Nick Simmons' Incarnate

[3_jane]

The question of whether Gene Simmons' son Nick plagiarized some of the contents of his comic Incarnate is already gathering steam at Wikipedia and GameFAQs and Bleachness, so I'll just link to that because I'm still wading through everything myself. But, for legality's sake:



One scan from Incarnate:





And one scan from siguredo on dA (posted November 2007):




(And here I was thinking my first post here would be something like Bianca Reyes: Good Mom or Best Mom?, but considering how much getting two scans to show up is tying my stomach in knots this may be for the best.)




ETA: Radical Comics is now halting production and distribution of Incarnate until the matter is resolved.

Suggested tags: creator: Kubo Tite, creator: Kouta Hirano, creator: Nick Simmons, publisher: Radical Comics, title: Incarnate, title: Bleach, title: Hellsing

Comments

[nezchan]

Even if it isn't Land style traced, it's still not great artwork. I'd call it webcomic level, basically.

[3_jane]

Looking at his dA gallery, I'm not even sure if he rises to the level of that one kid from Trig who used to draw Trent Reznor in his notebook during class. :/

[nezchan]

Good heavens, that's atrocious. And it's interesting to see how much better, relatively speaking, the allegedly copied stuff is.


Hmmmmmm...

[darkblade]

I hope it isn't traced because that would mean there are more than two people in the world who didn't cringe at that deformed torso.

[nezchan]

"Heavily referenced", shall we say?

[northstarfan]

Yech. Is that what the interiors look like? Talk about misleading covers...

[palabradot]

why hello there Ulquiorra. Or is that...wow, that face looks awfully familiar, but there's such a cast of thousands in Bleach right now I can't place where I know it from. Just the face,, not the rest of him.

[northstarfan]

I've heard a lot of "Hey, it's Alucard!", but I'm not familiar enough with anime to know. I was a bit disappointed to see Joan Chen's name attached to this in any capacity, but I doubt she had anything to do with the interiors.

[salamangkiero]

It actually reminds me of Hades from the current storyline of Saint Seiya. Or maybe deathnote.

[yaseen101]

It kind of is:

[neuhallidae]

The covers, if the website isn't lying, are by Jo Chen. Ye gods, why?

[northstarfan]

I doubt she had anything to do with the contents; she was probably just commissioned for covers. And not very elaborate ones at that. Honestly, the second one looks like half-a-step up from a sketch commission.

[shanejayell]

Light? Is that you?

[yaseen101]

I was thinking Alucard, myself. Dark haired, red eyed, dude in a suit with shadowy stuff all around him, how could it not be.

[omgwtflolbbqbye.livejournal.com]

I'm sure this will be a crushing blow to his many fans who believed he was getting by on sheer talent.

[nezchan]

Talent without training rarely rises to a professional level, sadly. Although fortunate for those of us who want to do this without huge reserves of innate ability.

A lot of the pages up there, tracing aside, look like someone who hasn't received much in the line of training.

[darkblade]

Well he is getting by on sheer talent. His Father's talent. No way this would have been published otherwise.

[nezchan]

Well, the further I go in actual art training (animation, but it applies to comic styles too), the more I see the faults in the so-called "talented" that I'm seeing here in spades. It's enough to wow the kids on deviantART, but to stand next to the pros? I'd like to think the bar's a bit higher than that.

[darkblade]

...I was saying that he really isn't that talented and that he is only getting by because his Father is famous.

[nezchan]

Not disagreeing. What I'm saying here is, he can draw a recognizable human form and so forth, and a lot of folks get wowed by that plus the coattail-riding.

[kaileighblue]

If you have money odds are you can find someone how will print your stuff. I see a lot of web comics people that self-publish. Skill be damned.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

I read a horror anthology comic "hosted by" Gene Simmons (in the same way that Cain and Abel "hosted" their comics) and it had a short story written by this son of his. It was pretty terrible.

Perhaps I'm just a writing snob (having my own pretensions to being a halfway decent horror writer) but... it wasn't good.

[omgwtflolbbqbye.livejournal.com]

I was being sarcastic :(

[sarno001]

Maybe I just don't understand the medium, but don't comic book panels typically have some kind of background?

[nezchan]

Ah, that's part of what was screaming "webcomic" at me, thanks for pointing it out. Looking through the scans up there and on the Bleachness post, I'm seeing all sorts of webcomic-level mistakes.

Lessee...little use of perspective, flat features, especially eyes, uneven facial features, simplified and/or missing backgrounds, random light sources, vague anatomy, tonnes of anime clichés, etc., etc. Seriously, I'd say the only reason this isn't a self-published effort through Lulu or someplace is his dad's star power.

[salamangkiero]

To be fair a good section of manga is the same way. however, the problem here isn;t so much lack of art as it is amateurish. This isn't minimalism, that's for sure.

[tanetris]

Who needs backgrounds when you have ACTION LINES!?

[nezchan]

Can they replace that horrifying pattern fill the guy's wearing with ACTION LINES? It'd actually be an improvement.

[joasakura]

ah, yeah, I saw something about this on my flist today, too. There's a fine line between "being inspired by" and "getting out the lightbox". Congratulations, Nick Simmons. Play your cards right, and some day, with practice, you could be Greg Land.

[darkblade]

So an update. According to Nick's facebook page he doesn't read Japanese "magma" and wonders why anyone would read a comic named after detergent.

This has also caused a shitstorm on 4chan where /a/'s name has been changed to Detergent & Magma and /co/ has been changed to plagarism.

[nezchan]

From what I've been hearing, that was a hoax and that Nick hasn't officially responded at all yet.

[geoffsebesta]

ha ha ha oh 4chan

[team_mummy]

i am rather annoyed at how easy it seems for shit like THIS to make it to shelves.

[halloweenjack]

Well, good for Radical Comics. Usually swipes just get papered over (sometimes the paper being money).

[tacobob]

No, he wasn't ripping other artist's work, he was giving them HOMAGE!

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/03/incarnate-creator-nick-simmons-responds-to-plagiarism-allegations/

Heh.

*Goes off to homage his local bank!*

[darkblade]

I want Land to use that excuse.

"I was just homaging the porn."

[tacobob]

and everything else he can get his hands on. >:|