Late Tuesday afternoon, Charles Carreon dropped his absurd federal lawsuit against The Oatmeal cartoonist Matt Inman, Indiegogo, The National Wildlife Federation, The American Cancer Society, and 100 unnamed Does in Northern California District Court. Theoretically, the whole crazy debacle should all be over.

But while it may look like Carreon has come to his senses, Ars called Carreon to comment and found him declaring the lawsuit a success. "Mission Accomplished," Carreon announced on the phone with Ars. We've heard that somewhere else before.

Carreon's statement is clearly in reference to this weekend's strange legal battles, in which Carreon updated his federal lawsuit against Inman to include a request for a temporary restraining order that would prevent fundraising website IndieGoGo from giving Inman the $220,000 his followers had raised in response to a defamation claim from Carreon and humor website FunnyJunk.

Inman, who secured legal help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was planning on photographing the funds before he sent them to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society, and then sending the photograph to Carreon as a taunt. But Carreon sought to prevent Inman from claiming the money from fundraising website Indiegogo and then photographing the funds, claiming he wanted to prevent "a publicity stunt" that would also permit Inman a possible tax write off.

But as Ars wrote this morning, Inman decided to photograph his own money because of Carreon's complaint. The EFF stated that "Mr. Inman has decided to not withdraw the funds in order to photograph them. Instead (unwilling to allow Mr. Carreon to interfere further with his expressive activity) he decided to photograph his own funds."

Inman said in a separate sworn statement that, "in order to avoid having this lawsuit interfere with my expression and to avoid jeopardizing the funds from the campaign in any way, I withdrew funds from my own personal account and photographed those funds." IndieGoGo distributed the funds directly to the two charities. To Charles Carreon, that's a win.

When asked for further comment on his self-described success, Carreon described a shoot-from-the-hip mentality. "I haven't been commenting on litigation. I litigate," he said.

As legal blog Popehat points out, Carreon filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal today, but did so "without prejudice," meaning Carreon could still re-file in the future if he so desires. Popehat also noted that "voluntary dismissal of the action does not preclude Mr. Inman from seeking attorney fees and costs." When asked whether he's worried about Inman or others seeking restitution fees of some sort, Carreon answered, "You don't instruct your adversaries. My adversaries instruct me."

Ars also contacted Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, part of Inman's legal counsel from the EFF, who said, "I think he [Carreon] recognized that the lawsuit was not going anywhere, we filed a brief that outlined in tremendous detail why he was on the wrong side of the law." From Inman's right to practice free speech to the argument that Inman would not be considered (as Carreon claimed) a "commercial fundraiser" under California law, the EFF rebutted many of the claims that Carreon has made over the past few weeks.

”Inman said from the beginning that he was going to donate the money to charity, and he did donate the money to charity,” Opsahl said over the phone Tuesday evening. “The real reason for the lawsuit was to use a legal attack against a critic.”

When asked whether the EFF would pursue compensation for legal fees and attorney costs, Opsahl stopped short of saying the dismissal of charges would bring an end to the whole debacle. “I'd have to talk to my client. [I] can't make an absolute statement on what our next step would be.”

But even if the defendants pursue attorney's fees, the attention might be worth it for Charles Carreon. After asking for comment on his voluntary dismissal of charges, Carreon lilted over the phone, "I'm famous, I'm notorious." Which, from the looks of it, is exactly what he wants.