Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[Nestor]

I couldn't help notice that Ken dropped into one of his Twitter replies to me that "Marvel and DC have made their current comics irrelevant to longtime fans, who are finding the joys of the books they loved back then in the films and TV series now in production".

I'm... fairly sure that's not the case at all, and again there seems to be that idea of Ken's once more that TV and movies are the 'end game' of comics.

[horridus]

Ah, so much to comment on, and all I got at the moment is a phone. All I can say is that the only consistency I will ever expect from Penders is that he will gleefully contradict himself if it means getting an edge in an argument. That and using whatever opportunity he can to imply his own ability to draw in fans as being superior.

As for his tendency to talk more about Sonic than his own work... It's rather telling, that even HE can't give a crap about TLSC.

[Tenko]

So his 'argument' was that "I don't know the legalities or have an awareness of how things work", and that "his hard earned experience" proves me wrong.

I'm sorry but throwing words at me without example isn't going to make my points go away.

Which is odd considering his recent posts that show he had no idea that Sega had changed the comics to follow the games more closely etc. and had no idea Boom had a second season incoming cause he considered it a failure etc. But apparently his nigh on 10 year old by now experiences with Sega via Archie and his 'insiders' who are probably long gone after Segas purges, trumps all Sega/Sonic and game developments since 2006 when he left Archie. That's what I'm hearing from his replies.

Why do I bother again?

[horridus]

1 minute ago, Tenko said:

So his 'argument' was that "I don't know the legalities or have an awareness of how things work", and that "his hard earned experience" proves me wrong.

I'm sorry but throwing words at me without example isn't going to make my points go away.

Which is odd considering his recent posts that show he had no idea that Sega had changed the comics to follow the games more closely etc. and had no idea Boom had a second season incoming cause he considered it a failure etc. But apparently his nigh on 10 year old by now experiences with Sega via Archie and his 'insiders' who are probably long gone after Segas purges, trumps all Sega/Sonic and game developments since 2006 when he left Archie. That's what I'm hearing from his replies.

Why do I bother again?

Masochism? Morbid curiosity? A misguided belief that anyone can be reasoned with?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

19 hours ago, Idon'tcare said:

Hmm, seems he was for a José Roberto Pereira scheme by plotting to have his original characters kill off everyone in the comic so it could be all about the much disappointing Lara-Su, wonder kid from the future. 

Hey, I was going to bring that up. Good call.

12 hours ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/693897951031111680

"I have no interest in guiding the Sonic franchise at this point with too many cooks to answer to."

I

wha

Ken, can you not stay consistent for at least an hour at a time?  Only 45 minutes before this, he was again trying to dictate how the Sonic franchise should go, complete with claiming that "the audience for SatAM and the Archie series was more substantial than today's audience".  (I mean, sure, if he's saying the Archie audience then was bigger than the Archie audience now, he'd be right.  But it sounds like he's saying they were bigger than the general Sonic audience is now, which is utterly wrong.)  Ken or not, I'd just like a little more consistency, and a lot less lying.

Oh, and actually talking about his current work instead of constantly complaining about Sega and Archie would be nice too.

I think he just means that between answering to editors and answering to the people who own the property, he has no interest in working with people who do their job for the franchise.

You know, just like they didn't way back when he had the run of things. When he was basically the first mate to a captain who was always asleep at the wheel, allowing him to do donuts around icebergs. In other words, he's perfectly consistent: he's only interested if he can have all the toys in the box and doesn't have to share.

Doesn't mean he can't backseat quarterback, though. (How's that for mixing your metaphors?)

8 hours ago, horridus said:

Masochism? Morbid curiosity? A misguided belief that anyone can be reasoned with?

"Listen, and understand! That is Ken Penders out there! He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are Sonic is dead."

[Tenko]

Gah he's trying to pull that 'news stand' crap again to prove that when he worked on the comics the sales were higher.

Unrealistically higher...like 80k vs 10k higher, using his figures he threw at me. I told him unless he plans to show us some evidence of his claims to just stick to figures we can prove. He of all people should know a person's word is not proof enough. Considering hes the one trying to flaunt these figures that apparently we cant access as non writing plebs, so the burden of proof is on him as far as I'm concerned.

