DEPT OF CELEBRITY DEATHS: The Way You Make Me Feel

The King is Dead. Long Live The King — After Jackson’s death, one of the interesting things to fallow was the reaction that came in from all corners of the Pop culture Kingdom. — In her not so perfect English, Celine Dion said “I think Michael Jackson lived under pressure all the time, since he’s five years old – wanting to please his family and his fans and putting the bar so high that he needed to be suppressing his own self.” — Slash from Guns & Roses called Jackson “One of the most talented & dynamic performer/singer/songwriters” he ever had the pleasure of working with. — Paris Hilton tweeted “Love you Michael, you will truly be missed by the entire world. Your music will live on forever, truly timeless and iconic.” -– And my personal favorite which some reason did not make it into my own comic, Hanson, yes, Hanson: “We are all is shock to hear that Michael Jackson just died. It is heart breaking to think that we have lost such a musical inspiration.” —- (And what I love about that one is that it kind of gives you the impression that the three Hanson bros, are ALWAYS together, like they were all just hanging out when they heard the news on their tree house radio.) — Even celebrity President Barack Obama had a statement through Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: “I think everybody remembers hearing his songs and watching him moonwalk on television during Motown’s 25th anniversary … But the president also said he had aspects of his life that were sad and tragic.  His condolences went out to the Jackson family and fans that mourn his loss.” And the list just goes on and on from World leaders, to Steven Spielberg, and Diana Ross to one of the Coreys… And a lot of these people too are sending in there reaction through twitter, which of course just makes the whole thing weirder. And I just found it all pretty amazing to watch. Like, here were all these famous, very famous people, some of whom were elected, others famous for simply being famous; and they were all coming together, speaking at once, to pay their respect to one man who was maybe more famous then all of them.

So I decided that I would collect a few of my favorite quotes and put them together in the comic above. Obviously as you can see, I wasn’t able to include all of the names on the list that I wanted, but it’s still funny to see some of these people beside each other united in their grief for Jackson; a guy who like no other, embodied fame and celebrity culture, and who was, kind of understandably, driven so, so crazy by it.

So, R.I.P. M.J. People can say what they what about you. And I’m thinking that there’s a pretty good chance that it’s true, but this world will always love you.