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


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3 hours ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

as much as I like GBLT characters including this just feels like Penders is very much pandering again to an audience, 

That moment when you realize they prioritize lesbians over gays.

15 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

Huh, Ken Penders’ Lost Ones trailer has gone vamoose. Did anyone save it?

Oh shoot, not that work of art!

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On 1/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, horridus said:

Within Image comics at least, it really WAS 99% X-Men ripoffs for a very long time. See, Image Comics was founded by artists who got their start in Marvel Comics, several of them in particular gaining superstar status for their work on X-men, among them the ever-infamous Rob Liefeld. Naturally, this meant that when they went off to found their own company and do their own books, people couldn't help but notice that there was something a kinda familiar about the content of their work...

EglrfPE.jpg

Ahaha, this is such a perfect illustration.

It's very illuminating to read about the industry at this time when Penders was active though, it really adds a lot of insight into the mindset he had behind The Lost Ones. I'm no super knowledgeable about this time, and what I know is just things I've read online and picked up from comics and artists from that time. The information about Image Comics was especially interesting, I didn't know any of that. Thank you!

You know what this kind of made me think of? I was doing a bit of digging around the Republic...of which there is almost no information of that isn't from Penders himself (which again, I think just goes to show just how unknown it is among the public). The Republic really has a lot of the same flaws as The Lost Ones...namely in that it's such a generic concept that doesn't really have anything to it that makes it stand out or appeal to potential viewers. Cliché concepts are inherently bad, but I still feel there's something that needs to be done to make it appealing somehow, whether it be in the characters of unique execution or anything like that. Almost everything in The Republic has been done the same way but much better. It reminds me a lot of how after The Hunger Games became a huge success, it was like dystopian YA novels starting flooding the market to capitalize. Penders does the same thing...but he does it years later and is unable to attract any kind of audience.

On 1/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, horridus said:

You wanna know how they got an audience? Its simple- the audience was built in. A lot of the kids who read that book were in it purely because it had Knuckles and was a part of Sonic, and Knuckles was super popular at the time thanks to Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles. It was precisely the case for me- I'd love anything that was Sonic related purely on that basis, and I was too young to actually comprehend things like quality and good storytelling and the like. It had Knuckles in it. Who cared about anything else? That was the raw strength of the Sonic Brand at the time. Sonic was huge, really, REALLY huge, able to spawn an expansive multimedia empire that was unlike anything in Video Games. Helping in particular is that, at the time the Knuckles book was being published? The Archie Books were pretty much the only game in town. There were no major new games being released, and SatAM had ended, meaning that Archie was there to quench the thirst of Sonic fans looking for stuff. Penders himself was once able to note this, but has since insisted that the successes of the books at the time was largely due to him. The fact that Knuckles was cancelled after 32 issues should in fact tell you a lot about how wrong it all went, given that Sonic Universe lasted nearly a hundred issues before Archie lost the license, despite the Sonic brand not being nearly as popular as it was during Penders time. 

Ahaha, that's totally true. I know when I was a kid, I was extremely forgiving of the comic and all of its flaws. I didn't care if I didn't understand something or if something seemed weird. I was happy to see Sonic and all my favorite characters running around doing whatever. It wasn't until I became much older that I starting seeing the issues. Penders should thank his lucky stars that he had a built-in audience who was extremely forgiving. Looking at all the circumstances--Sonic being extremely popular, the comics being the only material, a lot of the audience being young kids who were very forgiving, an editor who was so hands-off that he might has well not have been there at all--I can't believe how easy he had it on the job. It really was just a barrage of different things that led the comic to go as out of control as it did. It's really too bad. Like you said, this job really conditioned him and his expectations for the rest of his professional life.

You know, it reminds me of a panel that was once on the "A Moment of Archie Sonic" Tumblr. It was a scene from the Knuckles book with Enerjak, and I distinctly remember Enerjak saying some sort of word that was like, college level. Penders had to add a little editor's box showing what the word meant. It's such a small thing in the grand scheme of things but it really stuck out to me. Did Penders know his audience? Did he know he was writing a kid's comic about a video game character (not to say kids aren't capable of understanding complex themes and stories, but you know)? What was he trying to accomplish with all this crazy backstory and exposition that cluttered up the comic and made it into such a dramatic mess? I've always secretly suspected that the Sonic/Knuckles comics were some sort of weird outlet for a bunch of grand story ideas that he really wanted to tell and explore, but he knew he would never be able to get it out to a widespread audience. So, he did it through the one way he knew would reach of lot of people. I don't know, some crazy conspiracy theory from me, haha.

