58 replies to this topic

[Insurrection]

Poor, poor son of Gene Simmons, unable to think of his own character and fight designs. We'll he's probably following the next move by Kubo, lawyers!

[dl316bh]

Saw this earlier today. Absolutely pathetic. Won't sit well with comic professionals or anyone really.

Oddly amusing considering the series he decided to plagiarize though.

Edited by dl316bh, 26 February 2010 - 04:37 AM.

[Saku-chan]

I totally just found his DA and left a comment on his page. XD

Nick Simmons' Deviant Art Page


I didn't cuss at him or internet yell at him, I just added my calm remonstrations to the list on his page.

[Miss Soupy]

Just for clarification, he never actually made any facebook posts. Those posts about 'magma' and not knowing bleach were made by trolls XD;;

[Saku-chan]

Eh fer rizzle? Oh well. XD

My comment is only one of like thousands. I apologize Nick, for that at least. XD

[Miss Soupy]

Yeah XD his deviantart was never as popular as it is now I wonder if he will ever post there again, haha.

[Saku-chan]

Yeah now I think he's pushing almost 200k views... XD At this point, I would laugh if he drew a fanart thanking people for views. XD

[Miss Soupy]

HAHA. Wouldn't be surprised... though he is probably being advised by lawyers not to post anything for the time being. Can't wait to see if he makes a statement or an apology. I suppose he might also try to deny. Should be interesting

Edited by Miss Soupy, 27 February 2010 - 06:58 PM.

[Yakatsu]

I wanna steal manga and art all night!

And get sued every day!!

[JoHamSandwich]

I wanna steal manga and art all night!

And get sued every day!!

Nice KISS plug.

[Froot]

This is old news to me. I don't see what the big deal is. Art gets stolen all the time, is it suddenly more important when famous people and famous manga is involved?

This kid's going to - if he hasn't already - get what's coming to him.

[Yakatsu]

Nice KISS plug.

Someone had to do it. Just sayin'.

[Dreamer]

I cant wait to see the expression on Kubos face. Mavel and DC comics are the best comics in the U.S. anyways.

[No WhereMan]

I cant wait to see the expression on Kubos face. Mavel and DC comics are the best comics in the U.S. anyways.

Most popular maybe, I wouldn't say the best. Marvel has been in a steep decline in the last few years.

[dl316bh]

Art gets stolen all the time, is it suddenly more important when famous people and famous manga is involved?

Keep in mind that I'm not saying what Nick did is alright - it's pretty clear he basically plagiarized and that's a huge no-no; quite frankly I find it rather pathetic that he went that far - but I've got to agree with this sentiment to a degree. In some ways, I'm finding that there's a bit of hypocracy coming from the outrage of the general fanbase. The convention circuit is filled with folks in Artists Alley whom sell prints of their art of copyrighted characters or sell doujin's. Comic and manga companies pretty much seem to see it as harmless (though if it were some kind of large scale thing I doubt they'd be so lax), but that's not entirely the point I'm trying to make. When you actually stop and look at it, a lot of it is very murky legally and ethically, despite how accepted it is among the fans.

Granted, there's a difference between what they do and what Nick Simmons has done - one of those being professional publishing - but I get the feeling that if this had been writer Joe or indie artist Jane off the street it would be nowhere near the deal it is.

Either way, Nick Simmons is pretty much going to be radioactive as far as doing comic or manga goes in the future; legally, he's probably not in trouble though, as minor changes can differentiate the work in the eyes of the law, last I knew.

Most popular maybe, I wouldn't say the best.

Depends on what you're looking for, really. Superhero comics? The only one I can think of good enough outside of DC or Marvel is Robert Kirkmans "Invincible". Crime/Noir? DC does a lot of that kind of stuff in it's Vertigo imprint and a great dea of the material is absolutely fantastic; Marvel's also done a string of miniseries recently using their popular characters in noir settings. Odd/strange/adult stories? They've got them too; DC has the Vertigo line where that sort of thing thrives while Marvel has it's "MAX" line, which is a line with no restrictions of content. Marvel's also been dabbling in the adaption (and licensed work) racket lately; there have been critically acclaimed miniseries set in Stephen Kings "Dark Tower" universe, a whimsical comic adaption of "Wonderful Wizad of Oz", among other things.

The things they don't do as often are slice-of-life types of things (that's a rare one for either) or licensed properties. Marvel and DC do dabble in licensed comics (Marvel had Transformers for a long time, they've done Halo comics too; while DC has done good Gears of War comics, not to mention stuff coming for God of War and other properties), but that's mostly other companies gig (Dark Horse handles a lot of them from Star Wars to Predator, Dynamite has Highlander and Robocop, etc.)

