Distribution of manga-plagiarizing book halted voluntarily

Must-read of the day… ANN gets Carl Horn, Jason Thompson, and Charles Brownstein to share their wisdom on the Christopher Handley ordeal.  Forget the theories, the slippery slope arguments, the evidence or lack thereof, or whether this is a fight worth fighting.  These essays remind us that a perfectly fine human being who has never hurt another soul was sent to jail.  People who abscond with the life savings of their employees, don’t.  People who ordered the torture of others, don’t.

This isn’t just a legal travesty, but a human tragedy.

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You know, the press focuses far more attention on bad news than good, and that’s because we like drama.  We get round-the-clock coverage of some playboy accused of murdering his pretty wife for weeks on end, but a man on death row falsely accused, then freed by DNA evidence warrants no more than a single 30-second segment, assuming it doesn’t get preempted by the latest sports hero sex scandal.  The collective citizen press suffers the same bias, but at least the internet is very good at bringing to light injustices that would otherwise go unheard and unavenged.  Such is the case with the allegations of plagiarism levied against Incarnate, a comic by Nick Simmons, son of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.  Fans discovered panels seemingly traced from various manga (most notably Bleach), organized on Livejournal and spread the word.  In less than 24 hours, the story has circulated so widely that Incarnate publisher Radical Publishing must respond to the allegations.

But here’s where this story becomes one of the “good” stories.  Unlike so many similar cases where the party at fault sticks to their guns, makes bold-faced lies, weasel out of giving real answers with lawyer speak, and basically deny everything until the storm of outrage is exhausted and forgotten, Radical appears to be doing the right thing.  In a letter to Bleeding Cool and various other comics news sites, Radical not only acknowledged that they are investigating the situation, they have suspended distribution and contacted publishers of the books whose art was misappropriated to resolve the issue amicably.  This story isn’t over yet, but thus far Radical is handling it with sincerity and honor, which is a rare-enough thing in the industry that we all should, at the very least, highlight this with the same fervor given to the initial scandal.  But I also want to point out that this isn’t just the moral thing to do, but the smart thing to do.  When one finds himself on the wrong end of an issue, admitting fault and fixing the problem is almost always the best course in the long term.  Too many companies forget that, or their egos cannot accept it.  So commendations to Radical, for being better and smarter than most, and hopefully they will remain so through the resolution.  And, of course, congratulations to the Bleach fans, for making comics publishing a little more accountable, a little less sleazy.

Edit: Robot 6 has a few more details on the how the story unfolded.

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Finally, someone understands… ICv2 interviews IDW’s Ted Adams (1, 2, 3), who points out that what is groundbreaking about the iPad for publishers is not the hardware, but the iBooks store that will power it.  The technical shortcomings, the price tag… all of that means nothing in face of the secure, dedicated distribution service Apple will provide to publishers that will be compatible with Apple’s entire line of personal devices, present and future.  That’s the real game changer, folks.