On 1/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, horridus said:

Indeed. Penders is one of those guys who really, really very badly wants to be seen as some kind of uber progressive crusader, a champion of women and minorities and all that. Now these are all fine things to be, mind you. The problem is though? Penders is not nearly as good at being any of those things as he believes, and earnestly wants to be praised despite his efforts being lackluster or even offensive at the time. There's this underlying layer in his writing and views that is very ugly indeed. This is a guy who claims to be a feminist, yet was absolutely HELLBENT on killing off a major female character and trying to make it stick even after he was told to knock it off (Sally), with one of his MANY excuses being that 'she cramped Sonic's style'. Oh, and then after that, he had Sally AND Julie-Su basically play homemaker in 25YL while their HUSBANDS made all the major decisions and drove the plot. And just recently, he opined how he would do things if he was brought back, and IMMEDIATELY delved into the Love Triangle crap, with Sally yet again reduced purely to being a prize for the sake of asinine drama. 

Ugh. That's one of my major pet peeves. I mean, I think it's great to try and make a diverse comic. But I honestly think it's one of those situations where he just wants to win brownie points and that's it. He just wants to earn sympathy and praise from people. He's not doing it because he, you know, actually cares about representing ethnic minorities or anything like that. I can't find the tweets and/or the posts, but I can distinctly remember Penders making a huge deal about having an Asian woman being the major lead in his comic and how she was going to be the star in his movie, but then he shows signs of falling back into the typical mystical oriental stereotype that befalls so many Asian characters like this. It feels like he's just superficially waving his comic yelling, "Look at me! I'm being soooo diverse and I deserve praise! Praise me!" As an Asian woman myself, it's goddamn tiring to see. "Vague and mysterious" language? Urk. Really, Penders? It's not good to slap women and characters of different races if you're not going to write them as an actual character instead of a walking stereotype. It's not being inclusive. It's poor writing and frankly, it's a little insulting to me. Like, you expect me to accept this as a good example of diverse writing in a comic?

It's too bad, because I see Penders is trying. But as usual, if he actually listened to criticism instead of brushing it all off, he could improve and I would be happy and even a little proud of him. But Penders gotta Pend.

On 1/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, horridus said:

Oooh yes. Penders desperately, DESPERATELY wants to be viewed as the God King of Sonic comics. The Stan Lee, the Jack Kirby, the Grand Old MAn of Sonic. To such a degree that he gets horribly defensive whenever people bring up the fact that ideas he views as exclusively his may not have originated within the Archie stories written by him- he's gotten into several arguments over the fact that Fleetway covered similar ground, and done everything in his power to downplay or diminish or simply not acknowledge the other comic, with the most recent being him getting into an argument about CONVENTION APPEARANCES of all things. Likewise, no matter what he says, it's painfully clear that he bitterly, bitterly resents Ian Flynn for replacing him and receiving far more praise despite being on the book for a shorter time than Penders had been, even referring to Flynn's popularity as a 'bandwagon'. Even with other writers on the book he can't really let anyone have anything- he's repeatedly tried to claime sole responsibility for the Bunnie/Antoine romance, even though it really got started under Angelo DeCesare, whom Penders has repeatedly downplayed and disrespected on his twitter. And then there was his feud with Bollers, wherein he claimed that Bollers was trying to 'subvert' him when it came to 25YL... 

His incessant ragging on the Sonic film is a symptom of this, because the thing that really gets him is that its being made at all without him. He couldn't care less if its good or if its bad, the only thing he cares about is that it 'stole' what was 'meant' to be HIS legacy. He still can't accept the fact that within the grander scheme of things, even at the peak of his career, the ARchie Sonic comics and spinoffs were still only a subdivision of the wider franchise. His vision of Sonic is so narrow he can only really consider the comics, and only the comics he wrote at that. 

 

This is really puzzling, especially when you consider that so many mainstream comics are one collaborative effort. I mean, not all of them, but surely Penders can see that the comics he was working on were the result of many ideas and many people coming together to make something...together. It's infuriating to see him push down the efforts of all his fellow comic employees. I thought he was all for comic creators or something like that? You'd think he would be singing their praises while condemning the big comic book companies or something like that. It especially makes no sense when he was supporting other comic writers and artists getting copyrights and royalties from Archie (or something like that? I can't find the reference posts anymore so many someone can correct me or job my memories). Penders should be grateful he was a part of something so big instead of trying to hot it and make it all about himself.

