[Burn-it]

For those who haven't heard this news, son of Kiss frontman Gene Simmons is in trouble. He came out with a comic book series a while back entitled "Incarnate". I'm a fan of comics, as well as a fan of Kiss so naturally I wanted to see if the son of one of my favorite rock legends was any good. The art and the story were okay, but there was somthing familiar about these comic pages. I just couldn't place my finger on it:

http://community.livejournal.com/bleachness/446299.html

OH YEAH! That's why they look so familiar, it's because he practically traced the panels from another comic. It wasn't long before other people noticed:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-02-25/nick-simmons-incarnate-halted-over-alleged-bleach-plagiarism

My reaction to this whole thing; is Nick Simmons really this stupid? Did he really think he could do this and nobody would be none the wiser? The idiot doesn't even take responsibility, he has the brass guts to call his tracing "paying homage":

http://comicsworthreading.com/2010/03/01/nick-simmons-releases-statement-takes-no-responsibility/

I hope legal action is taken. I have no respect for plagiarists.

[abyssion1337]

let's not be dicks and jump straight to plagiarism here, there seems to be quite a bit of distinction and while there doesn't seem to be enough it's still there, I haven't read the thing but I imagine the story is different (unless it's a shounen manga; in that case they better have the same story)

That aside the real problem is that new artists don't have styles of their own and until they develop one anything they do will pretty much be borrowed from someone else

Moreover Kubo mentioned it a couple times on his twitter account and he doesn't seem too upset by it

[Burn-it]

It has a different story, but that doesn't change the fact that he copied the artwork. Kubo himself may be passive about it (God bless him), but I don't think that lets Nick off the hook. If you can't come up with your own artwork, then don't go into the comic book industry.

[abyssion1337]

I'm guessing you don't know much about comic books since a sizable number of artists get into the field for they're ability to replicate another artist and again you're being way hasty, other important parties should weigh in and I've seen the pictures there are some characters with an uncanny resemblance to Kubo's characters but there is plenty of distinction between the two.