Monday, April 5th, 1976

Dreamed about Mary W. last night--a very INTERESTING dream! Don't know why, though. Haven't even seen or thought about her in months.

A fair day at school for a Monday.

Got most of my order from Bob G except for one item. Guess he was out.

Learned that Steranko will be doing his first new graphic story in five years! Can't wait!

The mysterious zillionaire Howard Hughes died today. After all the stories I've heard about him my first thought was that this could be some kind of trick. But I doubt it. I guess.

Just watched a very good Hollywood special with Dick Cavett interviewing--of all people--Mae West!

NOTES: Mary W? I have wracked my brain. I got nothin'. Mary W....Hmmm...a fellow student, a neighbor, a TV actress? None seem to fit. Oh, well. Must not have been THAT good a dream or I'd still remember it!

Jim Steranko remains one of the most influential comics artists of all time. He came along suddenly and quickly in the mid-sixties but stopped working in comics to write 2 volumes of an excellent history of the medium. Although his design sense remains amazing, his few attempts at returning to graphic storytelling since 1970 have been stunningly disappointing to me. A year after this, I would meet Steranko at a comics con in Columbus, Ohio.

I had heard about Howard Hughes my whole life--he was a genius, a daring pilot, an amazing inventor, a pioneering filmmaker, a reputable ladies man and, by the time I came along, an eccentric recluse used most often as a punchline to bad jokes. Just a couple of years earlier there had been a big scandal about a fake "authorized" Hughes biography. In this case, however, Hughes was really dead and the sad details of his demise and his longtime illness would soon enough come out.

Dick Cavett was the thinking man's talk show host. Here he hosted a prime time special for which the aged "sex symbol" Mae West was done up and trotted out for viewing as she began what would be her final film--and one of the worst ever made--SEXTETTE. Barely released in 1978, SEXTETTE was an embarrassing sex farce with an all-star cast that mixed actors like George Hamilton and Timothy Dalton with rock stars like Ringo, Keith Moon and Alice Cooper for some reason!