He also tried to tell me I'm wrong about the games and they don't sell anywhere near as well as when Sonic was popular in the early days. But as we all know, with he exception of the original Sonic and Sonic 2 hitting those high millions the rest sit around 1.2 - 2 million roughly. Which is what the games today reach, and surpass if your Colours, Unleashed and Generations. So I don't know what he's thinking trying to pull that one while telling me my information about the games being more popular than the comics etc is way off. Sure there's no doubt some discrepancy in the old data but while hes not as popular as a character the Sonic games still sell.

Really wish we could somehow get our hands on these news stand figures. Even if just for one year while he was writing. Like 1996 or something. 80k...even when comics were more popular in the 90's I find that very hard to believe, especially when most comics are lucky to hit 10k these days. 

[horridus]

5 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I think he just means that between answering to editors and answering to the people who own the property, he has no interest in working with people who do their job for the franchise.

You know, just like they didn't way back when he had the run of things. When he was basically the first mate to a captain who was always asleep at the wheel, allowing him to do donuts around icebergs. In other words, he's perfectly consistent: he's only interested if he can have all the toys in the box and doesn't have to share.

Doesn't mean he can't backseat quarterback, though. (How's that for mixing your metaphors?)

Kinda funny that he phrases it that way anyway, given that he worked at a time when there were two primary writers on the comic. But yeah, given that he referred to Mike Pellerito as 'interjecting himself into the creative process' for actually doing the job that an editor is supposed to do, it's not very surprising that he'd likely take such a dim view of actually having to abide by others rules. Honestly, it's this reason that I think that even if he hadn't quit, he would have eventually been fired anyway; he abjectly refuses to play well with others. Heck, I think it's the reason he was never able to find work anywhere near as extensive outside of Archie; he's brought up work he's done elsewhere, and he's twice ragged on the inkers who inked his work as being 'sub-par', despite there being nothing wrong with any of it (doubly hypocritical given what HIS inking has wrought). I don't think he's ever really learned how to reach the standards held by other companies or how to really function in a team environment, at least not in a subordinate position. 

As for the sales thing, that's a favorite canard of his; that because sales were higher then it somehow means he was a great writer and asset, rather than lucking out by writing the spinoff for a red hot franchise in the days when comics were still huge sellers. Comics sold even higher in past decades, and in the 90s? Rob Liefeld was one of the best selling artists/writers out there, and Youngblood the highest selling independent comic of its time. For those not in the know, Liefeld is an utterly dreadful excuse for either an artist or a writer and a walking symbol of the 90s excesses in Comic Book Culture. While Penders once might have been able to admit that the book sold well due to being 'the only game in town', these days nothing is going to pry him from the narrative he's constructed for himself.

[Idon'tcare]

Umm, let's fix this a bit shall we. ^^

7 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I think he just means that Pender's has no interest in working for or with people who do the job they've been hired to do.

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

About the newspaper sales, it going to be hard to refute his claims as sales of those comics have gone down thanks to the advances of the digital age and the ease of apps that allow you read comics and newspapers online. Even KP knows this, otherwise he wouldn't have begun this whole APP business that is so time consuming.

6 hours ago, Tenko said:

He also tried to tell me I'm wrong about the games and they don't sell anywhere near as well as when Sonic was popular in the early days. But as we all know, with he exception of the original Sonic and Sonic 2 hitting those high millions the rest sit around 1.2 - 2 million roughly. Which is what the games today reach, and surpass if your Colours, Unleashed and Generations. So I don't know what he's thinking trying to pull that one while telling me my information about the games being more popular than the comics etc is way off. Sure there's no doubt some discrepancy in the old data but while hes not as popular as a character the Sonic games still sell.

 Sonic Lost World only reached about 750.000 unites while Sonic Boom crashed and burned with a total of about 350.000. Both of those figures can be explained though by SEGA's really shitty choice in console.

[Tylinos]

7 hours ago, Tenko said:

Gah he's trying to pull that 'news stand' crap again to prove that when he worked on the comics the sales were higher.

Unrealistically higher...like 80k vs 10k higher, using his figures he threw at me. I told him unless he plans to show us some evidence of his claims to just stick to figures we can prove. He of all people should know a person's word is not proof enough. Considering hes the one trying to flaunt these figures that apparently we cant access as non writing plebs, so the burden of proof is on him as far as I'm concerned.

