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


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4 hours ago, bimaloy30 said:

I think he wanted to just have ownership of his characters just so he could milk the connection to Sonic to ensure his project would get customers.Even the one non-derivative material he did produce (The Lost Ones) had some cast members making a debut in the Sonic/Image crossover for example.
 

You would think correctly. Even now he's done the absolute bare minimum needed to sever this project from Sonic- he still uses 'Mobius' and references a 'Warlord Kintobor', 'Princess of Acorn' and a 'Blue Quilled Erinacinaie' in various materials, and the only truly radical changes he's made have been in those areas where he absolutely cannot skirt the line. Its been noted more than once that whatever he says, at the end of the day Sonic is the only thing he has going for him, and he desperately needs that connection for any kind of recognition or success. 

That is, if he actually ever bothers to release this thing, which is looking increasingly doubtful. 

3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Also, his semi-cute assistant changed breed. 

Not exactly. She didn't change breeds, just designs, and technically that's her 'original' self- 

A few pages into this there's going to be some kind of reality warping wave or whatever, and when the dust settles she'll look like this.

DFCotEXUMAA7ij5.jpg

If that sounds confusing, convoluted and more trouble than its worth... you're absolutely correct, it is indeed all of those things. 

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8 minutes ago, horridus said:

You would think correctly. Even now he's done the absolute bare minimum needed to sever this project from Sonic- he still uses 'Mobius' and references a 'Warlord Kintobor', 'Princess of Acorn' and a 'Blue Quilled Erinacinaie' in various materials, and the only truly radical changes he's made have been in those areas where he absolutely cannot skirt the line. Its been noted more than once that whatever he says, at the end of the day Sonic is the only thing he has going for him, and he desperately needs that connection for any kind of recognition or success. 

That is, if he actually ever bothers to release this thing, which is looking increasingly doubtful. 

Not exactly. She didn't change breeds, just designs, and technically that's her 'original' self- 

A few pages into this there's going to be some kind of reality warping wave or whatever, and when the dust settles she'll look like this.

DFCotEXUMAA7ij5.jpg

If that sounds confusing, convoluted and more trouble than its worth... you're absolutely correct, it is indeed all of those things. 

I'm honestly not sure what I'm even seeing there.

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1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

I'm honestly not sure what I'm even seeing there.

The end result of a career at a mainstream comic company that spanned a decade or so. 

Tragic, no?

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26 minutes ago, horridus said:

The end result of a career at a mainstream comic company that spanned a decade or so. 

Tragic, no?

Considering it kinda looks like the setup to some weird porno, yeah, somewhat.

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*low whistle* That is a mighty impressive analysis, miiighty impressive. Like, kudos, that has got to be the most thorough technical assessment of something Penders related on this thread. We rarely get any kind of insights like this that don't have to do with the art or the storytelling. 

Likewise, none of this is particularly surprising. Some time ago, Penders decided to showcase a French translation of this page- a native French speaker (our very own @Adamis, as a matter of fact) immediately pointed out that this translation, supposedly provided by a friend of Penders' who could speak French, was riddled with errors. Another translation was made, and again there were errors pointed out, with Penders bending over backwards trying to 'prove' that his translation was legitimate. Even going so far as to claim that the reason things looked fishy to the critic was because they were Belgian, and that the French spoken in Belgium was different to the French spoken in France (spoiler alert- no it wasn't). 

Penders eventually hired Adamis on to do the translation work, for which we salute him. But either way, point of order? That this latest translation comes off as it does is of absolutely NO surprise. 

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On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 1:34 PM, horridus said:

You would think correctly. Even now he's done the absolute bare minimum needed to sever this project from Sonic- he still uses 'Mobius' and references a 'Warlord Kintobor', 'Princess of Acorn' and a 'Blue Quilled Erinacinaie' in various materials, and the only truly radical changes he's made have been in those areas where he absolutely cannot skirt the line. Its been noted more than once that whatever he says, at the end of the day Sonic is the only thing he has going for him, and he desperately needs that connection for any kind of recognition or success. 

That is, if he actually ever bothers to release this thing, which is looking increasingly doubtful. 

Not exactly. She didn't change breeds, just designs, and technically that's her 'original' self- 

A few pages into this there's going to be some kind of reality warping wave or whatever, and when the dust settles she'll look like this.

