CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

It rarely gets more blatant than this. Nick Simmons son of Gene Simmons has been ripping off manga and other works, most notably Bleach, for his Incarnate comic for sale. It's awful.

A chronicle of the sip offs:
http://community.livejournal.com/bleachness/446299.html

FB group against him:
FB

Dude, this is crazy. XD I don't even read/watch Bleach, but art theft is pretty serious and I'm glad there are people out there trying to make this right. Here's hoping they succeed!

What the! That is so wrong! I can't believe anyone would do this. Is Nick Simmons' book actually published?

Wow, there's hardly even an effort to hide the fact its plagarism, and fanart copied too?! I don't read or watch Bleach either and I'm irritated. This reminds me of the debate over the Lion King copying an anime.

Isn't plagiarizing Bleach a punishment in and of itself?

How tasteless. I hope this kid gets sued out the butt.

I like his art style better than the original, but it's still plagiarism.

Wow. I thought you were supposed to be way past the tracing stage by the time you get published. Maybe there's hope for me, too...

This is pretty tragic. Apparently he's doing the story and the pencils, by which I assume they mean the real penciling and not just the storyboard. This means unfortunately that a lot of the differences you see are in fact the result of different inkers, and not variations done by Simmons.

The publisher has halted production as of the 25th, due to the controversy -> Radical's Blog

O_o

Woah, that's a lot of it be just an innocent "Pose" reference... dang! That's really terrible..shame on him.

LadyRushia wrote:How tasteless. I hope this kid gets sued out the butt.

I really doubt that'll happen. It's a pretty small manga, didn't sell well, and outside of a few vocal groups on the net nobody really knows about it. There really isn't much in it for Viz, and besides, the kid's dad is Gene Simmons so it's not like he's hurting for money or anything. It wouldn't teach him a lesson at any rate.

It'll probably just stay with the publishing company dropping his work, and refusing to pick up any more, and it'll probably tarnish his reputation to other publishers. That's about it though.

Oh plagiarism... All artists are influenced by the works of others and may even want to pay those artists tribute, but the outright copying of someone else's work is not the way to do it. Plagiarizing manga seems to be happening a lot lately (Fairy Tail completely ripping off One Piece's art).

What REALLY makes me sad about this whole ordeal is, as a result of this whole outcry, this manga is probably one of the only American ones your average anime fan will have heard of. Way to make the rest of us look bad, dude.

Blitzkrieg1701 (post: 1376786) wrote:What REALLY makes me sad about this whole ordeal is, as a result of this whole outcry, this manga is probably one of the only American ones your average anime fan will have heard of. Way to make the rest of us look bad, dude.

Yep....sigh.

Cloud500 (post: 1376772) wrote:Oh plagiarism... All artists are influenced by the works of others and may even want to pay those artists tribute, but the outright copying of someone else's work is not the way to do it. Plagiarizing manga seems to be happening a lot lately (Fairy Tail completely ripping off One Piece's art).

I think these are at very different levels. Fairy Tail is simply one of many cases, going all the way back to Osamu Tezuka (who stated several times in his life that he got the idea for the basic big-eyes/little-mouth style that arguably chiseled that formula in stone for manga from Walt Disney cartoons) of a popular style influencing later works. Exceptionally original art styles like One Piece, once they have proven themselves, will be copied, and Fairy Tail isn't the only one where you can see the influence of One Piece.

'Incarnate', however, shows the direct tracing of character designs and poses, and that is taking things well past the level of 'done in the style of'..

I just wonder what Nick's defense is? What can anyone say about this?

ChristianKitsune (post: 1376984) wrote:I just wonder what Nick's defense is? What can anyone say about this?

"I thought it looked familiar."

*Sigh* Maybe, he was hoping no one would notice (lol) o.o?

Cloud500 (post: 1376772) wrote:Oh plagiarism... All artists are influenced by the works of others and may even want to pay those artists tribute, but the outright copying of someone else's work is not the way to do it. Plagiarizing manga seems to be happening a lot lately (Fairy Tail completely ripping off One Piece's art).

Mashima was Oda's assistant, to be sure, but his style can be seen as an evolution of that of his previous works. At any rate, since they're pretty good friends, Oda probably doesn't see it like that.

As for Mr. Simmons, dang, American "manga" artists really do suck hard. Even if he's imitating Bleach, he's doing it poorly]http://letsleepinggodslie.deviantart.com/[/url]

Haaaaaaaahhhh
you'd think if he was the son of Gene Simmons he'd get a better scanner pfftt... XDDD
I do actually like one of his drawings on his DA... but I wonder if its legit... :/

I kind of feel sorry for him...but that feeling quickly melts away.

I thought of an excuse for him though:
Parody?
Think that will work? No?

If only it was parody...

I'm glad people aren't letting this guy get away with this. I don't care who he is or what he's copying, plagiarism is bad, mmkay?

If anyone has a twitter account, there's a discussion going on about this with the hash tag #NickSimmonsplagiarism.

Nick Simmons addresses Bleach tracing:

The statement went as follows:

Like most artists I am inspired by work I admire. There are certain similarities between some of my work and the work of others. 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.

I used to trace pictures out of my old coloring books when I was a kid. Does that make me a Manga Artist too?

[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

Not a surprising response, it was pretty predictable that he'd give that kind of statement.

Which doesn't change the fact that the statement is a total load. Inspiration and fundamental imagery are one thing. Except he didn't do that. Unless he was able to produce line-for-line traces from his memory somehow, which I highly doubt.

Overlays don't lie and the fact that overlays show it's a complete trace job pretty much destroys his statement. No "perception" necessary.

Wow, looking at his DA is like finding out that the person who shot your dog is actually a snail that lost it's shell and is on life support. It's just so pathetic, I feel sorry for him, even though he deserved it.

My goodness......I checked out his deviant as well. My goodness. That's all I can say...my GOODNESS. DX!

Yeah, and the instances of his copying keep piling up. I think the hit count of amateur DA artists he stole from is up to 4 or 5 and now a wallpaper from an upcoming movie has been allegedly found in issue 3. Simmons' reputation is completely trashed now.

I did enjoy the whole detergent and magma thing, though, XD.

YOu know, even if the guy actually decides to go legit, I doubt seriously anyone will hire him. Even if he adopts a pseudonym.

He pretty much screwed himself over for any career with art.

That Dude (post: 1379288) wrote:He pretty much screwed himself over for any career with art.

Though, by the time he's actually developed enough skills to be reconsidered, it'll be 2015 or so, and considering his work ethic so far, I don't think we'll ever have to worry about him developing skills.

Wikiwalker (post: 1377842) wrote:Wow, looking at his DA is like finding out that the person who shot your dog is actually a snail that lost it's shell and is on life support. It's just so pathetic, I feel sorry for him, even though he deserved it.

XD I kinda felt the same way as this...its so SAD! (his DA, not the situation, the situation is just stupid)