The comic capers of Ally Sloper

While trawling through the book ' Rude Britannia - British Comic Art ' so many references and styles have taken my eye and one in particular was a comic-strip character called Ally Sloper who was first introduced in 1867 in a magazine called Judy - a publication that was aimed at a female readership and also at the lower classes.

The early illustrations of this character were drawn by an illustrator called Emille de Tessier ( 1847-1890 ) but it is the artwork by William Giles Baxter (1856 - 1888 ) that I am mostly drawn to and in particular the artwork that featured in a spin off magazine called Ally Sloper's Half Holiday ( 1884-1923) that became very succesful and featured the comic capers of the red-nosed schemer and drunkard. The character got his name because he was always trying to avoid the rent collector by 'sloping' through the back alleys.

The following are some of the examples of the character illustrated in pen, brush and ink on paper by William Giles Baxter :