horridus

Aaand we have a new update. Yet another bit of art, and oh boy, it is a doozy. Jesus H. Christ that is terrifying. Seriously, I thought the Geoff pic was the stuff of nightmares, but this... this is like something out of the goddamn Stepford Wives. She looks like a homicidal, dead-eyed robot coming to murder me. And that neck... hoooly hell, that *neck*. Edit: And oh my! Moments later, Penders decided to show us just HOW it would look on the aformentioned title screen- thus giving us the first screenshot of the App, ever! Yeah, that's.... unbelievably amateurish. I wasn't expecting anything much, yet this goes below even what I was expecting. Its childish. Its amateurish. Its grade-school level. This is meant to be the App that would be able to compete with DC and Marvel's own apps, and its.... bloody hell.

'Tendency' nothing- he flat out stated that the Dark Legion could 'eat Eggman (and all his incarnations) for breakfast'. It makes him pushing the idea he was gearing up for a Legion/Eggman war all the more hilarious given that 1) Its pretty nakedly clear he already decided who was gonna win that one and use it as a means of boosting the 'prestige' of his own creation, and 2) Bollers already wrote the outcome of that scenario in Return to Angel Island, and surprise surprise- the terrorist organization that targets a single city is in fact NOT a match for the global dictator with a near inexhaustible army of robots at his disposal. That's without even getting into the fact that in all the centuries the Legion has been doing this, they've failed each and every single time. The only person who seemed to think the Legion was in any way an equal to Robotnik/Eggman was Penders himself, and it doesn't reflect well on him at all.

You are indeed correct- many artists do indeed use visual references to help with drawing, and there is indeed nothing wrong with that. The problem with Penders though is the same problem with a lot of his pop cultural references- it often crosses over into tracing/substitution. That image there is so close to the shot of Scaramanga that even the gun has only barely been altered from the original. As said, using visual references isn't bad, nor does it become bad when Penders does it- its just that Penders' 'referencing' in general blurrs or even crosses over the line from reference. That's not even getting into his insistence on using pre-existing photos and images from google whenever he can. Heh. No, that guy isn't a Star Trek ripoff. He's a Marvel ripoff- specifically of Spider-mans own Kraven the Hunter, right down to the name. The use of high tech equipment MIGHT have been a mitigating factor- but in the end, the yellow and brown color scheme, dark hair and mustache combined with his M.O. doomed him to be a ripoff. Now if you want a STAR TREK ripoff, look no further than the Dark Legion's Battle Cruiser. The bastard child of a drunken orgy between a Klingon Bird of Prey, Romulan Warbird and the USS Enterprise, this thing is blatantly glued together from pre-existing ship designs, and unlike the infamous Millennium Falcon incident this one was directly drawn by Penders. Hm. Suddenly I wonder if he made the thing simply to one-up Eggman and the Egg Carrier. "Oh, Robotnik has a big new ship? Well.. well so does the Dark Legion now, only its cooler looking! MY VILLAINS ARE BETTER DAMMIT!"

Oh, he traces alright- or at the very least 'references' pre-existing images to the point where it may as well be tracing. Exhibit A- Exhibit B- That being said, those pages he's been showing us? They ain't traced. Its all Penders' unique brand of incompetence and inability to use digital techniques for *anything*.

Pretty much. Its bizarre that despite his insistence on this being Lara-Su's story and even naming the series after her, so far the most substantial things pertaining to this project revolve more around Geoffrey than it does Lara. It makes one wonder where his priorities lay precisely. As for the latter question? Who knows. Given how long this has taken him, its up in the air if he'll ever finish.

Besides, even Naugus wouldn't be sadistic enough to do THAT to Geoff. Poor blighter.

Nah, the KKK doesn't use Grandmasters- Grand Wizards, Grand Dragons, Grand Cyclops, sure, but no 'Grandmasters'. Having said that, it still sticks out here because Penders has insisted that this is Super Serious Hard Science Fiction Story, which requires a tad more effort than a children's comic meant to sell things to children. Its more forgivable in Sonic because the standards for worldbuilding aren't as stringent there as what it should be in LSC, at least in theory. Course, if he actually understood what 'Hard Science Fiction' means he wouldn't be using Earth ranks at all, nor would he be using 'aliens' that are bluntly anthropomorphic wildlife...

