred-years-fun-lew-stringer/

Christmas Comics: ALLY SLOPER (1976)

Ally Sloper was the first recurring character in British comics, having originated in the paper Judy in 1876 before moving onto his own very popular title Ally Sloper's Half Holiday in 1884. That publication ceased in 1914 (due to the war perhaps) and was revived for 23 weeks in 1922. Another (quite poor) revival in 1949 only lasted one issue. 

Then, in 1976, cartoonist, writer, and comics historian Denis Gifford attempted another revival with his ambitious Ally Sloper magazine co-published by Alan Class. The original Sloper paper had 8 tabloid pages, but Denis' new comic had 32 pages plus a card cover and full colour on the outside covers. Priced at 20p it was considerably more expensive than other British comics, and considerably slimmer than any imported American comic at that price (such as Eerie or Monsters Unleashed for example). Unsurprisingly, it only lasted for four issues.

However, the third issue was the Christmas edition so I thought I'd show some pages from it here today. (As always click on the images to see them larger.) Veteran comic artist Walter Bell had been commissioned by Denis to produce a new Ally Sloper image on page three of every issue and the 83 year old didn't disappoint. You'll notice caricatures of several politicians of the day, including Harold Wilson, Enoch Powell, and Dennis Healey.

Denis managed to attract quite a bit of talent to produce pages for Ally Sloper, including the legendary Frank Hampson. Here's the first (and sadly only) appearance of Frank's new creation Dawn O'Dare...

The next legend to appear in the comic was Leo Baxendale, firstly in an interview conducted by Denis...

...and then producing a new page for the comic...

Ready for another giant in the industry? How's about Raymond Briggs, with this one off Father Christmas story for adults...

The middle 8 pages of this Ally Sloper series always featured a pull out 'Nostalgicomic' of classic material. In this issue it was the old Daily Mirror strip Pip and Squeak and the cover was taken from a 1921 newspaper supplement...

Artist Ray Aspden did his page as a mock up of a classic UK comic cover, and a very nice job he did too. Philpot Bottles Orfis Boys Own revived the old Chips feature character, deliberate bad spelling and all.

Cartoonist Ed McHenry, who produced a lot of work for various IPC comics including Oink!, had a regular strip in Ally Sloper about a hairdresser-come-superhero Kaptain Kween...

Bob Dewar, another artist known for his work in children's comics, gave us Copout and Mumble, with gags that, whilst not intentionally offensive, would definitely be considered non-PC today...

The back page featured another Leo Baxendale illustration, advertising his Willy the Kid book. Excellent stuff.

The 1976 version of Ally Sloper was a brave attempt at producing a variety comic for the adult British market, and it was sold in newsagents as well as comic shops, but despite containing some quality material there unfortunately wasn't enough support for it.