Incarnate
—Nick Simmons, first journal entry on his deviantART journal page. Now an ironic footnote. |
Incarnate is a comic book conceptualized, written, and drawn by Nick Simmons, son of that guy with the tongue.
It recently rose to Internets fame when it became apparent that the characters and storyline were ripped off from various other manga, many of the panels were straight-up traced from said manga, and half of the art was not even drawn by Simmons in the first place.
Other than that, the "original comic" is about Revenants, who can regenerate. That's it.
First Denial of Publication
Incarnate was originally up for publication not so long ago, under the name of Skullduggery. It was supposed to be published by IDW, a publishing company in alliance with Gene Simmons' own comic company, but even then the art was so bad that the deal fell through. Nick was butthurt over the fact that not even his daddy's company would publish his kiddy book.
—Nick Simmons, when displaying good sense. |
However, Nick, instead of improving his art like everyone else does, decided it was best to trace. Because everyone knows you can do it on a professional level.
his first journal entry. Notice the deviantART meme of threatening legal action if people rip off your works.
THE GAME. Also, fap fodder for lawsuits.
Nick gives "tips" on tracing to an aspiring TARTlet. (http://comments.deviantart.com/4/8048838/823914188)
Plagiarism Exposed
Early parallels were drawn between Incarnate and Hellsing, namely the character design - Mot, the main character of Incarnate, is basically just a gayer version of Alucard, the main character of Hellsing.
While the alarm bells were sounded, nobody gave a shit, and the similarities were just that - similarities. That is, until the Bleach fandom decided to put Incarnate and Bleach panels side by side and - surprise, surprise - proved that there was much, much more to it.
It turned out that, not only were the characters of Incarnate incredibly similar in design and personality as the characters of Bleach, but that many panels in Incarnate had actually been traced. It seems that Mr. Simmons has plagiarized character designs, fight scenes, plot segments, dialogue, poses, and expressions both from manga and from online artists.
With no time to waste, the entire Bleach fandom was put on red alert. This then spread across the Internet. Faster than you can say "Streisand Effect", poor old Nicky was facing down the barrel of millions (and millions) of angry wapanese charging their Bankai looking for his head on a Naginata.
What's been copied?
- Bleach
- Hellsing
- Vampire Hunter D
- NANA
- Dogs: Bullets & Carnage
- Deadman Wonderland
- One Piece
- Code Geass
- Black Lagoon
- Full Metal Alchemist
- D-Gray Man
- Kuroshitsuji
- Death Note
- Lupin The Third
- Naruto
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- The Sandman
- Wolf's Rain
- Prototype
- RAE
- ChaosVoid
- RobbinGraves
- Staerk
- And more...?
Backlash

Despite the Bleach fandom taking their sweet time to find out about this outrage, they went batshit insane over it, and they expected Simmons to make an official statement on the subject. Unsurprisingly, Simmons has not said anything to counter these accusations. Some argue that he is too busy crying through mouthfuls of ramen and pocky. However, several weeabos somehow got a hold of Kubo Tite, the author of Bleach, who has since made a tweet acknowledging the plagiarism:
—Kubo Tite - on not giving a fuck. |
On February 25th, however, the weeabos actually got something done. The publisher of Incarnate, Radical Comics, announced on its official blog that it would be halting distribution and production of Incarnate "until the matter is resolved". It will be interesting to see how his daddy gets Nick Simmons out of this one.
Facebook Troll
Nick himself appeared to have gone on Facebook to defend his shitty tracing job. He said that he had never ever heard of Bleach, had never read manga in his life (despite listing his favorite mangas and mangakas in various interviews as well as on his dA account) and had no idea why everyone was being so meaaaan to him. Predictably, this was soon revealed to be a troll, but it was funny while it lasted.
4chan Faggotry
In honor of this mind-bending turn of events, moot decided to honor the shenanigans and renamed the /a/ board from Anime and Manga to Detergent and Magma (after fake Nick dissed Bleach as a "Detergent" comic and misspelled Manga to "Magma"). Because of the massive history of plagiarism in comics and cartoons, someone in /a/ suggested that /co/ also be renamed - to Plagiarism.
Nick's "Apology"
On March 1st, Nick released (through a 'representative') the following statement:
—Nick Simmons, on not understanding the meaning of the word 'homage'. |
Unfortunately, as this is clearly bullshit, it has achieved nothing beyond making everyone angrier.
Evidence
- IncarnateBleachOverlay7.jpg
KUROSAKI-KUN!! KUROSAKI-KUN!!
- IncarnateBleachOverlay8.jpg
I bet he had fun here.
- IncarnateBleachOverlay9.jpg
I wonder?
- IncarnateBleachOverlay10.jpg
Number 10
- Loltrace.jpg
- IncarnateBleachTrace.jpg
Moar
- IncarnateBleachTrace2.jpg
- IncarateBleachTrace3.jpg
- IncarnateBleachTrace4.jpg
- IncarnateBleachTrace5.jpg
- IncarnateBleachComparison1.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison2.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison3.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison4.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison5.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison6.png
- IncarnateBleachComparison7.png
- BleachIncarnateCompOverlay.png
- Bleach-Incarnate tracing PROOF.png
- BleachIncarnatesidebyside.jpg
- BleachIncarnate2pagecomparison.jpg
- AnotherIncarnateBleachComp.jpg
Bewbs.
- IncarnateBleachMore.jpg
- PlaigarismBleachIncarnate.png
This kid sure does like Bleach.
- MoreTracing.jpg
And it just goes on...
- MergeIncarnateBleachWat.jpg
- IncarnateDGreyMan.jpg
Traced from D-Gray Man?
- IncarnateKuroshitsuji.jpg
Add another manga to the list...
- KuroshitsujiIncarnateMerge.jpg
ORIGINAL CHARACTERRRR
- Incarnate ClothingSteal.jpg
- IncarnateHellsingChar.jpg
Original character designs.
- Incarnate Cover Hellsing by Pro Millenium.jpg
- Fmaincarnate.png
Dude seriously. Was there any magma Nicky DIDN'T "reference"?
- IncarnateBleachTrace8.png
Code Geass plagiarism?
- NarutoIncarnate comparison.jpg
Naruto? Kinda pushing it....
- Balalaika incarnate.png
Not even Black Lagoon is safe!
- IncarnateBleachTrace7.jpg
SUCH ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGNS!
Way to steal off your deviantART friends
Holy shit, Nick stole again!
DEACTIVATED
Even thought he deleted his account, we still must be vigilant in the possibility he is lurking in another guise.
See Also
- Art (theft of)
- Bleach
- Davis, Jim - Garfield's creator, who completely robbed an Italian artist
- Simmons, Gene
- Tracing
- Weeaboo
External Linkage
BALEETED. (Some pages were archived by Wayback Machine, nothing after 2010 though.)letsleepinggodslie Screencap the living shit outta it before he deletes fucking everything.
- Radical Publishing's YouTube page
- Original Bleachness thread, lots of comparisons.
- Original GameFAQs thread; the one that started it all
- Nicky-boys Myspace page
Mentions in the Old Media
- Weeaboo News Network - Nick Simmons' Incarnate Halted Over Alleged Bleach Plagiarism
- Jew York Times -- Comic Book Author Accused of Plagiarism.
- Escapist Magazine - Heavy Metal Icon's Son Accused of Plagiarizing Famous Manga
![]() |
Incarnate is part of a series on Visit the Anime Portal for complete coverage. |
![]() |
Incarnate is part of a series on Visit the DeviantART Portal for complete coverage. |