Update: The Oatmeal ended up raising more money in one day than most people make in one year.

Some people might hire a lawyer if they received a letter threatening legal action. Not Matthew Inman, creator of the Seattle-based humor site TheOatmeal.com.

He drew a comic — this one, specifically. He says it represents “your mom” trying to romance a Kodiak bear.

That could be the lawyer’s mom. But more likely, it’s the mythical mother of funnyjunk.com, which hired the lawyer to threaten legal action if Inman doesn’t pay $20,000 in defmation damages.

Let’s back up a bit. I bet I lost you right around the time the bear entered this story.

Inman penned a disgruntled blog post about FunnyJunk last year, noting that the site features many of his comics without permission. Now, FunnyJunk says its reputation has been damaged, and that Inman should pay the price.

Enter another outraged blog post — this one complete with the aforementioned Kodiak-bear cartoon.

Inman sarcastically gave FunnyJunk’s attorney Charles Carreon a “lawyer grade” of A+, then he said he’d raise $20,000 just for the heck of it.

He wrote in his fundraising page:

Instead of mailing the owner of FunnyJunk the money, I’m going to send the above drawing of his mother. I’m going to try and raise $20,000 and instead send it to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society.

Monday afternoon, he posted to Facebook that his fundraising campaign reached $20,000 in just 64 minutes. At the time this blog post was published, donations had almost reached $53,000 with over 3,700 funders.

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