The creator of Pepe the Frog has succeeded in pulling a children’s book featuring his now infamous amphibian from shelves.
Comic artist Matt Furie and a team of lawyers reached an out-of-court settlement on Monday with Eric Hauser, the author of the The Adventures of Pepe and Pede, which was self-published on August 1st but later picked up by conservative publishing house Post Hill Press. Furie claimed the new book was both racist and Islamaphobic.
The story features Pepe the Frog, a character created by Furie in 2005 that has since been adopted as a symbol by the alt-right, and Pepe’s sidekick centipede Pede—a name that’s been coopted by some Donald Trump supporters to become a term of endearment.
The book follows Pepe and Pede’s attempt to vanquish “Alkah,” a bearded alligator, as he threatens to gain control of “Wishington Farm” by spreading the swamp where he resides all over the farm.
“Matt has really decided he wants to aggressively enforce his intellectual property against somebody who is using it in a racist way, or to promote white supremacy, or any kind of hate,” Louis Tompros, one of Furie’s attorneys, said on Monday. “This is a circumstance in which we have his creation being marketed in this children’s book along with really horrible themes.”
Hauser and Furie’s agreement requires Hauser to donate the book’s $1,521.54 in profits to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, destroy all hard and electronic copies in his possession, and cease publication of the book. This is Furie’s first legal action against a copyright infringement on the Pepe character, though Tompros suggested it wouldn’t be the last.
“We’re investigating them further, and we certainly will take action to shut them down if that is appropriate,” Tompros said.
In August, Hauser was reportedly fired from his job as an assistant principal at a Texas middle school after the book caused controversy on social media.
