Gene Simmons’ son rips off manga Bleach
p2pnet view Music | P2P:- KISS mouth Gene Simmons isn’t the brightest bulb in the universe. And now it looks as though his son, Nick, is even dimmer.
Way dimmer!
“I still consider free downloads and file sharing stealing”, p2pnet quoted Simmons senior as saying in Canada last year.
And, “Remember Gene Simmons, the bass player from the band KISS? Simmons HAAATES file sharing?” – asks Monkey D. Luffy in his new blog, Monkey House.
So, “I wonder how Simmons feels about plagiarism. Because his son Nick Simmons has done just about the most glaring rip off of someone else work I’ve ever seen”, he says, going on >>>
Gene Simmons wants to sue people for sharing files, I wonder if he’s ok with ripping off someone else’s work and selling it?
From Topless Robot:
Gene Simmons is one of the greatest douchebags of our time, but I’d hate you to think I was taking my dislike of the KISS guitarist out on his son. No, his son Nick — “creator” of the comic Incarnate, to be printed by Radical — has very much earned my contempt by his own merits, thanks to this.
You’re looking at Tite Kubo’s incredibly popular manga Bleach on the left, and Nick Simmons’ Incarnate on the right. Yes, Simmons is a plagiarist, as discovered by many, many people. Now, I know the crime of plagiary is a serious one for artists, and I don’t want to dismiss that. But what I do want to focus on is how fucking stupid Nick Simmons had to be to steal poses, dialogue and character designs from one of the best-selling manga in the world.
If that pic was the end of it, there may be some temptation to cut Nick a little slack, but it just gets worse, Topless Robot’s Rob Bricken provides this link to a livejournal page here. It is accurately described by Topless Robot as:
a massive collection of Bleach panels and Incarnate panels side-by-side; I assure the above was not an isolated incident.
“The comics publisher has halted production and distribution while conducting an investigation“, says Monkey, adding:
“As far as I know there has been no statement on this matter from Nick Simmons.”
Nothing today either — so far (4:21 am Pacific).
Stay tuned.
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
p2pnet – ‘File sharing stealing’: Gene Simmons (KISS), March 13, 2009
Monkey House – Gene Simmons son Nick accused of plagiarism, February 27, 2010
Topless Robot – Gene Simmons’ Kid Nick Is a Comic Creator, a Douchebag Plagiarist, and a Moron, February 25, 2010
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March 1st, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Bad guy with his head back in an evil laugh? Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhh, that’s really original.
Looks like a hundred comic strips of the Joker (ala Batman) from 50 years ago.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:17 pm
It’s all a variation on Shakespere.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:35 pm
While Im all for going after a big name caught plagiarizing; this isn’t it. Gene Simmons can be a douche bag as the article says but his son has done nothing wrong in my opinion. They’re 2 different works entirely. If the headlining images are any indication of what people are claiming to be plagiarism than we’ve finally gone over the line as a society.
Seriously. Find another Lily Allen or something. Genes just going turn even more cynical over copyright.
@RW I thought it was a variation of pochontas
March 1st, 2010 at 1:24 pm
@ Lando:
You don’t think the images look vaguely similar?
Cheers!
March 1st, 2010 at 1:32 pm
I was tempted to say that upon close inspection, they don’t look THAT much alike, then I went to that Livejournal link.
Yeah. Some panels are too just close to be coincidence.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:02 pm
@ RadialSkid
The posture, appearance, jaw, teeth and face shapes are virtually the same.
Cheers!
March 1st, 2010 at 2:11 pm
My uncle used to draw and paint Harley Davidson motorcycles with the Harley Davidson logos. Yes he used to sell his art work to make extra money during his retirement. One day he received a letter from Harley Davidson threatening to sue (I never saw the letter I can only assume this is true). Is he a plagiarist too ?? How about anyone who draws anything remotely similar to mickey mouse… like say South park.
Sometimes I take screenshots from cartoons and then draw them. I don’t sell them, it’s my own personal art. That’s the difference between Nick Simmons and I and that’s the similarities between Nick and members of my family.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:13 pm
@ Lando:
My daughter is a big fan of Japanese comic book art and makes drawings based on them all the time. But she doesn’t claim them as hers publicly or in any other way.
Cheers!
March 1st, 2010 at 2:40 pm
http://blogs.myspace.com/radicalpublishing
“We at Radical Publishing, Inc. and Radical Comics, Inc. are quite concerned to hear the news surrounding Nick Simmons’s Incarnate Comic Book. We are taking this matter seriously and making efforts now to contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter. We have halted further production and distribution of the “Incarnate” comic book and trade paperback until the matter is resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Rest assured that Radical is taking swift action regarding this matter and will continue in its efforts to maintain the integrity and protect the intellectual property of artists throughout the world whose creative works are the bedrock of our Company and the comic book industry.
http://community.livejournal.com/bleachness/446299.html
Well… some of those images are close to being exactly traced in the overlays. I should have read further into this I feel I knee jerked a bit.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:54 pm
The similarity between Nick’s Incarnate and Bleach is staggering!
Not only has he pretty much duplicated some of Bleach’s characters, he’s used the same technique, methodology, imagery, background graphics, and in some cases even reproduced the dialog itself.
