The Colbert Paladin Phenomenon
Current mood: fascinated
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

Did I start an Internet phenomenon?

All right, so if I tried to take credit for this it would not be entirely accurate. However, an action of mine, posting to Digg an image I found painted by fantasy artist Todd Lockwood of Stephen Colbert as character for the trading card game version of popular online game, World of Warcraft (WoW).

On Saturday, I originally found the picture on an entry from a blog called Dane of War, which I in turn found by doing a Google search for WoW and Colbert, which I guess I did because I am weird.

The picture was so cool, that I knew I had to submit it the aforementioned social news site. None of my previous submission ever got very many "diggs," which is how other members say if they like a submission. After a while, the submission exploded, and presently has 2947 diggs. To give you some perspective, my next most popular submission only had 31 diggs. Hell, an admittedly unoriginal comment I made on submission, saying "I Am Azeroth (And So Can You!)" got 413 diggs by itself.

Well this morning I saw a new article submitted on Digg. The article talks about the image buzzing over the Internet this weekend and cites Digg as driving the image with a link to my submission page on Digg. The article goes on say how the game's maker Upper Deck holds the image's copyright and does not allow Lockwood to display it. Worried about being sued by Upper Deck and trying to get it off the Internet, it caused Lockwood to have a "sleepless weekend."

Well, great do not I feel like a dick. I find an awesome image I want to share and nearly get the artist sued and cause the poor guy to lose sleep over it.

Well, at least the article also says that a publicist from Upper Deck realized that "it was kind of pointless to try to stop" the distribution of the image at this point, and reassured Lockwood they would take no action against him.

As someone who loves The Colbert Report, and even wears a Wriststrong bracelet, and has enjoyed playing World of Warcraft in the past and been thinking about starting up again, I enjoyed this image. I am excited by how much interested this image has garnered I am sorry for the grief its distribution has caused its creator, but it is sad when artist have to worry about being sued because people see their art.

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