He also tried to tell me I'm wrong about the games and they don't sell anywhere near as well as when Sonic was popular in the early days. But as we all know, with he exception of the original Sonic and Sonic 2 hitting those high millions the rest sit around 1.2 - 2 million roughly. Which is what the games today reach, and surpass if your Colours, Unleashed and Generations. So I don't know what he's thinking trying to pull that one while telling me my information about the games being more popular than the comics etc is way off. Sure there's no doubt some discrepancy in the old data but while hes not as popular as a character the Sonic games still sell.

Really wish we could somehow get our hands on these news stand figures. Even if just for one year while he was writing. Like 1996 or something. 80k...even when comics were more popular in the 90's I find that very hard to believe, especially when most comics are lucky to hit 10k these days. 

 

To be honest, he's somewhat right on that mark.  Comic book publishers have to produce yearly Statements of Ownership to show how well the comic has sold among all sales sources.  10K is an average sales figure for the direct market for comics, but it doesn't factor in things like subscriptions.  The SoO does.

http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/circ.htm

This is a compilation of the SoO numbers for Sonic up to 2008.  To put it simply, the column you want is Total Sales, near the middle.  The first number in each column is the yearly average, while the second is the "latest issue" sales at the time the SoO was put up.  Ken was hyperbolizing a bit when he said it was selling 80k at its peak; That was an outlier in 1997, where the most recent issue at the time of the SoO sold way higher than normal.  That year's average was 70k.

The most recent SoO in the main Sonic book was in #270.  The average number of copies each issue sold in the year leading to that was actually roughly 20k.

[Akessel92]

56 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

 

To be honest, he's somewhat right on that mark.  Comic book publishers have to produce yearly Statements of Ownership to show how well the comic has sold among all sales sources.  10K is an average sales figure for the direct market for comics, but it doesn't factor in things like subscriptions.  The SoO does.

http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/circ.htm

This is a compilation of the SoO numbers for Sonic up to 2008.  To put it simply, the column you want is Total Sales, near the middle.  The first number in each column is the yearly average, while the second is the "latest issue" sales at the time the SoO was put up.  Ken was hyperbolizing a bit when he said it was selling 80k at its peak; That was an outlier in 1997, where the most recent issue at the time of the SoO sold way higher than normal.  That year's average was 70k.

The most recent SoO in the main Sonic book was in #270.  The average number of copies each issue sold in the year leading to that was actually roughly 20k.

Also, in the ninties as comic book stores were now trying to sell faster than the publishers could produce. Unfortunately lead to a glut of books flooding the market. I mean a lot comic bookstores went under because they couldn't make a profit from these books. These stores may have bought that many to sell but probably never sold 70k a year. And what they don't sell goes to warehouses or are disposed. 

[Tylinos]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but 70k is the sales total after unsold copies are factored in.  Look at the first number.  In 1997, the average published was ~182k, with 100k+ returned, and ~9k listed as unused leftovers, leaving the ~70k sold.

(For comparison #270 says ~41k were published for that year [2014], while ~20k were unsold.)

[Tenko]

Now he's moved on to his stance that there was no contract. Disregarding his own comments on trying to retrieve it upon leaving Archie, and his prior comments about how incredulous he was that they had lost it. Meaning clearly there was one at some point. You don't usually formally request something back when you know said thing doesn't exist.

But he's also refuting that Sega at any point owned his works or that they don't "just own everything" in the comic. Trying to play victim again. So I threw his quote from an interview from around 1999 where he himself stated that Sega did own all his character's due to it being a licenced book at the contacts Archie had with Sega.

Let's see how he argues against his own words haha.

[Tylinos]

He's already addressed the whole 1999 statement.  He's said a few times that he didn't have enough knowledge about creator's rights back then to know he wouldn't automatically lose characters just because Archie's contract said Sega gets everything, because he never (or at least as he claims) had a contract with Archie giving them his stuff in the first place.

Basically, without a contract with Ken (whether he had one and it was lost, or never had one to begin with, doesn't matter much now), Archie was promising Sega something they technically couldn't give.

[horridus]

2 minutes ago, Tenko said:

Now he's moved on to his stance that there was no contract. Disregarding his own comments on trying to retrieve it upon leaving Archie, and his prior comments about how incredulous he was that they had lost it. Meaning clearly there was one at some point. You don't usually formally request something back when you know said thing doesn't exist.

But he's also refuting that Sega at any point owned his works or that they don't "just own everything" in the comic. Trying to play victim again. So I threw his quote from an interview from around 1999 where he himself stated that Sega did own all his character's due to it being a licenced book at the contacts Archie had with Sega.

Let's see how he argues against his own words haha.

