Talk:Ally Sloper's Half Holiday

Removal

I removed this line:

While few if any similar magazines were published before the advent of the modern comic book in the United States in the 1930s,

Because the way I read it, it states that nothing similar to Half Holiday existed until 1930 when the modern comic book appeared in the United States, which is plainly not true.

Also readded this line about the comic: It has a legitimate claim to being the first comic named after and featuring a regular character

Because that's sourced from Sabin's Adult Comics, and I could probably get another couple of cites as well. The changed text read: starring one of the first comics characters, which isn't true, there were many more comics characters created before and after; Sloper's Half Holiday is cited by Sabin as being the first comic named after and featuring a regular character.

Also reverted the removal of was first published on 3 May 1884,, wwhich had been replaced by the term premiered. Premiered is an American term, not a British term, and looks out of place in this article. I restored the exact publication date because the section is entitled publication date and it makes sense for such a section to note the exact date. I realise this information is in the article twice, but that's not prescribed anywhere.

Also, in British a colon isn't typically followed by a capital letter, unlike American. Hiding talk 08:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hiya, Hiding. All that's cool, and thanks for the explanation that delves into our famous "two countries divided by a common language"! Hope all the details and illustrations I've added have helped to flesh out this and the Ally Sloper article itself.

I'd only suggest using a cap after a colon if what follows is a complete sentence. Otherwise, you don't know if you're started an aside that references antecedents in the previous part, or if you're heading into a related thought with a subject and verb of its own. Actually, the least confusing thing if what follows is a complete sentence may be to use a period rather than a colon.

The only thing I'm having trouble with is the passive-voice phrase "can legitimately claim to be the first" etc., since the passive voice eschews a source and lends itself to vague claims. Is it the first, or is there reasonable doubt? If a couple of credible authorities/historians can say, "Yes, it's definitely the first", let's say it. If there's doubt, it's better to say something like, "Some authorities contend it is the first", or "Some historians believe it is the first", or, my favorite, "Comics historians so-and-so and so-and-so cite it was the first". See what I'm getting at?

Let me know what you think of the added detail. All the best to ya, mate! -- Tenebrae 17:11, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Right. Sabin's quotation, page 17 of Adult Comics, is "That publication was Ally Sloper's Half Holiday - the first modern comic - published by Gilbert Dalziel in 1884. Like the working-class humour magazines, it had strips, cartoons and funny stories. Like them it was cheap (1 d), and aimed at a primarily adult audience. What made it different, however, and gives it its claim to being the first of a kind, was that it was based on a recurring character - the eponymous Alexander Sloper."

Sabin notes in a footnote that Dennis Gifford has cited Funny Folks as the first comic, but that's a different claim to the one Sabin makes, and Sabin also notes "Half Holiday is generally recognised to have been the first".

Now in Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels, also by Sabin, I've got the 2005 edition but I don't think it's been revised since the 1996 hardback, he states (p.15): "So we come at last to the first comic agreed to be worthy of the name: the curiously titled Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (Gilbert Dalziel, 1884). This was a cheap (one penny), black-and-white tabloid weekly that mixed strips, cartoons and prose stories, and which boasted a regular starring character: the eponymous Alexander Sloper."

"Although very few people have heard of the title today, it is undoubtedly one of the most important comics in the history of the medium, not just because it was the first, but because it set standards in so many areas, both commercial and artistic."

This time Sabin notes two other contenders to the first comic claim, the aforementioned Funny Folks and a volume of 'Dr. Syntax', also noting you Americans cite The Yellow Kid and Famous Funnies.

Now over in The Penguin Book of Comics, George Perry and Alan Aldridge state, (p.47): "The first regular comic in the modern sense is probably Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, the first number of which appeared on May 3 1884. It was published in London by Dalziel Brothers and was to continue with minor interruptions until 1923. Its claim to be the first comic rests on the fact that it was based on a regular character."

So that's the quotes, make of them what you will. I tend to write following news summary style, so that may account for the passive voice. As to colons, in British English most style guides state capitalising after a colon is an American thing, we don't.

As to the additions, nicely done, although I can't believe I've never added an image, I've got one sitting on my hard drive somewhere, I could have sworn I uploaded it to the commons. I'll check. Hiding talk 19:29, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoooo-boy, that's a lot to digest! I might have to let it swit for a few days because I suddengly got a rush work assignment, but here in the immediate....

I'm finding a Sabin a bit contradictory, in that he says there were comic magazines before Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, but that Ally Sloper's Half Holiday was still the first because it starred a regular continuing character.

Related to this, Famous Funnies (the first modern U.S. comic book per numerous authorities), More Fun Comics and all the other comic-strip reprint titles of the early/mid 1930s were omnibus comic books without a single starring character. To define a "comic book" as necessarily starring a single continuing character doesn't comport with the existence of these and other "Platinum Age" comic books that came out prior to such continuing character comic books as Action Comics starring Superman.

This is all why phrases like "legitimate claim", which suggests that competing claims are not legitimate, are problematic and imprecise, which, obviously, we all try and avoid. Also, I think the 1842-ish The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck (which I think you wrote about for Wikipedia?) fits into the discussion somewhere.

Thanks for working on this — I hadn't heard of Ally, and this is an amazingly long-ago citation. It's like archaelogists pushing back the date of the first proto-humans! -- Tenebrae 19:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think it's important to separate out what we're talking about here. Are we thinking of a comic as being a periodical, or simply as a standalone work? These sources are taking the comic, and by extension, the comic book to be a periodical. Oldbuck is a standalone work, and you can't cite the American work you'd have to go back to Toppfer's original. And if we aren't defining our comics as periodicals then we can add in Brown, Jones and Robertson by Richard Doyle, which has been cited as the first English language graphic novel, c. 1850. They're related but separate, I would think is the best way of looking at it. Sabin doesn't say there were comic magazines before, he notes other people have cited those works, but notes consensus is on Sloper. That's my bad. Hope that clarifies. I hadn't meant to imply, through the use of the term legitimate, that other claims were any less legitimate, but rather that Sloper's was just as legitimate. Let me have a pop and see where we get to. Hiding talk 21:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

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