For 'The Economist,' Kim Jong Il's Death Means 'Farewell, Earthlings'

Known for its sometimes irreverent way of illustrating world events, The Economist magazine has over the years been quite creative when it's cover subject was North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (who died Saturday at the age of 69).

He was "Rocket man" in 2006. The image showed him blasting off into space.

In 2000, Kim Jong Il was waving on the cover beneath a headline that read "Greetings, earthlings."

So we probably shouldn't be surprised that the headline this morning on the magazine's Banyan blog is "Farewell, earthlings."

(H/T to NPR's Don Gonyea and Wright Bryan.)

Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.