This past Saturday was Free Comic Book day and among the many prolific artists that contributed to this year’s free comic was Matt Furie, the creator of a comic called Boy’s Club. As a slice of life style comic, Boy’s Club followed four roommates, Brett, Landwolf, Andy, and Pepe. Most people, those that are familiar with internet meme culture at least, have probably seen Pepe a few times, the green frog who once associated with the phrase “Feels good man”. Recently this frog has come under flack for being an alt-right icon as seen by noted Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, famous for being punched in the face, wearing a Pepe pin at a Trump rally. Donald Trump himself has even retweeted an image of Pepe, styled to look like Trump.
"@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump "You Can't Stump the Trump" https://t.co/0xITB7XeJV pic.twitter.com/iF6S05se2w"
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015
This campaign to corrupt the once innocent frog started a few years ago when Pepe started to become mainstream. Most of the more shocking images came from the /b/, the random board on 4chan, an image board which is mostly dedicated to Japanese culture. Later images, such as the Trump Pepe, were created by anonymous members of 4chan’s /pol/ board, for politically incorrect content. In the words of one of the forum’s anonymous posters, this corruption was done to keep the frog away from the “normies” (normal people; those who do not use 4chan).
Whereas early images of Pepe were fairly innocent, consisting mostly of the frog’s face accompanied by the aforementioned “Feels good man” which eventually became “Feels bad man”, while still later images became parodies of popular video game or film characters. Eventually, these anons, an abbreviation of “anonymous posters” which is often used by 4chan posters, arrived at the smug Pepe.
As the meme became more and more popular the concept of a “rare Pepe” developed. Initially, this was just an image of Pepe that was uncommon but eventually, this too became a meme in and of itself. A “rare Pepe” could be anything from a jpeg of Pepe with a gold tinted added in photoshop to a highly corrupted image of Pepe. Anything and 
everything could be a “rare Pepe” and users on sites like Facebook and Tumblr became more aware of the frog, posting their own “rare Pepes”.
This is what lead to his corruption and fall from grace and to his becoming an alt-right, even fascist, image.
And this brings us back to Matt Furie, a man upset by the corruption of his once beloved Pepe. His contribution to Free Comic Book day’s free comic was, as of now, the final 
installment of Boy’s Club. Furie’s comic is only one page and has little dialogue but it’s the very first image that tells the whole story: Pepe is dead, this is his funeral. As hard as it was for Furie to kill Pepe, there was really no other option. His action is one of reclamation, one that attempts to take back his frog from the dirty hands that have been abusing him. Only time will tell what impact this has on 4chan’s frog-posters, but one can only hope that Pepe has finally found peace.
