Nobody can fathom why Shia Lebeouf simply didn’t admit to “sampling” a Daniel Clowes comic-book character (i.e., Justin M. Damiano) at the beginning of HowardCantour.com, his recently released short film. All he had to do was say “ripped off from Daniel Clowes…due respect but this was the process.” But no — he tried to pass it off as an original.
In any event, Lebeouf has now tweeted that he’s “retiring from all public life.” Not really. He’s just an emotional guy who’s throwing up his hands and saying “fuck it” for the time being. He’s feeling heavily assaulted and is basically taking a vacation from the slings and arrows. He’ll be back in a year or so. His Clowes plagiarism thing was an artistic felony, of course, but he presumably learned a lesson. I’m guessing that he’s retiring like Frank Sinatra retired in ’68 and like Steven Soderbergh is retired now.