He will inform you that he was 'misinformed' about his legal rights at the time and that those words were made in ignorance, and as such are no longer viable. Just like the last people who brought it up to him. 

Look, I think you should just drop this, this arguing with him and trying to poke holes in the little bubble of delusion that he's constructed for himself. You're not going to go anywhere with him, and he isn't going to admit that he was wrong about anything, ever. 

[Tenko]

We all know better tho Tylinos surely. I mean unless otherwise stated in contract all things created under licence are property of said licence holder. It's the same as any big company and general rule of thumb tjat if you create something to do with the product your working on it belongs to the company if your working there at time of creation.

We all also know he would have been under contract. He even mentions he was or had one in the past. Demanded it sent back to him on leaving for his records and resume. It's pretty clear he had one and he knew he had one.

I just want what most people want out of him. The truth. My moral compass doesn't abide the stories he dishes out to people, it's just wrong. I'm not trying to purposefully annoy the guy, I just want him to stop trying to paint himself the saint.

[horridus]

Just now, Tenko said:

We all know better tho Tylinos surely. I mean unless otherwise stated in contract all things created under licence are property of said licence holder. It's the same as any big company and general rule of thumb tjat if you create something to do with the product your working on it belongs to the company if your working there at time of creation.

We all also know he would have been under contract. He even mentions he was or had one in the past. Demanded it sent back to him on leaving for his records and resume. It's pretty clear he had one and he knew he had one.

I just want what most people want out of him. The truth. My moral compass doesn't abide the stories he dishes out to people, it's just wrong. I'm not trying to purposefully annoy the guy, I just want him to stop trying to paint himself the saint.

I repeat; it's *never* going to happen. Penders has absolutely no reason to admit to such a thing, and beyond all the other stuff, *admitting to this would be admitting that he lied in court and defrauded his former employers*. Penders was able to slide on by because of the truly epic screw-ups made by Archie. I do not doubt that there was a contract, and I do not doubt that it was indeed destroyed or lost at some point, but at the end of the day its all moot because *neither Archie nor Penders can prove or dispprove their points*. Unless a copy of that original contract springs up somewhere, there's no way to verify whose telling the truth, especially when both sides have every reason to lie. 

Yes, it's infuriating. It's even more infuriating that Penders does everything in his power to present himself as a champion of Creator's Rights when he not only has stolen images made by others (the photographic backgrounds for his propmotion pieces), but stole the very *name* of his series from a long time fan of his, to say nothing of his continued attempts to leech off the Sonic franchise. That's not even the tip of the iceberg with regards to how much of a self-serving and frankly despicable person he is, but at the end of the day, you are *not* going to get anything out of him. 

Just do yourself a favor and stop trying to engage with him. He's not interested in engagement. He never has been. He left his forum because it no longer provided enough of an echo chamber for his liking. Your moral compass is leading you into a quagmire known as Penders' Ego, from which truth can never escape. You're unduly distressing yourself over this. It just isn't worth it, man. 

[Tylinos]

9 minutes ago, Tenko said:

We all know better tho Tylinos surely. I mean unless otherwise stated in contract all things created under licence are property of said licence holder. It's the same as any big company and general rule of thumb tjat if you create something to do with the product your working on it belongs to the company if your working there at time of creation.

When it comes to the person/group directly under license contract, yes.  That would be Archie, not Ken.  One of Archie's attorneys during the legal dispute with Ken made basically the argument you're making, that since Archie allowed Ken to work under their licensing agreement with Sega, those rules should technically apply to Ken.  Because Archie settled with Ken soon after, however, no judge ever properly ruled if that was legally the case or not.  In other words, we don't know what the law would say there.

Look, I agree with wanting the truth out of him.  He's contradicted himself a ton, and made a lot really unclear. (And then when people misinterpret things because of him being unclear, he often chastises them for not knowing better.) Throwing out a bunch of arguments that he can possibly poke holes in isn't going to help much, though.  It's why I prefer waiting on things where he can be refuted with undeniable facts. (Such as how he claimed that "at its height, the comic sold 80K + newsstand & direct", even though the real number was 70k after newsstand and direct.)

[Tenko]

I get where your coming from Tylinos. Perhaps it would be best to bring up any potential posts here together. I'm sure between us we could help point out to those following him his errors where we can find them and refute them properly. Perhaps my eagerness to point out his contradictions and help others see the truth behind his posts backfired on me a bit.