DFCotEXUMAA7ij5.jpg

If that sounds confusing, convoluted and more trouble than its worth... you're absolutely correct, it is indeed all of those things. 

GOOD LORD, what is THIS suppose to be? It almost look like a nightmare I had that one time!!

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11 minutes ago, Alexios31 said:

Excuse my ignorance but is there any chance that Rob O’ will appear in this?

Good question.

But exempting any significant time spent around Albion, not very likely.

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3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Good question.

But exempting any significant time spent around Albion, not very likely.

Anything is possible. 

I will keep my hopes high. 

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16 minutes ago, Rabid-Coot said:

Any chance the bad translations are from something like google translate?

Knowing Ken and his cheapness, most likely. I mean, he uses stock images found off of the first Google Image result.

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1 hour ago, amadeii said:

What confuses me, though, is why he thinks he needs these translations in the first place. They feed the illusion of progress, I guess, while he churns out maybe one page per year. (Maybe he produces more that he's not showing us. I don't know.) It's like he wants people to think there's a high demand for this story that isn't even close to being finished, because usually, translations mean that the work has already been successful in the original language. His way of handling this series is just... baffling sometimes. Like he wants it to appear successful without doing the work or finishing it, or something.

It feels like a prime example someon counting their chickens before they hatched.

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1 hour ago, PublicEnemy1 said:

Knowing Ken and his cheapness, most likely. I mean, he uses stock images found off of the first Google Image result.

Which is weird, considering he's apparently hired people specifically to do that.

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35 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Maybe he thinks he's hurting the official Sonic comics by constantly promising the "true" continuation is coming.

You know, it really wouldn't surprise me if that really was a factor in this. Guy has demonstrated that, regardless of what he says, he is nothing if not spiteful, and still harbors a great deal of bitterness towards Flynn. 

In truth I think he's kind of trapped. He's promised all this crap and burned all these bridges in the name of a bunch of candy colored cartoon animals made for a glorified video game commercial... and now he has to prove that it wasn't all for nothing. Only from the looks of things, there's no real passion for this project, if there ever was any to begin with, so he keeps chugging out these inane tidbits and wasting time sparring with people on twitter rather than actually buckling down and getting things done. 

....granted, that's an overly generous interpretation. He may, in fact, just be lazy and obnoxious. Occam's Razor and all that. 

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I've been doing my yearly/bi-yearly viewing of Babylon 5. The Kodos comment at the top of the page made me think of a small reference to the series back in ol' #50:

620995712_RCO003(2).jpg.ae88209e27493528f96b783b4864a764.jpg

In the third panel, Penders (I assume anyways; it'd be his style) name-drops two characters from the series, Londo and G'Kar, though he seems to have gotten the latter's name from an old promotional brochure (and managed to misspell it while he was at it.) I initially thought this was cool when I first read it in the Sonic Achives, mostly because B5 doesn't get as much focus as it should, but now after learning about Penders' reputation of barrowing things, it comes off tacky, especially since it feels unnecessarily shoe-horned in. Granted, you could argue that this isn't unlike Square's naming two random characters Biggs and Wedge, but at least they have more role.

(Also, could be my imagination, but "Jakkar's" silhouette looks like Delenn from the brochure except with less of a collar. Then again, this IS Penders.)

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11 minutes ago, captobvious42 said:

I've been doing my yearly/bi-yearly viewing of Babylon 5. The Kodos comment at the top of the page made me think of a small reference to the series back in ol' #50:

620995712_RCO003(2).jpg.ae88209e27493528f96b783b4864a764.jpg

In the third panel, Penders (I assume anyways; it'd be his style) name-drops two characters from the series, Londo and G'Kar, though he seems to have gotten the latter's name from an old promotional brochure (and managed to misspell it while he was at it.) I initially thought this was cool when I first read it in the Sonic Achives, mostly because B5 doesn't get as much focus as it should, but now after learning about Penders' reputation of barrowing things, it comes off tacky, especially since it feels unnecessarily shoe-horned in. Granted, you could argue that this isn't unlike Square's naming two random characters Biggs and Wedge, but at least they have more role.

Aye, I know the feeling. I got the reference as a kid because I watched B5 (didn't understand any of it, natch). Much like yourself, it seemed neat back then. These days, less so. 

