Pepe the Frog cartoonist forces withdrawal of 'alt-right' children's book

[Sunlei]

Source: guardian

The cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog has taken legal action to force the author of a self-published children’s book that uses the character to espouse “racist, Islamophobic and hate-filled themes” to give all of his profits to a Muslim advocacy organisation.

Pepe, created by Matt Furie in the early 2000s as a “peaceful frog-dude” with the catchphrase “feels good man”, was adopted as a symbol by supporters of the US “alt-right” last year. He has since been designated by the Anti-Defamation League as a hate symbol, but Furie has been attempting to end the association, even killing off the character in one comic strip and subsequently launching a Kickstarter to raise money to “save Pepe”.

Furie’s lawyers have also successfully stopped the distribution of Eric Hauser’s children’s book The Adventures of Pepe and Pede. According to the Washington Post, the book sees Pepe and “his best friend Centipede” – centipede is a term for Trump supporters – as they attempt to “bring freedom back to Wishington Farm”, battling an alligator named “Alkah” with buds from “the honesty tree”. Hauser was an assistant principal at a Texas middle school until details of the book became public. But WilmerHale, the law firm representing Furie, said the book “espoused racist, Islamophobic and hate-filled themes, included allusions to the alt-right movement and was deliberately targeted at children”. The firm said that when Hauser was threatened with litigation he admitted infringement, and agreed to stop distribution of the book in all forms. It is no longer for sale on Amazon.

“Under US copyright law, Furie is entitled to all of the profits that Hauser made by selling his infringing book. Instead, per the agreement – and at Furie’s insistence – Hauser will be required to give all of his profits to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization,” said WilmerHale.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/pepe-the-frog-cartoonist-forces-withdrawal-of-alt-right-childrens-book

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“Under US copyright law, Furie is entitled to all of the profits that Hauser made by selling his infringing book. Instead, per the agreement – and at Furie’s insistence – Hauser will be required to give all of his profits to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization,” said WilmerHale.

Hey Mr. Trump , your Republican terrorist followers lost big time!

[TygrBright]

1. "The Adventures of Pepe and PEDE?" Really? They call themselves that??

Because dayum.

Okay, I know it's short for "centipede" but still... "Pede"?

Paging Pedo Bear.... paging Pedo Bear.... You're wanted for the group shot...

amusedly,
Bright

[RoccoRyg]

2. Lack of creativity

One thing about alt-right nationalists that I've noticed: They're not very creative. They suffer from a lack of imagination and can't seem to come up with their own characters, storylines or ideas. That's why they appropriated Pepe. They're too dim-witted to come up with their own frog, so they just took another guy's.

This is also why they don't read or write their own books and only repeat what their "father-figure" says. Their lack of critical reasoning skills is associated with this vacuous lack of creativity, leading to small-minded people who don't challenge information and are more enthused by narratives than facts.

[Initech]

3. The only thing they've come up with is "Based Stick Man" and the Nation of Kek.

And even the nation of Kek is loosely based on Nazism.