American Toby Jug Museum 

Ally Sloper toby jug produced by Phildale of Stoke-on-Trent, England, circa 1980. Alexander "Ally" Sloper is the eponymous fictional character of the British comic strip Ally Sloper. First appearing in 1867, he is considered one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. Red-nosed and blustery, an archetypal lazy schemer often found "sloping" through alleys to avoid his landlord and other creditors, he was created for the British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross and inked and later fully illustrated by his French wife Emilie de Tessier under the pseudonym Marie Duval. The strips premiered in the 14 August 1867 issue of Judy, a humor-magazine rival of the famous Punch. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, in 1884.