Introducing WordCamp Maine 2016’s Wapuu!

That’s wapuu, plural!WCME16-wapuu-site2

So what’s a 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.

–wapuu fan club

Since then, wapuu has spread outside of Japan – WordCamp USAustralia, Prague, and others have all released versions of the character.  And don’t forget our very own lumberjack wapuu from last year.  There are even paper dolls, a card gameplugins, a VR experience, and more!

Stephen Quirk, an Automattician and WordCamp Maine organizer, made the fisherman-and-prey-inspired version for this year’s event.

You can “catch” this wapuu in sticker form at WordCamp Maine 2016!