[Tylinos]

Yeah.  I get your eagerness.  But when you're arguing with someone who has a habit of twisting the truth and ignoring the parts that don't help him, you have to be careful.  I know how frustrating it can get when someone takes an argument in stride because they're sidestepping your point with something minor you said, or because you didn't have all the info you needed.  He's done that to me before back when he used to use his forum, and it wasn't fun.

(The worst, which still annoys me, was this one time two years ago where I misunderstood his point because he was unclear, so he accused me of making a straw man.  When I apologized for misunderstanding, and explained I didn't intend to misrepresent anything, he gave a backhanded apology.  After someone else called him out on this, he rescinded his apology and continued insisting I strawmanned, treating it as an intentional act.)

[Nestor]

Tenko, I think the key for dealing with people who you suspect are not entirely debating in good faith is not to try to seek for them to admit error directly, but to look for the tacit admissions of it in their behaviour.

For example, I've just added to your discussion with him the fact that, in contrast with the comics hitting 80,000 at their high points, the games hit 15 million at theirs and generally averaged around 1-2 million, with even the dubious Lost World taking in 710,000. And if you factor in downloads, Sonic Dash has hit over 100 million!

I've again queried with him why then, with the above in mind, it would make sense for SEGA to go back to the old SatAM/Archie stories for a 'new direction' - if he doesn't answer the question directly, but sidesteps to a different angle (if I had to wager, my money is on "the games don't have as much storyline") then by having to shift gears, it's a tacit admission that his original line of debating can't be defended.

Conversely, if he ignores it, it makes it look like he has no answer to us (particularly as we are quoting actual stats rather than simply opinions).

At the end of the day, presenting our arguments as clearly and objectively as possible will do more to 'sway' people (and possibly even influence Ken at some level) than actually having him admit he may have been wrong.

[Tylinos]

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/694308439011426304
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/694308739055157248
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/694309009340248064

See, here's one that's pretty easy to point out the flaws with.  Ken notes out there are millions of copies of the comic out there when you combine all issues ever sold.  True, sure, but what does that change at all?  It's not like each of those millions is owned by different people.  Even if we assume for some reason that the entire readerbase is a completely new group every few years, that still means there's probably only about a few hundred thousand people (I doubt even 500k) who have read the series for more than a handful of issues.

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/694309253155192833

Also, there's this one.  Even though more people know the early games more than the later games, judging by sales alone (and what I just said up there) there's still almost certainly more people who have bought Lost World than have read the comic for more than a handful of issues.

[Tenko]

He really has a thing against the games huh. I'm guessing my points against that were better as you seem to approve Nestor haha.

His reasoning is pretty messed up regarding how important SatAM and the comics are in general. Going so far as to say people only know and remember the old games and the new games aren't as popular or well known.

The average sales on the main series games from Unleashed, Colours and Generations would disagree. They average out to similar sales to the Sonic Adventure era and haven't dwindled at all. The audience is still there.

The comics don't reach a worldwide audience, especially with Archie limiting shipping now, the show is 20+ years old..you would be lucky if many kids outside the USA even know this content exists, not including die hard fans.

[horridus]

Penders insistence of Satams viability is even more puzzling when you take into account that he gave it the same runaround as the games. It's weird that he fixates on it so much when be barely paid it even lip service.

[Nestor]

Sadly (or fortunately, depending on your perspective...), I've got a feeling he may not respond beyond this now. We pointed out that even if we assume that 300 issues all netting 80,000 units were sold of the comic (which is obviously a gross overestimate), this brings the comics' take to 24 million units - the number of units of the Sonic franchise currently clocks out at 335 million meanwhile (taking downloads into account).

He then suggested that Tenko and I were overlooking "many variables" without further elaboration, but as I pointed out to him, unless the variables can account (and then exceed) a 14-fold disparity (or, if we looked at just peak figures, a 187-fold disparity), they won't have a lot of meaning. Not to mention that other variables (as pointed out by Tenko) work against the comics' overall total as much as for it.

I'm not sure there's tons more he can really add to this one in his favour beyond changing tack or finishing.

[Tenko]

Disparity is also pretty prevalent in the gross income earned by said products too. 24 million x the cost of your average comic, is a LOT less income than what even one of the Sonic games brings in. Using the average 2.5 million game sales data figure x the cost of your average game these days, or even back then is syill far greater than the comics income for either Sega or Archie. Pretty giant holes of logic right there.