Editing Matt Furie

**Matt Furie** is a US cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog in his comic *Boy's Club*, the character behind the Ethereum memecoin [[Pepe]].[^1][^2] Brett, the character behind the [[Base]] token [[Brett]], also comes from *Boy's Club*.[^3]

## Background
Pepe first appeared in *Boy's Club*, dated to 2005 by Decrypt and to 2006 by the Associated Press; Fantagraphics published Furie's later Pepe strips.[^1][^2] Far-right trolls adopted the character before the 2016 US election, and the Anti-Defamation League listed Pepe as a hate symbol in September 2016.[^2] In May 2017 Furie killed off the character in a one-page Fantagraphics strip showing Pepe in an open casket; in an essay for *Time* he called the association a "nightmare" and wrote that "Pepe is love".[^2]

## Copyright actions
Since 2017 Furie has stopped uses of Pepe by Richard Spencer's AltRight.com, Arktos Media, Baked Alaska, the r/The_Donald forum and The Daily Stormer, according to his lawyers at WilmerHale.[^4] In early 2018 he sued Infowars over a poster pairing Pepe with Alex Jones and Donald Trump; after a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected Infowars' fair-use defence, Infowars settled in June 2019, paying $15,000, more than the roughly $14,000 it made from the poster, and agreeing never to sell Pepe merchandise again.[^4] His lawyer said Furie would keep enforcing his copyrights, especially against those linking Pepe to hateful images or ideas.[^4]

## Memecoins and NFTs
The PEPE token launched in April 2023 has no official connection to Furie or the original character.[^1][^5] Furie has released NFT collections with the studio ChainSaw. On 18 June 2025 an attacker took over ChainSaw's Replicandy contract, withdrew mint proceeds and dumped newly minted NFTs; the same address took over the Peplicator, Hedz and Zogz contracts on 23 June.[^6] [[ZachXBT]] estimated the ChainSaw losses at more than $310,000 and linked the fund trail to indicators associated with North Korean IT workers; no statement from Furie or ChainSaw was reported.[^6]

## Timeline
- 2016-09: ADL lists Pepe as a hate symbol[^2]
- 2017-05: Furie kills off Pepe in a Fantagraphics strip[^2]
- 2018: Furie sues Infowars over a Pepe poster[^4]
- 2019-06: Infowars settles for $15,000[^4]
- 2023-05-11: Coinbase apologises for a newsletter calling the Pepe meme a hate symbol[^1]
- 2025-06-18: ChainSaw's Replicandy contract is taken over[^6]

## See also
- [[Fwog]]

## References
1. ['We Screwed Up': Coinbase Apologizes for Pepe Comments as #DeleteCoinbase Trends](https://decrypt.co/139805/we-screwed-up-coinbase-apologizes-for-pepe-comments-as-deletecoinbase-trends), Decrypt, 2023-05-11
2. [Pepe croaks: Cartoonist kills off frog turned hate symbol](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/05/09/pepe-croaks-cartoonist-kills-off-frog-turned-hate-symbol), Associated Press via MPR News, 2017-05-09
3. [It Looks Like Pepe The Frog Has Been Killed Off By Its Creator](https://www.thefader.com/2017/05/08/pepe-the-frog-killed-off), The Fader, 2017-05-08
4. [Pepe the Frog's Creator Obtains Monetary Settlement from Infowars](https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/insights/news/20190610-pepe-the-frogs-creator-obtains-monetary-settlement-from-infowars), WilmerHale, 2019-06-10
5. [What Is Pepe? The Ethereum Meme Coin Inspired by the Iconic Cartoon Frog](https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-pepecoin-pepe), Decrypt, 2024-11-13
6. [Pepe meme creator's NFT projects hit for $1 million as contract hijackers drain collections](https://cryptoslate.com/pepe-meme-creators-nft-projects-hit-for-1-million-as-contract-hijackers-drain-collections/), CryptoSlate, 2025-06-27
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