Stefen Colbear, World of Warcraft ‘Warrior for Truthiness,' Puts The Horde on Notice!

A forbidden graphic of Comedy Central’s mock conservative pundit Stephen Colbert - costumed as a heroic, torch-clutching, chest-armored World of Warcraft character - escaped its shackles and buzzed the Internet over the weekend.

(ETA:  Jonathan, a sharp-eyed reader, has posted a correction -  it’s not a torch, but a "flaming sword."  see comments below.  and thanks to Jonathan.)

Colbert is said to have a passion for gaming and World of Warcraft in particular.  

Upper Deck Entertainment commissioned the hush-hush artwork from award-winning fantasy artist Todd Lockwood and used it to develop a Stephen Colbert card they hoped to include in their upcoming World of Warcraft TCG (trading card game) deck. 

(Blizzard Entertainment owns WoW and licenses to Upper Deck.)

But, according to Lockwood, Upper Deck was forced to shelve the card after Colbert’s reps rejected the idea.  And Lockwood’s art never saw the light of day – until an unknown someone distributed it on the Internet.

Here’s a copy of the proposed card.  (Thanks to Upper Deck for giving Multichannel an exclusive, first look.)

Lockwood’s Colbert graphic - the artwork only, without all the trading card details seen above - first surfaced a couple of weeks ago on a blog called daneofwar.   But later Digg users and others drove interest in the image. 

Colbert enthusiasts thought Lockwood’s rendering of Colbert was made of "win” and predictably swapped, blogged, wallpapered and generally created havoc for Lockwood.

It’s not known exactly how the image broke out onto the Internet.  The copyright is held by Upper Deck and Lockwood is forbidden to display it.  Lockwood says he had nothing to do with the release and the artist spent a sleepless weekend trying to cork the effervescence.  “I’ve been doing my best to remove it…I don’t want any trouble from Upper Deck,” wrote a rather distraught Lockwood by email to me last Saturday. 

By today, Upper Deck had bowed to the inevitable. “Given the power of the Internet and based on the response [the image] was getting, it was kind of pointless to try to stop it,”  Upper Deck publicist Anna Maria Mannino explained.  She said the company took pains this morning to reassure Lockwood that “no action would be taken” against him.

Lockwood says the image was rejected by Colbert’s reps.

“Upper Deck loved it but Colbert’s agent for reasons unknown to me didn’t okay it,” Lockwood lamented early this afternoon when we spoke by phone. “His agent, as I understand it…never even showed it to Stephen Colbert.”

Lockwood limits his work-for-hire but couldn’t resist the offer when Upper Deck’s art director, Jeremy Cranford, presented the Colbert opportunity.

“The chance to paint Colbert as a ‘Warrior for Truthiness’?  I jumped at it.  I thought, ‘people will love that!’” recalls Lockwood.

When I asked about the the eagle claw and arrows rising from the microphone, Lockwood says he was looking for something that was peculiarly American and also ripe with "truthiness."  He found inspiration on the dollar bill.  “It’s the eagle clutching the olive leaf in one set of talons and arrows in the other,” he points out.

“If I had a title for this work, it would be ‘I am Captain America (and so can you!)’” quipped Lockwood, an avid reader of the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell and – you guessed it – a big fan of The Colbert Report.

The six in the upper left corner of the trading card represents the “play cost.”  The play cost is how many resources a gamer must use to play the card and, in this particular game, six is a LOT.

Stefen Colbear is a “Human Paladin," one race of several in the fantasy – orc, trolls, night elves etc.   The symbol in the upper right hand corner indicates that Colbear is part of the Alliance faction, one of two in the WoW universe battling for world domination.  (The other is the Horde.)
 

Click here for an online demo of the trading card game, complete with downloadable cards and step-by-step instructions.  (Warning, warning.  It’s addictive.)

“Stephen Colbert is such a cool character and a fan of gaming and I think WoW,” said Mannino, “we were hoping he’d like to be incorporated into the game, so our R&D spent a lot of time creating a great card.”

“We’re unclear if Stephen Colbert actually saw the artwork,” she added diplomatically, “but we would love some feedback as to why they didn’t like it.  We’re happy to adjust it because we’d love to use it.”

In the meantime, Colbert fans on Digg have been having a field day.  Here’s a sampling of the nearly 200 comments:

"Lockwood + Colbert = WIN!!!"

"I Am Azeroth (And So Can You!)"

"Well, I just found the only computer background I will ever need for the rest of my life."

"Terrorists eat my fiery sword of freedom!"

And a good call by Everfalling: "Did anyone else notice that the hilt of his sword has an eagle talon grasping a bunch of golden arrows as the guard with a MICROPHONE as the grip/pommel? f*cking win."

One user suggested that "if that image gets shown to Colbert you’ll never hear the end of it on the show. It might just replace that portrait above the fireplace."

And finally asked one Digg user: "Bastards! Who rejected this?"

(Which remains pretty much my question, too.)

"Stay tuned," assured someone named ‘whatsupimphil,’ alluding to a popular Colbert Report segment. "I’m sure they will be featured on ‘Who’s Not Honoring Me Now.’"

A clip from Comedy Central:  "Who’s Not Honoring Me Now – the MacArthur Foundation genius grant."

In this clip, Colbert talks gaming: