Comments on: One of these things is just like the other

By: Brigid

Brigid — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:19:28 +0000

The top figure, the one with the sword, does look close enough to have been traced. The rest of it, I grant you, is more “inspiration” than copying, but the overall composition of the page, which is quite distinctive, was clearly copied as well.

I always think a work is more clearly an “homage” if it includes a reference, direct or indirect, to the original work—that lets the reader know that the artist expects the connection to be made.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:22:02 +0000

As an artist. Copying poses from some other art work is okay, as long as its with a very different look (just my opinion). Tracing an artwork (as I saw some of simmon’s sample panels compared to bleach’s panel which is almost exactly the same) is another matter, its okay when you’re doing it for practice or doing rough sketches, but publishing them in your book, not only that there’s a lot of panels being trace but also the concept design of the characters is almost the same, which is a very, very bad move.

By: Nick H.

Nick H. — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:22:21 +0000

I’m not sure if the Frank Miller/Yukito Kishiro examples show a genuine double-standard. Unlike the Bleach/Incarnate cases, where overlaying the images proved they were traced, there’s no overlaying going on with the examples given here. And to my, admittedly untrained and Photoshop-less, eye, it looks like Yukito Kishiro has taken inspiration from the poses in the Miller books and redrawn them himself.

Now, I’m not saying whether this is wrong too or not, as I want to think a little about it rather than having a knee-jerk reaction, but one thing that is clear to me is that it is not at all on the same level as what Simmons has been doing.

By: moritheil

moritheil — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:07:00 +0000

Gottsu-Iiyan has found a great example. Of course, he claims that Japanese plagarism is unnoticed, American plagarism is unpunished, and that is the only ways it plays out. I believe it's a little more complex than that. I mentioned the Naruto copying incidents and accusations of extensive Slam Dunk tracing. In American comics, too, there are plenty of people (such as Greg Land and Rob Liefeld) frequently accused of tracing their drawings. That said, Simmons clearly copied in bulk. If this incident makes people more aware of other copying going on, is that a bad thing?