World of Warcraft’s Pepe the bird goes from lark to phenomenon

When World of Warcraft texture and prop designer Jordan Powers drew a sketch of Pepe the bird as a doodle for a school art project years ago, he had no idea just how famous his little feathered friend would become.

He put it into his work on the Warlords of Draenor expansion pack for Warcraft, which launched this month, as a whim. Players can, with a little effort, entice the bird to sit on their heads and ride with them as they travel around the world in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game. And that’s when Pepe, ahem, took off.