wapuujack? lumberpuu? We’re not quite sure what to call it, but we’d like to introduce you to our wapuu!
It all started when Matt Mullenweg (the co-founder of WordPress) went to Japan in 2009. While there the Japanese WordPress community asked him if they could create a mascot. Matt said yes as long as it was GPL licensed and designed by an illustrator who understands the open source community. The community asked Kazuko Kaneuchi, who had experience in creating the Japanese NetBeans mascot, Neko-bean.
Since then, wapuu has spread outside of Japan – London, Philadelphia, Belgrade, and more have all released versions of the character.
Automattician and WordCamp Maine organizer Stephen Quirk made the lumberjack-inspired version for this year’s event using the community-sourced files.
You can catch this wapuu in sticker form at WordCamp Maine 2015!