Ill-Considered
March 2nd, 2010 by Esther Inglis-Arkell | Tags: mangaSome of you have been following the Nick Simmons controversy. Long story short, Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons, drew a manga titled Incarnate for Radical Publishing. Three issues in, people began noticing that some panels and characters bore a striking resemblance to art in other comics. Comics like Sandman, Bleach, and even some amateur stuff on Deviantart.
And by ‘striking resemblance,’ I mean, ‘someone owns a lightbox.’
Internet drama ensued, until yesterday Mister Simmons ended it with an apology on Comics Worth Reading.
This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium.
I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.
Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? Nothing appeases a group of fans like a guy telling them that he’s sorry about how totally wrong they are.
I won’t echo the Comics Worth Reading sentiment about this. I’ll only note that the guy released the statement ‘through a representative’. I’m not sure what kind of representative doesn’t realize that this will make things worse. Maybe Simmons insisted. It would have been better if he had just hunkered down and waited for people to forget about all of this.
Well, better for some. I often enjoy a good internet pile-on, and if he keeps issuing statements like this, the fight could last for a while.
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Okay, I thought it wasn’t that bad until I saw all the comparisons. All the news site only listed ONE image but this is just crazy now. I still don’t think it’s horrible but he could have done much better…
Okay, maybe not. It’s really bad in some parts.
There are one or two, though, where he’s right – they’re pretty generic faces or poses that are typical of the medium.
don’t forget the plot is pretty much Hellsing
also a couple characters are OP tracings, specifically of Sir Crocodile
I read that Greg Land wants to do all his cover art work.
Looking over those images, I realized something deeply disturbing about ol’ Nick’s work.
If you steal images from Bleach, you may be a plagiarist but at least you get a good action scene out of the deal.
But if you lift dialogue from Bleach, you probably have a brain condition.
Paid dojinshi I don’t have a problem with – ripping off someone’s work and not giving them credit… not so much. A guy with his resources should really have just paid someone else to do the work and then he could have taken the credit. That’s not unheard of in both manga and western comic books.