X-Ray Specs

X-Ray Specs was a long running comic strip created by Mike Lacey which first appeared in the first issue of Monster Fun on 14th June 1975. It revolved around the adventures of Ray, a boy who was lent a pair of glasses by optician I. squint which could see through anything. Ray could adjust the depth at which the specs operated so that he could see, for instance, either through clothes (however layers he chose) or flesh. Luckily for publishers IPC's family friendly image, Ray never seemed to succumb to the lascivious tendencies of most boys of his apparent age, or every strip would have involved several panels of him standing on the sidelines of a hockey match at the local girls school. Ray could also reverse the effect of his glasses by looking through them the other way, so that if he looked at a skeleton he could somehow see how the person had appeared when alive! When Monster Fun was cancelled, Ray's strip transferred to Buster in 1976, where it remained a regular feature until the comic ended in January 2000, though along with all Buster's other strips, it became a reprint in the 1990s. Ray's final appearance was on the last page of the last issue of Buster, where I.Squint reclaimed his glasses, reminding Ray that they had only ever been a loan (a statement seemingly contradicted by the earlier strip in a Monster Fun Annual in which Ray breaks his glasses and Squint leaves him a new pair as a Christmas present).