From a Very Special Bad Signal sent out within hours of Heath Ledger’s announced death, still referencing the Mary Kate Olsen connection that was proven to be incorrect:

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

New record for the internet: the sick jokes started within seven femtoseconds of the announcement of his death.

In case you’ve been unplugged today — Heath Ledger’s dead. In case you missed the details, he was found
naked in Mary-Kate Olsen’s Manhattan apartment, pills scattered around his body and dead as fucking
hell of a cardiac arrest most probably induced by an overdose.

I like to think that, in his final hours, he sat there and considered: I’m definitely going to kill myself, but how
can I give it that extra edge that the media love? How about.. I break into the home of a beloved one-time child actress, take off all my clothes and rub myself all over her bed first? Yes, that’s the ticket, no better
way to completely fuck up the life of my two-year-old daughter than to leave behind a Legendary Sleazy
Suicide… what the hell, Cobain’s kid will probably be selling her Vicodin in a few years anyway…

Heath Ledger, then. Entered film like a lion. Left the world like a limp prick with spots on it.

– W

In fact, Byrne’s handled this with outright class, so Ellis didn;t even have to try as hard as he did to claim the mantle.

I had thought he was at least ten years older. Even that would be far too
young to die. At the least, let us hope this was accidental. Show Business
has far too many of the other kind of tragedy.

RIP

General, Comics, Movie/TV