So they've got a wide variety and a lot of good stuff to choose from. Granted, a good percentage at any given time are crap, but the same goes for companies outside of them or any other entertainment venue. Plenty to grab.

Marvel has been in a steep decline in the last few years.

Depends on what you're looking at. The bigger stuff dealing with more universe-wide things? Yeah, they're rough; they sell great but are often helmed by Brian Bendis, whom has a bad habit of rarely delivering on his buildup. But there have been absolutely fantastic runs of books from Marvel lately. A few of which being Moon Knight, Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider, Immortal Iron Fist, Ed Brubakers Captain America run, Matt Fraction on Invincible Iron Man, JMS (and now Kieron Gillen) on Thor, Johnathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run, Johnathan Hickman on Secret Warriors, Spider-Man post-BND. That's just what I can name off the top of my head.

I cant wait to see the expression on Kubos face.

He's talked on Twitter since learning. He's apparently more interested in the fact that the son of Gene Simmons is a mangaka than the fact that he was plagiarized. He's about as cool as ice about it; it's not going to affect him and I suspect he knows that.

Edited by dl316bh, 28 February 2010 - 12:53 AM.

[Miss Soupy]

Granted, there's a difference between what they do and what Nick Simmons has done - one of those being professional publishing - but I get the feeling that if this had been writer Joe or indie artist Jane off the street it would be nowhere near the deal it is.

Yeah, there wouldn't be a big deal made about writer Joe, but that largely has to do with the scale of stuff put out, probability of public recognition, and also the amount being plagarized. Nick was not only published professionally, but the amount of panels and dialogue copied is quite large. I think largely it is a stretch to say anyone who is an artist that makes fanworks and disagrees with what Nick did is a hypocrite. This is mostly because fanworks more often than not give credit and don't try to pass the characters off as their own. From what I've seen, doujin artists go to a lot of effort to make sure that if they use references, they make the art their own and don't copy the reference art. As someone who is actually supposed to be a professional published artist, Nick should have gone to the same trouble that the non-professionals do.

[socermania2]

The law can't do much to him, no matter how much.

As so far as he changes a portion of his works, he'll be all right.

More damage will come from the Bleach fandom who will boycott the work.

But hell, even my sig is stolen, so I can't say nuthin

EDIT: Besides, Kubo doesn't care. I don't see why we should if we aren't buying it. The only person Nick Summons should have to apologize to is Kubo.

Edited by socermania2, 28 February 2010 - 01:14 AM.

[dl316bh]

I think largely it is a stretch to say anyone who is an artist that makes fanworks and disagrees with what Nick did is a hypocrite.

I agree, which is why I said a bit of hypocracy instead of just saying they're all hypocrites or the like. If anything, it's interesting to note, because a lot of people who seem so adamantly against this - and again, I'm not talking about everyone - don't note that they do the same thing (assuming they sell fanworks or whatever). It's a lot of broohaha from people who do similar things.

Nick was not only published professionally, but the amount of panels and dialogue copied is quite large.

Yeah, I know. One look at the livejournal entry on the first post shows it's a damn large amount. I actually feel kind of sorry for the publishing company; it's not always easy to keep on top of this kind of thing because the only people who know enough about manga to find these things are... manga enthusiasts. So now this company has bad publicity it's probably not going to be able to wipe away.

More damage will come from the Bleach fandom who will boycott the work.

Yeah, I doubt it. Incarnate wasn't exactly a big deal before this. The people who read both it and Bleach probably numbered somewhere around five. Besides which, grassroots boycotts rarely do anything anyways. On top of that, I doubt there will be anything to boycott; far as I know the publisher halted production on the comic until investigation was completed. It's doubtful another issue will see the light of day after these crystal clear comparisons have been brought to light.

The real damage is more likely to be publishing companies treating him like radioactive sludge; "you'll never work in this town again" indeed.

Edited by dl316bh, 28 February 2010 - 01:19 AM.

[socermania2]

The real damage is more likely to be publishing companies treating him like radioactive sludge; "you'll never work in this town again" indeed.

This is true too.

[dl316bh]

Nick responds to allegations.

http://robot6.comicb...sm-allegations/

Typical "downplay the severity" comments and excuses, but at least he had the stones to make a statement at all and apologize. To be honest, I didn't expect even that. I half expected him to retreat for a while and wait for the heat to die down or try ignoring the controversy.