News

Nick Simmons' Incarnate Halted Over Alleged Bleach Plagiarism (Updated)

The American company Radical Publishing has announced that it halted the production and distribution of Nick Simmons' Incarnate comic book 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."

ANN contacted both Radical Publishing and Viz Media for further comments on Wednesday.

[Via Bleachness LiveJournal Community, Tanbishugi]

Update: Kubo said in his second Twitter post that he is more concerned with the fact that Gene Simmons' son is a comic creator, as opposed to whether there was actual copying or not. Thanks, maaya.

Update 2: Evelyn Dubocq, Senior Director of Public Relations at Viz Media, tells ANN, "We appreciate all our fans bringing this matter to our attention, and we are currently investigating this issue."

Update 3: Replaced "interested" with "concerned" in the translation of Kubo's second Twitter post. Thanks, tobu_ishi.