Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was a British comics magazine, first published on 3 May 1884. It is regarded to be the first comic strip magazine to feature a recurring character. Star Ally Sloper, a blustery, lazy schemer often found "sloping" through alleys to avoid his landlord and other creditors, had debuted in 1867 in the satirical magazine Judy – created by writer and fledgling artist Charles Henry Ross and inked and later fully illustrated by his French wife Émilie de Tessier under the pseudonym "Marie Duval" (or "Marie Du Val"; sources differ).
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 also established the kick-off times of football matches.
