American comic rips off Bleach?

[atlanime]

American company Radical Publishing has announced that it halted the production and distribution of Nick Simmons' Incarnate comic series on Wednesday evening, amid allegations that the comic plagiarized Tite Kubo's Bleach manga. According to Radical, "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." Shueisha publishes Bleach in its Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in Japan, while Viz Media publishes the manga in North America.

Nick Simmons, the son of the Kiss rock band's lead singer Gene Simmons, launched the Incarnate series last August. Posters on the GameFAQs website's forum noted the similarities between Kubo's artwork (pictured at right) and Simmons' artwork (pictured at left) on Sunday, and the discussion spread to the Bleach Asylum forum and the Bleachness community on the LiveJournal website.

Kubo himself remarked upon the controversy in two Twitter posts on Thursday. He noted in the first post the amazing number of overseas fans who responded on websites about an American comic allegedly copying Bleach. He acknowledged that he does not understand English very well, but figured out from reading the sites that the American comic is drawn by Gene Simmons' son. Viz Media posted a Twitter message on Wednesday that said, "We've got our team on it."


Comics Worth Reading blog reports on a statement issued by Nick Simmons, the artist of Incarnate comic series, regarding the alleged plagiarism of Tite Kubo's Bleach manga:


"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.
The Robot 6 blog at the Comic Book Resources news site has confirmed with Radical Publishing, the publisher of Incarnate, that the statement comes from Simmons. Radical announced on Wednesday that it halted the production and distribution of Incarnate and was attempting to "contact the publishers of the works in question in an effort to resolve this matter."


Posters on several online communites noted the similarities between Kubo's artwork and Simmons' artwork early last week, and the controversy caused Radical, Viz, and even Kubo himself to react.