This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly will pay tribute to the late Michael Jackson by devoting 28 pages of the new issue to his memory, his impact on the world of pop culture and looking back at the mag’s coverage of his long career. Additionally, author Stephen King contributes an article to the mag on his memories of Michael Jackson. Here is the cover of this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly:

From the press release: NEW YORK – This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly devotes 28 pages to Michael Jackson’s mysterious death, his fascinating life, and, most important, his music. With four separate tribute covers available online at www.ew.com/mjcover, fans can collect them all. The covers feature Jackson singing at home in 1972; on the set of the “Thriller” video in 1983; a portrait taken in 1983; and performing in New York City on Sept. 10, 2001. Inside the issue we have an essay that takes a look at his final days and his astounding legacy, his life in pictures via a timeline that goes inside the world of an elusive superstar, an in depth critical guide to his albums, the songs you need for the essential Michael Jackson playlist, the greatest videos – our critic picks the top 10, from “Rock With You” to “Thriller” to “Scream,” and an essay by Stephen King who writes about working with Jackson on the 1997 video Ghosts.

Got to Be There, 1972: B+
Ben, 1972: B
Music & Me, 1973: B
Forever, Michael, 1975: B-
Off the Wall, 1979: A-
Thriller, 1982: A
Bad, 1987: B+
Dangerous, 1991: B+
HIStory, 1995: B
Blood on the Dance Floor/History in the Mix, 1997: B-
Invincible, 2001: C+

As I mentioned above, Stephen King penned a memorial of MJ for this issue which you can read after the jump. Additionally, I mentioned over the weekend that Time published a tribute issue of their magazine in honor of Michael Jackson and the fine folks at ONTD! provide some scans from inside the mag that, IMHO, absolutely sum up MJ’s life perfectly. Check it all out after the jump …

Stephen King remembers Michael Jackson:

Sixteen years ago, the King of Pop called the king of horror with an idea: What if they paired up to make the scariest music video ever? Entertainment Weekly columnist Stephen King recalls working with Jackson on ‘Ghosts.’ King remembers, “One day during preproduction, I was in on a conference call about the choreography, and Michael fell asleep. On another occasion, he called my wife, wanting the phone number for wherever I was that day. She gave it to him. Michael called back five minutes later, on the verge of tears. He hadn’t had a pencil, he said, so he’d tried to write the number on the carpet with his finger, and he couldn’t read it. My wife gave him the number again. Michael thanked her profusely…but never called me. The video contains some of the best, most inspired dancing of Jackson’s career. If you look at it, I think you’ll see why Fred Astaire called Jackson ‘a helluva mover.’ You’ll also see Jackson’s sadness and almost painful desire to please. Yes, I am strange, his eyes say, but I am doing the best I can, and I want to make you happy. Is that so bad? This is a sadness that’s all too common in people who possess talent in amounts so great it has become a burden instead of a blessing. Despite being extraordinarily beautiful (although he had probably already begun the elective surgeries that would ruin those amazing looks), Jackson was painfully shy, and difficult (sometimes impossible) to talk to, but watching that old video still makes me happy…and no, that’s not bad. It’s worth noting that he was never convicted of anything in criminal court, and when I asked Mick—who hung out with Michael occasionally— he was emphatic in his belief that Michael Jackson was indeed innocent of the abuse allegations. In the court of public opinion, however, he was found guilty of Weirdness in the First Degree, and ended up secluded in one haunted castle after another. Finally, he died in one. Strange man. Lost man. And not unique in his passing. Like James Dean, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger, and a dozen others we could name, he just left the building far too soon. Because, man oh man, that guy could dance.”

This issue of Entertainment Weekly also includes a tribute to Farrah Fawcett … the mag hits newsstands this week.

On Monday, Time published a tribute issue of their mag devoted to MJ and highlighted — in great, honest detail — the benchmarks of his life. From child Prodigy with the Jackson 5 (1958-1977) to Superstar (1978-1989) to Jacko (1990-2009), Time takes an honest accounting of his life from beginning to end:

To be completely honest, my friends and I have been talking (in the days since his death last week) about this exact breakdown of his life. Michael Jackson was a stunning talent from a very early age. His earliest songs with the Jackson 5 are among my all-time fave songs (I Want You Back, I’ll Be There, Rockin’ Robin to name a few). When he broke out as a solo artist and absolutely RULED the 80’s, he reached heights that no one had before (and may never reach again). It’s not exaggeration to hail MJ as the King of Pop, not when he was in his prime thruout the entire decade of the 80’s. The 90’s was when things took a turn for the terrible. Sadly, we watched the icon we knew and loved slowly degrade over time. From the surgeries, to the ailments, to the horrible allegations of child abuse … all the amazing things MJ did in the first half of his life were almost completely destroyed. As his behavior got stranger and stranger (his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, his behavior with his children [remember when he dangled his baby off a balcony window?], all those surgeries!), many of us remembered him less and less for the musical genius he was. Now that he is gone, we are able to take stock in his whole life … and just like we were forced to forget all of the good things about his life when the bad stuff was center stage, we now are able to put aside all of the bad stuff and focus on the good. I was no great Michael Jackson fan in the past 10-15 years but I was deffo a HUGE fan when he ruled the world in the 1980’s.

In this issue of Time magazine, Pepsi (his one-time product sponsor) published a memorial to Michael Jackson:

MJ’s collaborations with Pepsi are LEGENDARY. The King of “Pop”, indeed. I’m sure there will be many, many more tributes and memorials to Michael Jackson for some time to come. Putting it all in perspective, I think it is now very easy to remember the man as a very flawed, very great man.

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