The catch? The original work was never officially translated. It ran briefly on a personal Geocities-style archive, then vanished when the creator deleted their online presence around 2012. Simonscans (sometimes stylized as simon_scans or simonscanz ) was a small, passionate fanscanlation group active in the early 2010s. They specialized in “orphaned” manga and webcomics—series abandoned by publishers or creators. Their motto? “Preserve before it perishes.”

That kind of raw, minimalist angst sticks with you. Of course, simonscans operated in a legal fog. Scanning and translating without permission is copyright infringement, plain and simple. But when the original creator has vanished, and the work is unavailable in any language, fans face a dilemma: let it die, or become an archivist.

Depending on which thread you follow, Nico is a melancholic, sword-wielding wanderer from a lesser-known late-2000s webcomic or doujinshi series—possibly French or Japanese in origin. The art style is unmistakable: scratchy ink lines, heavy contrast, and a world soaked in perpetual rain and rust. Nico rarely speaks. When they do, the dialogue is sparse, almost poetic. Think Blame! meets Guts from Berserk , but with a quieter, more resigned sadness.

Part of it is . In the few pages still floating around (low-resolution PNGs, watermarked with simonscans’ faded logo), Nico is heartbreaking. They carry a broken compass. They talk to a ghost that may not exist. In one memorable panel, they sit by a flooded highway and simply say: “I don’t remember why I’m walking. But stopping feels worse.”

That single release became legendary. Not because it was popular—it wasn’t—but because shortly after, Simon deleted the entire simonscans archive without warning. No goodbye. No explanation. Just a 404 error where the Nico folder used to be. Why does “simonscans nico” still circulate in 2025?

Nico is still walking that flooded highway, broken compass in hand. And somewhere, on an old hard drive or an unindexed server, simonscans’ files wait in digital sleep.