Berkeley Breathed, the creator of the comic strip, shared a (fake) letter telling him to stop using Mr. Trump’s image.
Berkeley Breathed, the artist who created the comic strip “Bloom County, ” said he just wanted to have a little fun with President Trump.
But not everyone was in on the joke.
Mr. Breathed posted a letter to his Facebook page on Thursday purported to be from a lawyer representing Mr. Trump. The letter, dated May 22, warned Mr. Breathed to stop using the president’s image without permission for “commercial exploitation and promotion.”
“Please note that permission or release of trademark represented by Donald Trump or members of his family have not been granted, nor will they be, ” the letter said. It said Mr. Breathed would have his “ (censored word) in a sling before lunch, ” undoubtedly not a common term of professional legalese, unless Mr. Breathed stopped.
In a follow-up post, Mr. Breathed wrote in a letter of his own that he was “just having fun, ” but would stop using Mr. Trump’s image, because “while it’s a good time to make American great again, it’s not a good time to be sued.”
The letters rocketed around the internet. By Friday afternoon, CrowdTangle, which tracks social media activity, showed that the original Facebook post was seen by three million newsfeeds and generated 78,000 interactions — people sharing, commenting or otherwise reacting to it. Many of the people who shared the post on social media seemed to take it seriously.
“Apparently these folks aren’ t accustomed to how the internet works, ” read a top comment under the post. “They’ ve just ensured those images will live forever.”
“If Trump’s skin were any thinner, you’ d be able to see directly into his chest cavity, to the empty spot where his heart should be, ” another said. “No X-rays required!”
“Trump has Russian investigation attorney threaten comic strip creator of Bloom County, ” read one version of a Daily Kos story, which by Friday afternoon had a more speculative headline: “Did Trump have Russian investigation attorney threaten comic strip creator of Bloom County?”
Another website, Uproxx, wrote about the letter as if it were real — “Trump Is Threatening the Creator of ‘Bloom County’ Over a Facebook Meme [UPDATED] , ” the headline now reads. That update at the bottom? A tweet from a BuzzFeed reporter who had confirmed with Marc Kasowitz, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, that the letter was not real.
“This is a fraud, not true, ” Mr. Kasowitz, who did not reply to an email seeking comment on Friday, told BuzzFeed.
Emily Thall, a director at Mr. Kasowitz’s firm, confirmed on Friday that the letter posted by Mr. Breathed on Thursday was not real.
Mr. Trump hired Mr. Kasowitz, his friend and personal lawyer, this week to represent him in congressional and F. B. I. inquiries, administration officials said.
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Breathed really did send his letter to the high-powered law firm.
Mr. Breathed won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987 for “Bloom County, ” a vintage 1980s strip with offbeat characters like Opus, the talking penguin, and the bug-eyed, often unintelligible Bill the Cat. The artist is known for his playful renderings, one of which shows Mr. Trump seated behind Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, on a horse — both clad in “Bloom County” T-shirts.
But for now, according to Mr. Breathed’s “letter” to Mr. Trump’s lawyer, the “management” at “Bloom County” said he was “moving on.”
