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Nick Simmons called out on plagiarism charges
February 25th, 2010 by Gabrielle Faust received 6 Comments »
Last year, late one night, while I was watching an episode of Gene Simmons: Family Jewels I noticed an ad for his son, Nick Simmons’ new comic book venture. Intrigued, I reported about it here. I had only read the press release and seen the cover so I had little else to go on. But my curiosity had been piqued. This morning, however, I woke up to find five comments on my original post from outraged members of the manga community accusing Simmons of plagiarism and calling him a “thief”. I was stunned. I hadn’t heard of this new scandal which appears to be quite the hot button in the animae and manga worlds at the moment. So, I decided to do a bit of investigating…
According to an article on the Comic Book Resources site, “Radical Publishing has stopped production of its comic Incarnate while it investigates growing accusations that creator Nick Simmons plagiarized Bleach and other popular manga series.”
When CBR contacted Radical Publishing Wednesday night for comment, Radical Publishing released the following statement: “We at Radical Publishing Inc. and Radical Comics Inc. are quite concerned to hear the news surrounding Nick Simmons’s Incarnate comic book. We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter. We have halted further production and distribution of the Incarnate comic book and trade paperback until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Rest assured that Radical is taking swift action regarding this matter and will continue in its efforts to maintain the integrity and protect the intellectual property of artists throughout the world whose creative works are the bedrock of our company and the comic book industry.”
To read the rest of the article on CBR, click here.
I’ve posted an example of the direct duplication of the illustration style and even position of the character which fans and activists are using as evidence of the copyright infringement (“Bleach” on top, “Incarnate” on bottom). As my readers here well know, I am very vocal when it comes to copying another artist’s work. Copyright infringement is ILLEGAL. It is stealing and should not be condoned or simply overlooked because of a person’s “fame” or association with “fame”. Copying another artist’s work is cowardly and disgusting. What’s sad about this situation with Nick Simmons has a modicum of talent, but now that he’s shot himself in the artistic foot by duplicating another’s hard work, he’ll never be respected or even likely acknowledged in the art world. Pathetic…
If you’ve been following the Nick Simmons “Incarnate” scandal, I’d love to hear about what you’ve found and your take on the case. Feel free to post links in the comment section to discussions you’re having on other sites. People need to know about copyright infringement cases.
Tags: animae, Bleach, comic book, copyright infringement, Incarnate, manga, Nick Simmons
Posted under: Artwork & Artists, Graphic Novels
I’d like to thank you for your prompt response and investigation, as well as for promoting awareness of Nick’s misconduct. Currently, I believe most fans are waiting on further action following statements from both VIZ and Radical.
In the meantime, if you are following this post, the number of examples found continues to grow. Bleach is not, in fact, the only series this ‘artist’ plagiarized.
It will be interesting to see what VIZ and Radical do about the situation. If they do nothing they run the risk of their entire company losing business. Sad…
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Incarnate
One time, coincidental… two times… odd, but whatever. I can even pass him on three times… but 20 examples of what appears to be similarities to Bleach is called a pattern.
I always hear the same argument from Nick supporters.. “Japanese artists copy all the time. All manga is based on someone else’s Manga”.
1. that’s true TO A POINT. Tite Kubo’s short lived Manga Zombie Powder (which he abandoned when Bleach took off)’s main character Ganma is similar in personality to Vash the Stampede from Trigun… and both take place in a sort of futuristic wild west setting.
However… The character designs for the most part are all Tite Kubo, and while there are personality similarities (and the fact both have fake metal arms)… that’s pretty much where things end. Vash is a hero… Ganma is an anti-hero… Vash is friendlier, Ganma will walk all over you to get what he wants… so on and so forth.
So while they are inspired by others and even kind of borrow basic concepts or designs… they don’t outright steal ideas, conceptions, and/or art. which brings me to point
2. People seem to think Japan is very lax when it comes to copyright infringment. WRONG. One Manga artist was brought to task about his manga when fans of a different manga cried foul. The mangaka admitted some of his scenes were copied out of the other manga in question. Not only did he lose everything and was disgraced, but future projects were cancelled and his past creations were pulled off the shelves… and all he did was copy a few panels, but from then on, his reputation was basically done as an artist and ALL his work, even the legit stuff, were forever affected.
