Val's Vanishing Cream
   
                             
    Val had a special tub of vanishing cream that really did
    make things disappear. You name it, Val would rub her
    cream upon it and - voila! - it vanished before your
    very eyes...

    Val made sure she always had her cream with her at
    all times. Although its uses were myriad, she mainly
    employed the stuff against bullies and burglars and
    irritating adults - as was customary in a Fleetway strip!

    Val's Vanishing Cream originally featured as one of
    ten strips put up for a public vote in Cor!! The Cor-medy
    Choice selection was published one strip a week for
    ten weeks before readers submitted their votes.

    Val's strip was #4, and it appeared 12th May 1973.
    It was an origin strip, showing us how she acquired her
    magic cream. There was nothing special about its
    discovery, though. It was simply lurking midst a bag
    of old cosmetics which Val's Mum had asked her to
    throw out. Val puts the stuff to good use at school as
    she makes Teacher's cane disappear to avoid a
    whacking.

    Four months later, flushed with success in the vote,
    the strip officially joined the comic. Val even featured
    on the cover. In this first regular strip, Val goes cycling
    with her pal Mary and thwarts a bicycle thief with
    the aid of an invisible bike...

    Cor!! merged with Buster comic in June 1974, but Val
    didn't vanish. Indeed, she thrived in her new weekly
    home. She even doubled up her Annual appearances
    by appearing in both Cor!! and Buster Annuals for a while,
    and was included in the gaggle of characters who starred
    on the cover of Buster's 1977and 1978 editions.

    The strip's artist was Mike Lacey. Val had a Tomboy
    look, with her short straw hair and freckles. She wore a
    striped top, similar to Ray, in X-Ray Specs which was
    another Lacey strip at the time. It could be argued that
    she has a cousin in Richie Wraggs. There's a certain
    similarity there, for sure!

    Val's was indeed something of a Tomboy. Stories
    had her visiting the Army, or donning overalls to assist
    in Uncle John's garage, or getting a friend with a JCB
    to give her hand. Oh, and she'd regularly take on a big
    greasy bully called Basher. But although she punched
    abover her weight, she was cetainly not a troublemaker.
    No, there was another Fleetway Tomboy already
    doing that...

    On the home front, Val had a young puppy dog called
    Towser. In the original Cor-medy Choice strip, Mum is
    depicted as having a trendy 70s perm. When Dad
    showed up in later strips he has a swinging paintbrush
    moustache. They made a groovy couple, alright...

    Of course, we all wondered just how much vanishing
    cream Val had. It never seemed to run out!

    Our Val's not the only Fleetway gal to have a cosmic
    cosmetic. Martha had a monster jar of magic too...