In fairness, referencing other works isn't all that bad. I mean heck, in the games proper we have Super Sonic and The Death Egg, both of which REALLY tap-dance on the fine line between homage and outright theft. Done right, references can be clever or amusing. Penders problem though is that he overdoses his work with references, and those references eventually reach a point where they're more like substitutions. The references become integral parts of his worldbuilding, to the point where it starts looking more like a weird derivative crossover fanfiction of Superman, Star Trek and whatever else captures his fancy at a given moment. 

16 minutes ago, captobvious42 said:

(Also, could be my imagination, but "Jakkar's" silhouette looks like Delenn from the brochure except with less of a collar. Then again, this IS Penders.)

In this case it would indeed be your imagination, though I don't blame you for being suspicious. While at a certain angle it can be seen that way, in truth it is simply a result of Spaz's artwork and his tendency to give Overlanders a serious case of Anime Hair. 

MLiDDYG.png

Soo yeah, Penders took the name, but the rest of that is all Spaz. 

 

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3 minutes ago, horridus said:

Aye, I know the feeling. I got the reference as a kid because I watched B5 (didn't understand any of it, natch). Much like yourself, it seemed neat back then. These days, less so. 

In fairness, referencing other works isn't all that bad. I mean heck, in the games proper we have Super Sonic and The Death Egg, both of which REALLY tap-dance on the fine line between homage and outright theft. Done right, references can be clever or amusing. Penders problem though is that he overdoses his work with references, and those references eventually reach a point where they're more like substitutions. The references become integral parts of his worldbuilding, to the point where it starts looking more like a weird derivative crossover fanfiction of Superman, Star Trek and whatever else captures his fancy at a given moment. 
 

The Death Egg and Super Sonic kinda morphed into their own thing, a least it seems like it.

I wanted to add something about Penders having a character use a literal Klingon Bird-of-Prey as a personal aircraft, but I'm not sure if that'd be different than the Death Egg above. That plus I only know about it from commentary rather than from actually have read the issue, which might have happened if my opinion of the old comics hadn't been soured by Penders' behavior.

Quote

In this case it would indeed be your imagination, though I don't blame you for being suspicious. While at a certain angle it can be seen that way, in truth it is simply a result of Spaz's artwork and his tendency to give Overlanders a serious case of Anime Hair. 

MLiDDYG.png

Soo yeah, Penders took the name, but the rest of that is all Spaz. 

Crap, can't believe I forgot about Spaz!

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5 hours ago, captobvious42 said:

The Death Egg and Super Sonic kinda morphed into their own thing, a least it seems like it.

I wanted to add something about Penders having a character use a literal Klingon Bird-of-Prey as a personal aircraft, but I'm not sure if that'd be different than the Death Egg above. That plus I only know about it from commentary rather than from actually have read the issue, which might have happened if my opinion of the old comics hadn't been soured by Penders' behavior.

Oh, they did. I'm just pointing out that they're a bit of a gray area... but even with that in mind, Penders' own activities are pretty glaring, especially given his screaming about intellectual property and originality. 

Oh, and it wasn't JUST a Bird-Of-Prey he copied. 

Image result for Dark Legion ship

This thing is a mix-and-match monstrosity of Trek ships, taking parts from a Klingon Bird of Prey...

latest?cb=20090610115812&path-prefix=en

...A Romulan Warbird...

Image result for romulan warbird

...and a dash of the Federation's Galaxy Class ship.

Related image

There's much to be said for referencing and inspiration and the like, but the thing of it is, even if inspired by something most creatives will do what they can to ensure that their work is original enough to stand on their own, so that while the reference can be seen, it is not intrusive. 

This thing on the other hand? Its incredibly obvious where it came from and why its there. Its a towering, mammoth sized monument to Penders' creative bankruptcy. Taken on its own it might not even be so bad, but as I've said, Penders insists on the 'originality' of his ideas and his works and rants constantly about that in order to justify his actions, when much of his career was built upon borderline plagiarism that he was able to get away with because nobody cared enough to make him do any better. This thing is just one of many instances where Penders decided to 'enhance' Sonic by injecting his own interests into it, and it largely comes off as him pining to work on something more 'respectable' than a book about a cartoon hedgehog and his pals. 

 

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