Some of those overlays do speak for themselves. Though comic books may appear to have recurring themes, it would be a rare thing to find 2 artists drawing everything from the same brain like that. Among the face shapes, the eyes, the positions, the angles, etc., SOMETHING should come off as unique between them. In this case, I can’t say that.
This is sad, as Nick has previously demonstrated he has the genuine talent. Why he would do this is curious.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:06 pm
This one is a better example of an outright copy.
http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff330/Kylara21/plag/fedu38.png
I’m just speculating, but I find it highly unlikely Nick’s comic Incarnate was going to be released under a creative commons attribution license( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ), far more likely it would have been released under standard copyright, meaning either he or the comic company could sue anyone they thought was copying it.
Speaking of lawsuits: http://nndb.net/people/212/000086951/
King Diamond: “Sued by Gene Simmons over his stage makeup, which Simmons claimed infringed upon the facepaint design he used as a member of Kiss.”
March 1st, 2010 at 6:15 pm
The Kiss Band ripped tunes from Beethoven and Anton Dvorak symphonies and never bragged about that.
This is how far the talent of these parasites goes for whom everything is about business and nothing is about music.
The son learned the rip-off intellectual property stuff from his dad.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Creative commons condition still require that:
“You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).”
March 1st, 2010 at 6:28 pm
(Re Gene vs. King Diamond.)
In this case, I would say Gene subscribes to the “Apple” version of logic. Apple thinks it’s entitled to an all-encompassing patent on the very image of the fruit and all its subsequent mutations, while Simmons seems to be saying he “owns” the practice of painting “sinister” black shapes around the eyes.
If that’s what Gene’s thinking, I wonder how he was able to dismiss from his conscience the existence of performers like Alice Cooper and countless clowns, all of whom I’m sure did the same before KISS came around.
Gene Simmons is just proving himself more and more to be one big, selfish, dipshit neanderthal.
And now, Nick is proving himself to be an obvious chip off the ol’ block!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Heck, KISS’s face paint look was inspired by Japanese Kabuki. But I guess Simmon’s ego is so out of control that he thinks he came up with that, too.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:23 pm
It’s all over DIGG and Fa$ebook already, even if he dodges a lawsuit NOBODY is gonna buy his comics.
If you do bother checking, it’s obvious he traced alot of it from Bleach and Hellsing!!
DIRTBAG! ;(
March 1st, 2010 at 10:26 pm
well Archie and the gang were always my favourite anyway, those Japanese really big eyed things freak me out
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:05 am
About KISS using Beethoven and Dvorzak melodies: the world of classical music abounds with composers using other composer’s melodies, improvising on them, reworking them in a new style. This practice, called ‘variation’, was widely accepted, in fact a valid form of musical composition, and it was generally done in the spirit of a tribute to the original work.
For example, Beethoven was inspired to write 33 variations on a waltz by Antonio Diabelli and the result is described thus by Alfred Brendel, a famous pianist: “The theme [Diabelli's waltz] has ceased to reign over its unruly offspring [Beethoven's variations]. Rather, the variations decide what the theme may have to offer them. Instead of being confirmed, adorned and glorified, [the original waltz] is improved, parodied, ridiculed, disclaimed, transfigured, mourned, stamped out and finally uplifted.”
There is nothing inherently wrong with being inspired by someone else’s work and using it as the springboard for creating something entirely original and new. I haven’t heard KISS’s riffs on Beethoven and Dvorzak, they may have merit. The younger Simmons’ artwork though does not appear to have moved much beyond its original manga inspiration.
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:31 am
When copyright violations are blatant it is past off as “inspiration” and “homage”. When a business model fails then we have to sue the fans for copyright violations… WTF??? I’m sure big music will find a way to sue the fans over this too.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:31 am
@Liz
“About KISS using Beethoven and Dvorzak melodies”
“There is nothing inherently wrong with being inspired by someone else’s work and using it as the springboard for creating something entirely original and new.”
I think the point is not to say Kiss is wrong for using the melodies, but to point out just how much of an asshole Gene Simmons really is; on the one hand doing that and then pulling shit like suing King Diamond for merely having his face make up resemble KISS’s, even though as has been pointed out here Kiss took their inspiration for that from other sources. Having watched Gene Simmons in interviews I don’t think it’s wild speculation that he would sue anyone who’s music came close to sounding like a KISS song.
Summation, yeah, I agree with you it’s ok to take and rework melodies from other sources, but don’t then be an asshole and start suing people for violating your copyrights.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:37 am
“every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth”
– Gene Simmons
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003671447
It remains to be seen if Gene Simmons believes that this brass-knuckle approach to copyright enforcement should also apply to his son’s own acts of blatant infringement.
September 14th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
I’ve read everything on this page and i got to admit people haven’t changed a lot, if it was you that sat down and made the music,drew the comic sung the song preformed the act and at the end got a lough, clap, nod nay or yea money in the hand pat on the back, you would spend it except it smile with joy or hate the reaction, but you wake on a day pull up the pants and walk out the door into what you call yours does god sue you or do you play with it, creation came from one, who’s kneeling down to you, go play kick the can and get back to you, rock city takes me away you should listen to it mr.richardramirez65 you tube.com now that creating.nick,jean just do your thing.