Unfortunately the design of our character “TONAMELT The Dark  Protector/Ociel Sanchez” character standard of our rising publishing house: AC Amazing Comic appeared in the pages of Marvel Knights Spiderman #17 in a cameo with Spiderman.  The character in question is the one known as Ethan, and apparently in that volume the character changes the design of his costume to assume a rough copy of our design of the Tonamelt character. Cameos that bear the design of recognized characters of a comic are one thing; these are more a form of recognition. It’s another thing to use the influence of recognized individuals to evolve those ideas in the design of a new character; and very different to clone a design, simply reconfiguring the original design along a few rough lines, to free it from the threat of a complaint for plagiarism, based on an analysis of converging lines made by an expert of the Copyright Office. The case of Tonamelt is a direct plagiarism of the mask’s design composition, which is quite unique and distinctive of the Tonamelt character. There has never been a mask like this for any character before now.

To come to the final design of the  Tonamelt character(1, 2, 3) and to achieve this unique feature which is different from all designs for previous (superheroes and defenders) characters published in other comics was a project that took years of redesigning, redesigning, redesigning, redesigning, and redesigning the character until we finally reached the point of the final design.  We are very proud of it, and it has generated a lot of interest in many fans. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.) And it’s a shame, truly a calamity of enormous proportions and a huge disappointment that the editors of the corporate comics company Marvel Comics actually dedicate themselves to the dirty and degrading work of stealing visual ideas and stories from other editorial projects, to provide material for their creative teams to work with, obviously with a complete lack of ethics.

In no way is it my intention to adorn myself with ridiculous and mediocre scandals of plagiarism just to attract attention of potential readers to my project. The TONAMELT comic has been years in development and  has only left anonymity for its publication announced for 2003. However since the Creative Team needed to make improvements to the story line, as well as visual and business line of this comic, this project has been delayed. And when it is published it will clearly show the readers who like this kind of superhero and dark protectors, a story line, visuals and business levels of high quality reached by this project on its own merits. And it will be obvious which of the two characters is a cheap, rough copy of the other.

As a lifelong reader of Marvel Comics I have admired the illustration and design of the people who have achieved mythical proportions in the comic book genre; people such as: Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, John Romita, Bill Everett and Dave Cockum. But to see the great “Marvel Comics” company make a rough and ridiculous copy of my character’s design fills me with emotions that range from anger to laughter, stopping at a terrible disillusionment to see in what kind of hands the great Marvel Comics is now, the company founded by the mythical artists Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

In short, esteemed reader, these are the facts for you to make your own personal decision. When the comic is published: “TONAMELT The Dark Protector” No.1 one-shot, 64 pages, under the title “Weapons of War”. We will be known by our good writing, visual and business work, instead of the embarrassing and depressing scandals regarding the plagiarism from what was once known as the "house of ideas".

Sincerely Alex Cruz (Editor and Writer)
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