Ally Sloper's Half-Holiday (1884 - 1916)

Ally Sloper's Half Holiday original cartoon artwork. 

Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was the first comic named after and featuring a regular character. Ally Sloper was a blustery, lazy schemer often found "sloping" through alleys to avoid his landlord and other creditors, The ‘half holiday’ referred to in the title was the practice in Victorian Britain of allowing the workers home at lunchtime on a Saturday, a practice that established kick-off times at football matches. Sales of the comic were estimated as being as high as 350,000, describing itself as "the largest selling paper in the world". William Giles Baxter took over drawing the Sloper character with issue 13. William Fletcher Thomas became the artist for Ally Sloper following Baxter's death in 1888.