The lipstick. The fact her eyes are completely different. The fact the fur pattern around her face and muzzle has changed.... girl was so shocked her facial features reconfigured themselves. It seriously makes me wonder if he's only drawing these things within the day he releases them, and that because he spends so much time in between giving these 'tidbits' it means his style keeps changing. Aye, it is indeed a naval term. One would think a former army man (even if he was just a technical artist) would at least be able to know the difference between a naval rank and an army rank, but as SenEDDtor Missile pointed out, the need to copy Star Trek compels him. To the point where he'd ignore the context of why Starfleet uses naval ranks.

Yep. Her name is Ensign Brownie. If it weren't for the fact that I *know* Penders owns Hershey I'd almost wonder if she was meant as a Legally Distinct stand-in. Evidently she is a shapeshifter of some kind, given that her eyes, fur pattern and lips are different within the span of at best a few pages- Twelve years. Twelve years this man spent as a writer and artist for a comic book published by a major company, and he can't even maintain a consistent design for a few pages. He expects people to pay money for work of a similar quality should he ever actually release his damn book. Good God almighty.

Welp. What can really be said? Brownie's face is inconsistent, Geoff's head looks like a mass of tumors, the 'background' is just a gradient fill, and that picture of K'noxoff is just the same picture we've seen of him, only copypasted and shrunk down to fit that Ipad. Also, goes without saying, but that shading and lighting is ugly as sin. Good lordy loo, what a mess.

A pity he did not succeed.

In truth, nobody. It is however still telling that when the story FINALLY picked up and Sonic, Tails and Knuckles headed out to find the time machine, neither Julie nor Sally partook in it, nor was the possibility of them helping even mentioned. Likewise, neither Julie nor Sally were clued in to the problems engulfing Mobius, with their husbands exclusively investigating and concocting a solution for the problem. So somehow, they got a double dosage of Nothing. Despite Penders swearing up and down that Julie would still be badass despite the years that had passed.... lord almighty that godforsaken storyline was a waste. Again- it wasn't 'commission', it was a prize for a raffle. The person who won asked for that, and Penders delivered. Initially he was very upfront about what it was, and it was good of him that he didn't welch on the conditions of the raffle. Then, very stupidly, he suddenly tried to justify it as a political allegory for the 2016 election, and thus created a fiasco...

He'll react as he always does when other areas of Sonic utilizing similar ideas to him comes up- tie himself into a nonsensical pretzel in order to justify how his ideas are uniquely his and how he was the first and blah blah blah. Guy does not like to confront the possibility that he isn't as unique as he thinks he is. Likewise, his whining and demands that the old Archie continuity be reprinted would get louder, while his refusal to accept WHY none if it will likely reprinted will become more and more pronounced. I am certain there are more than a few fans who came up with a comprehensive use for her. That is not the issue- the issue is that Penders is essentially demanding that other people put more effort into things then he did, and then crying when his characters and ideas are deemed unimportant enough to be swept aside after he himself did so little. In the five years that passed between the last time Gala-Na and Albion showed up and the time he left Archie, he did NOTHING with them. They essentially fell off the face of the comic. Given that Echidnapolis already filled the slot of 'Hidden High Tech City', there's a pretty strong argument that there wasn't much of a point to Albion to begin with beyond Penders being so in love with Echidnapolis that he had to make another one. Not quite. That picture was something someone won in a raffle, commissioned due to their specifications- and at first, Penders was upfront about that, no harm no foul. He then, in an incredibly baffling and damning move, suddenly declared that it was actually a political allegory for that years presidential election. The fact that he wound up comparing Hillary Clinton to Lien-Da, a murderous power hungry terrorist, was lost on him. It was wholly unneeded and only made him look worse, especially since, again, he had initially copped to what it was and why it was there. More pertinent examples of his lackluster liberalism can instead be found in his work- he's a feminist who repeatedly advocated for a prominent heroine to be killed purely on the basis of it motivating her love interest (SAlly in Endgame), and who in the entire bloodline of the uber important heroic family allowed for only one woman member, one who died while her son, grandson and great-grandson would live on (JAnelle-Li and the Brotherhood). He espouses racial inclusivity and champions himself as a proponent of diversity, while writing a character as a caricature of a black man (Vector) in one book, and making a bog standard WASP protagonist the main focus of another book supposedly built on an entirely Asian superhero team (The Lost Ones) in another, all the while cheerfully exploiting a real life tragedy in the name of painfully cliche superpower origins. And for a man who champions the idea of non-traditional marriage, he cannot seem to conceive of a married relationship functioning as anything but the most standardized of standard marriages (Knuckles and Lara-Su's domestic partnership). I could really go on, but the point of order is that there is a very tremendous divide in what Penders says he believes and what he actually writes. That stupid-ass tickling pic has nothing to do with any of that, beyond the cheap attempt to make it more 'dignified' that backfired horribly.

