Pepe the Frog was created in 2005 by artist Matt Furie for his comic Boy’s Club — a low-stakes story about four anthropomorphic animal roommates who hung out, smoked, and lived simple bohemian lives. Pepe was the chill frog. In one early panel, Pepe pulls down his pants to pee, and his friend asks why. Pepe shrugs and says, “feels good man.”
Furie had no plans for Pepe to leave the comic. The character was a small piece of an indie zine that maybe a few thousand people had read. But the “feels good man” panel was photographed and uploaded to MySpace, then Tumblr, then 4chan. By 2008, Pepe had escaped his creator entirely. Furie’s frog was about to become the most famous cartoon character on the internet — and Furie had no control over what would happen next.
Leave a Reply