American Toby Jug Museum 

Ally Sloper character jug produced by Shorter & Son of Stoke-on-Trent, England, circa 1940. Alexander "Ally" Sloper is the fictional character of the British comic strip Ally Sloper. First appearing in 1867 he is considered one of the earliest comic strip characters and regarded as the first recurring character in comics. Red-nosed and blustery has was an archetypal lazy schemer often found "sloping" through alleys to avoid his landlord and other creditors. Ally Sloper was created for the British magazine Judy by writer and artist Charles H. Ross and fully illustrated by his French wife Emilie de Tessier under the pseudonym Marie Duval.