The Oatmeal Fights Legal Threat, Raises $20,000 in an Hour

Image Courtesy of TheOatmeal.com. What, do you think I would stoop so low as to not give credit where credit is due? If so, then you know me too well!

Rule #1 with the Web: Don’t mess with the Oatmeal.

Almost a year ago, the wildly popular comics artist, whose real name is Matthew Inman, wrote an angry blog post against humor aggregator website FunnyJunk, deriding the platform for allowing (and ad-serving) uncredited images of his work.

FunnyJunk fired back Monday with a letter claiming defamation — and asked for $20,000 in damages.

Naturally, Inman then wrote an even angrier blog post that annotates the legal request. In addition to calling the claims “fiction” and the lawyer, media attorney Charles Carreon, a “jackass,” he carefully detailed his plan to respond to the letter:

1. I’m going to try and raise $20,000 in donations.
2. I’m going to take a photo of the raised money.
3. I’m going to mail you that photo, along with this drawing of your mom seducing a kodiak bear
4. I’m going to take the money and donate one half to the National Wildlife Federation and the other half to the American Cancer Society

In just over an hour, “Operation: Bearlove Good. Cancer Bad” already reached its $20,000 goal on IndieGoGo and is still climbing. At time of writing, the figure has broken past the $30,000 mark and is growing like crazy.

“Holy s*** $20,000 in 64 minutes! YOU PEOPLE ARE AMAZING,” writes Inman on his fundraiser page.

Thanks to Mashable for the leak.