The creator of the “Pepe the Frog” character has laid his popular internet meme to rest.
In a special strip for Free Comic Book Day, artist Matt Furie drew a one-page special edition of his famous comic, “Pepe the Frog,” in a casket at his funeral.
Furie debuted the character on his Myspace blog in 2005, but Pepe soon evolved into a widely shared joke on the anonymous image board 4chan. Pepe’s popularity online exploded, until the character was co-opted by members of the alt-right during the 2016 election campaign.
White nationalists began sharing the image online and customizing it to display racist messages.
“We basically mixed Pepe in with Nazi propaganda, etc. We built that association,” one alt-right member told the Daily Beast.
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"Pepe the Frog" creator kills off his cartoon after it became alt-right meme: https://t.co/dWNbeDGoqK pic.twitter.com/NtE706vbKn
— The Hill (@thehill) May 8, 2017
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