The United States of Esoterica

Gene Simmons is a piece of shit. No reasonable person denies this. Looks like the next generation has inherited the Douche Gene (pun intended):

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/02/25/ ... s-respond/

This has actually been a pretty big story in comic and manga circle for the past week, but I thought I'd post it here just because of how blatant it is. And for those that don't know, "Bleach" isn't some obscure work. It's a multi-media phenomenon with over 50 million volumes sold worldwide, video games, TV shows and movies, tons of merchandising...it's one of the most popular anime/manga properties in Japan and arguably the biggest one going in the U.S. right now. It's EXTREMELY popular. But because Nick Simmons is a rich kid with a father that built an empire by prostituting a logo and pretending to play bass, he thought it would be cool to just swipe shit wholesale, I guess.

He also seems to have swiped art from the mangas "Hallsing" and "Death Note", and there are now several instances of him also swiping fan art from these series that was posted on Deviant Art. Thankfully sales of his book have now been suspended by Radical (the publisher), so its good to see that they're taking it seriously. Still, this was pretty blatant and they should be embarrassed it got this far. This is effectively like if I had traced John Byrne's "X-Men" art in the 80's and tried to pass it off as my own. He didn't even try to rip off something obscure, he went for arguably the biggest sequential art franchise in the world right now.

I hate this entire fucking family.

_________________
Modern Science: Where a crappy answer is better than no answer at all.

yep. that's fucked up.

_________________
"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

While I agree on the douchebaggery of the Simmons family, it is only manga he copied from so it's not like he copied real artwork. I know, I know it's still plagerism and it is wrong. What I said about manga is sort of a joke.

What I find worse than the fact he copied is that Gene Simmons, the supposed God of Thunder, allowed his son to become a weeaboo. God it pisses me off that we have great comics (not neccessarily Marvel or DC) coming out every week that don't get a glance from people, but give them huge eyes and mouths bigger than their jaws and they eat them up. Then to top it off, the American companies put out great trades that you have to special order because the bookstores have to have their six rows of Bleach and Underage Girls Fucking Octopus Monster in the Dorm manga.

really? thank g_d (that's a joke from another thread) that my comic shop isn't like that at all. My comic shop is straight out of the old days when I was a kid in the late 70s-80s. rows and rows and rows of old comics and an entire wall of the relatively new stuff that you have to walk past to get to the new comics of the week.

the manga factor is contained to a shelf on one side of the room, that's not even really part of the comics shop. manga gets the same treatment as dungeons and dragons supplies, which isn't much.

_________________
"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

It's simple economics. "Bleach" alone has sold more volumes than DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Image move in an entire month combined. The western comic (well, American, really) industry has been dying a slow death for a while, but I was looking at number for last month at Uncanny X-Men cracked the top ten with something like 65k issues sold. That's pathetic. American comics have pidgenhold themselves in the Superhero ghetto and there's nowhere to go. There have been attempts to break out of it, some even meeting with big success (Sandman, for one), but they seem to be one offs and not a harbinger of something bigger.

Conversely, Manga has potential for awesome stories. The vast majority of popular stuff is shit shonen tournament stuff or junky shoujo romance crap, so the entire medium gets defined as being either Dragonball or stuff for little girls/pedophiles. And I'll be the first to admit that the weeaboo fanbase in America is about as terrible and disgusting as anything out there. But they're only interested in some artificial construct of Japanese culture that exists in their minds. The truly interesting, artistic stuff doesn't make it over here too often, but it DOES exist. I'd much rather read something by Masamune Shirow than Brian Bendis or Judd Winnick.

_________________
Modern Science: Where a crappy answer is better than no answer at all.

The irony is that Gene Simmons would sue you into the shithouse if you even look askance at any KISS intellectual property. I mean, this is the guy who marketed the "KISS coffin." Which is funny as hell, but still...

Yeah. On one site someone posted an interview where he was whining about music piracy and how it had killed the industry. But the reality is, he only cares about what affects his bottom line. He's a whore.

_________________
Modern Science: Where a crappy answer is better than no answer at all.

I agree with you on your evaluation of the American comics for the most part. DC and Marvel are both guilty of destroying their great franchises.

But there's a lot of better alternatives to the manga stuff in American comics -- most everything Avatar puts out is solid -- although there's stories are mainly meant to end up as graphic novels not ongoing series -- and I'd read most created by Kirkman, Waid, Ennis, Moore, Gaiman, Morrison.

_________________
"I didn't need to learn what I learned today." -- Jesse Ventura.
"There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just about all of our problems, and that is our liberty. " - Ron Paul.

This is actually an amusing flashback to the glory days of the Swipe File when Rob Liefeld et al were ripping off everybody. Makes me almost nostalgic. As to Gene Simmons' son, Kiss were just a ripoff of Alice Cooper so it obviously runs in the family. I guess we could be reading stories in the future of this kid ripping off the life savings of little old ladies in Palm Beach, so score one for the Simmons family.