That really does nothing to change the fact that he didn't bother pay attention to not only the work of his co-writer, but his own stories as well. For a man who absolutely demands that his vision be heeded and respected its a pretty massive show of hypocrisy, as well as confirming the fact that he's nowhere near as diligent as he likes to claim when it comes to all this. Think carefully. Depending on who you ask, asexuality is either a sexual orientation or the lack of one entirely. Wherever your opinion lays on the particulars of that, it means a lack of sexual attraction towards others regardless of gender. (For those of you who keep up with this better than I do, yes, I know, there's a huge spectrum of all this, but this ain't about the full history of the subject). In short, much like homosexuality or bisexuality, its something you are born with. You cannot 'choose' to be an asexual. You can CHOOSE to abstain from sex or be celibate, but you cannot choose to be asexual. Declaring that asexuality is a choice is a deeply troublesome statement on par with suggesting that being gay or bi is a choice- it's deeply ignorant and bigoted. And its not as though Penders here is simply confusing celibacy and asexuality- deeper in that chain of replies it is made crystal clear to the man that asexuality is definitely not a choice and why saying so is offensive, but rather than acknowledge and apologize all he's done is double down, boasting about how inclusive and accepting he is and demanding to know why does it matter if he thinks asexuality is a choice if he accepts it anyway. It's the same kind of defense people used in the early 2000s to defend similar nonsense regarding views of homosexuality and bisexuality being choices when called out on their nonsense. He even goes on later to claim Asexuality is the result of a chemical imbalance, which likewise is another thing often claimed about non-heterosexual preferences in order to invalidate it. In short? Its a deeply dehumanizing stance to take given that it declares a fundamental aspect of a person's being as being invalid or akin to a mental defect or disease. Its basically saying 'this aspect of your life is not real and you are only pretending'. For any person to take this stance is troubling. For anyone to take it after having it explained to them is worse. And it is ESPECIALLY repugnant coming from a man who makes as much of a show of being a liberal progressive as Ken does, one who loudly declares his inclusivity and acceptance while doubling down and continuing to call an entire category of people invalid simply because he can't actually wrap his head around asexuality, and when given the chance to learn instead chooses to dig in and continue to declare himself in the right. Its not exactly surprising, mind you. Penders' dedication to liberalism has always been more of a dog and pony show than anything, something for him to boast about while putting as little real effort as possible into things. His work and his statements betray a mindset far less liberal than Penders would have the world believe, or himself for that matter. So not, its not surprising... but its disappointing and wretched all the same, especially in the face of him loudly declaring himself an ally for the marginalized. Given that his understanding of LGBT issues in general is sub-par at best, I sincerely dread to think what he'll get up to if by some miracle he ever actually releases LSC. So. Does THAT clear it up for you, then?

There is just one problem with all of this- it implies there is something flawed about the process, and as we both know if there's one thing Penders can't stand, it's his perfect people's perfect Eros-Ex-Machina being demonstrably flawed or negative in any fashion. By daring to imagine how it could go wrong you've already put more thought into it than Penders, and have already strayed too far from his 'vision'.