If you look at Nick’s comic, its almost like the whole series is one big fraud. So Japan artists do take this very seriously. People think when Tite Kubo stated that he was more interested in the fact Gene Simmons’ son was a mangaka, he wasn’t really that interested in the plagairism. To me, it sounded less like he didn’t care, and more like he was knocking Nick, trying to take his “fame” down a notch. Most hard working artists do care, even if they don’t necessarily express it in the “I’m going to sue you” way.
The thing is… If you look at the panels side by side, you could say… “yeah similar…” but when you take those same panels and overlay them one on top of the other, you have to say “wow, he must have traced those, they fit together perfectly like a peice of a puzzle.”
not to mention, in one panel from Bleach – Orihime says with a slight tilt to her head, her eyes furrowed in concern, tears swelling… “Please, just don’t hurt yourself anymore like this.” In the panel from Nick’s manga, a blonde chick who looks like Orihime says with a slight tilt to her head, her eyes furrowed in concern, tears swelling… “Please, just don’t hurt yourself anymore.”
In Bleach, Ichigo grabs his chest, hunched over with a shocked look on his face… he realizes his wounds have mysteriously healed and he says “wasn’t there… a hole in my chest… ?!” In Nick’s Manga, an Ichigo looking character grabs his chest, hunched over with a shocked look on his face… he realizes his wounds have mysteriously healed and he says “My wounds… how..??”
I mean, come on. How much more blatant can you be?
Also, if you look at his official deviant art page… some of the Bleach fan art that he was said to have stole from other artists… is saved on his favorites! he wasn’t even bright enough to delete them after stealing from them.
Before anyone argues… “Parody” “fan art” “Doujinshi” let me say this.
It is true… Parodys are protected (to an extent) from copyright law… this isn’t a parody. I can make a parody of Harry Potter, but I can’t rewrite the book just changing a few names, re-titling it “harriet porter” and sell it as my own original work. Reworking the color of a character’s hair and making her boobs smaller doesn’t make it a parody, or your original work… especially if you trace the character and do the tweeking later.
Fan art is protected so long as it is not sold for profit, or sold with artists permission. Again, this isn’t the case with Simmons. He is selling this comic as his original work, his original designs. In fact, on his deviant art page, it says… “If you steal my artwork, you will pay. In cash.” so obviously hes treating his art like it belongs to him.
You CAN create fan art and sell it for a profit without the artists permission… but there is a very special way to do this. 1. you have to give credit where credit is due. All characters, and character designs belong to the original artist. 2. you can not trace, or mimic drawings and then pass them off as your own. You must draw your own scenes by hand from your mind… create your own panels and your own storyline. (This is how Doujinshi’s exist. Fan fictions, fan art based on actual existing anime/manga characters… however the artistic concepts belong to the doujinshi artists, and are not traces or mimics of existing works.)
Nick traced these images and used the actual text from the various sources he stole from (not limited to Bleach mind you)… you can’t do an overlay and have them lay almost perfectly on top of each other by accident. If it’s not traced, it wouldn’t be so identical that they could be laid on top of each other and fit… even once is suspicious, but over 20 examples worth? That many “coincidences” just don’t happen unless you’re Forest Gump.
I just don’t know how anyone can still defend him. He is an admitted fan of manga… he has a Deviant art page so we know he’s accessed other Deviant art artists, we KNOW he knows Bleach because people in third world countries know Bleach, how would a big Manga fan not? Plus he has Bleach art saved in his favorites on Deviant Art, so he knows Bleach. The argument that “it’s coincidence, maybe he doesn’t even know Bleach” is stupid… and, how many examples of “they look too eerily similar” do you need before you say, “yeah, this is a bit suspicious”
anyhoo. he ripped off Bleach as well as other Manga and artists… that’s how I feel about it. And I ain’t changin my mind. lol
If you are going by the cover art of Incarnate that Nick Simmons can draw, that was created by another artist, in fact, a ‘team’ of artists were hired to work on Incarnate. If you want to know what Nick’s art really looks like, he has a DA account with ‘original’ work. Note warning that if the art is stolen, you’ll have to pay, in cash.
http://letsleepinggodslie.deviantart.com/
Interesting. Thanks for posting the link! I’ll check it out. Personally, I never did bother purchasing the comic.