Oatmeal cash pictures hopefully conclude Charles Carreon’s legal battle

If this is indeed the final chapter in an unusual legal battle with FunnyJunk lawyer Charles Carreon, it looks like Matthew Inman got the last laugh.

The creator of the popular web comic the Oatmeal recently claimed the US$211,223.04 he had generated for charity using the online funding platform Indiegogo. And with a few clever money shots, coupled with a special care package, Inman has taken what may be the final jab at his FunnyJunk rival.

"As promised, here's the photo of $211,223.04 in cash we raised for charity," shared Inman in the Oatmeal blog, which includes several photos aimed at Carreon. We'd love to show you the funniest photo of the bunch but it's not exactly PG-13 material.

The beef began to stew just about a year ago when Inman wrote a blog post criticizing FunnyJunk for publishing unaccredited Oatmeal comics on its site. Oddly enough, it took nearly a year for the FunnyJunk brass to respond, but their reaction was a little more than what you'd expect. Carreon, on behalf of the owner of FunnyJunk, claimed defamation against Inman, seeking $20,000 in damages while demanding the Oatmeal remove the scathing blog.

"Very soon, the lawyer representing FunnyJunk, media attorney Charles Carreon, became the focus of the story, as Inman reacted in his characteristic style (to which Carreon responded with some angry tweets)," reveals Stan Schroeder in a Mashable blog. "He decided to try to raise $20,000 for charity, take the photo of the money, and mail Carreon that photo along with a drawing of someone's mom seducing a kodiak bear."

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In less than a day, the philanthropic campaign had generated more than $120,000 for both the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation. This, however, did little to appease Carreon.

"Well, there were some ensuing legal shenanigans, with Carreon trying to hold up the transfer of funds from Indiegogo (where the money was raised) to Inman, but he dropped that lawsuit last week and declared, 'Mission accomplished,'" writes Anthony Ha of TechCrunch. "Now Inman has his money (a whopping $211,000 withdrawn from the bank in a duffel bag), and judging by the photographic evidence, he is indeed sending the cartoon and photo to Carreon in a nice care package."

But Carreon and his FunnyJunk posse might not be done with the Oatmeal. Though the disgruntled lawyer pulled his lawsuit, which named Indiegogo, Inman and his charities of choice, the retraction "was provisional—'without prejudice' in legal parlance—and the suit can be brought again," reports Ars Technica.

"This weekend, it became clear that Camp Carreon isn't done with Inman yet—a new video depicts the cartoonist as a "Psycho Santa," while a new website suggests that Carreon might like to pursue litigation against those who engaged in a 'Distributed Internet Reputational Attack' against him."

Stay tuned, folks. This legal battle of wits may just be getting started.

(Photos from the Oatmeal blog)