Visual Art

Pepe the Frog cartoonist kills off character that became hate symbol

A Pepe cartoon released on Saturday in comic book stores shows Matt Furie's creation in an open casket.

In a Time magazine essay last year, Furie described Pepe as "chill frog-dude" who debuted in a 2006 comic book called Boy's Club and became a popular online subject for user-generated mutations.

But internet trolls hijacked the character and began flooding social media with hateful Pepe memes more than a year before the 2016 presidential election.

Famous Australian artworks go under the hammer

The Gould Collection of Important Australian Art was made up of 74 impressive works, including Sidney Nolan's Outlaw and Burke Lay Dying, Charles Blackman's The Friends, and Brett Whitleley's Galah.

While many artworks exceeded auctioneers' expectations, none managed to make it into the top five most expensive Australian artworks.

The collection had been owned by Rob Gould, a well known and highly respected art dealer, who specialises in Australian art.