I remember tweets of his greatly overstating the importance of the comics, like saying the games don't have enough material or heart for a movie or things similar to that? Look, I love the comics, but at the end of the day...Sonic is mainly a video game series. That's his main claim to fame and where he gets the largest audience and profit. The comics are a great supplement, but that's about it. Yeah, it might kind of bite at first, but Penders was still a part of something that had an effect on the game industry and comic industry and make its mark, especially with it holding the record for the longest running comic series about a video game character. I really wish Penders would be a bit more humble and thankful for the part he played (even if it wasn't necessarily good), instead of turning everything around and making it about himself.

On 1/7/2019 at 6:40 AM, Kellodrawsalot said:

Very very true, Penders is convinced that his writing brought Sonic's populairty to the western market despite the fact back in the early internet days of small Sonic fan sites in the 2000's most fans mocked the Archie-Spinn of.

Penders has always been a bad teamplayer, regardless of what the pro-Penders/Anti Flynn group is convinced of at least Flynn didn't get into drama or pity arguments with other writers. (lets not forget Penders said he would ignore whatever other writer wrote when it came to his characters) Penders didn't even get along with Ben Hurts. 

I am also tired of Penders constant feminist-position  horridus already said everything On the subject, but a year ago Penders stated on Twitter that he brought ONE female artist (Dawn Best) to the Sonic book as some sort of female-feminist credit, and then got pretty ticked off when someone mentioned that during Flynn and Tracey's run several more female artist were hired for the book. Then he mentioned that unlike Sega if he was in charge of Sonic he would bring back strong female characters like Sally. (ignoring Blaze and other female characters) when someone pointed out to him that he was planning to kill of Sally he again tried to justify it with her not being a cool gf for Sonic and that her mini-series sold pretty poorly. (YES he blamed the character for the mini series poor sales, it does not comprehend to him that he could have just done a bad job on it.)

It's really awful too, considering how teamwork and team efforts are a huge part of most comic books. Everyone works to contribute something to make the whole product good (well, that's the intent but it doesn't always go that way...). Penders shitting on everyone on the team just shows how little he cares about collaborative efforts. It's probably sort of a good thing that Penders is working on The Lara-Su Chronicles alone. Imagine working with someone only to have them turn around and belittle your hard work and demean you, despite all the work you both put in to make something. 

Also, regarding Dawn Best, I swear there was this one post by her where she said that she only did the base pencils while Penders sort of went over and "fixed" (used loosely) everything? Like, she would basically do the groundwork and then he'd go in and modify it? I don't want to say too much about this since I might be wrong.

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21 hours ago, TideKai said:

It's very illuminating to read about the industry at this time when Penders was active though, it really adds a lot of insight into the mindset he had behind The Lost Ones. I'm no super knowledgeable about this time, and what I know is just things I've read online and picked up from comics and artists from that time. The information about Image Comics was especially interesting, I didn't know any of that. Thank you!

You know what this kind of made me think of? I was doing a bit of digging around the Republic...of which there is almost no information of that isn't from Penders himself (which again, I think just goes to show just how unknown it is among the public). The Republic really has a lot of the same flaws as The Lost Ones...namely in that it's such a generic concept that doesn't really have anything to it that makes it stand out or appeal to potential viewers. Cliché concepts are inherently bad, but I still feel there's something that needs to be done to make it appealing somehow, whether it be in the characters of unique execution or anything like that. Almost everything in The Republic has been done the same way but much better. It reminds me a lot of how after The Hunger Games became a huge success, it was like dystopian YA novels starting flooding the market to capitalize. Penders does the same thing...but he does it years later and is unable to attract any kind of audience.

You're welcome. It was an odd period in comics history, and the Image Story in particular is one of those things that came to define the decade in which it happened, for better or worse. I've got a bit of fascination for that particular period in US comics given that its the era in which I grew up, even IF my comic of choice was a Hedgehog rather than a superhero, heh.

And yeah, pretty much. A big part of it is that Penders, for all that he talks about 'vision' and 'creativity' and all that, demonstrates this incredibly cynical approach to writing, particularly when it comes to characters- he doesn't have a lot of ability to innovate and tends to compartmentalize things for his own convenience, doing what is most familiar and easy over actually trying or thinking. In short? He's a guy in a creative field, but his mentality is that of a businessman... in this case, a particularly out of touch businessman who thinks that tired, rote tricks still work on people rather than being innovative. As such, his 'original' works are pretty much bland stereotypes upon bland stereotypes, regurgitations of things that have been done before while lacking any of the things that made those iterations worthwhile. 

In another life, he'd have probably made a killing if he somehow found his way into the mockbuster business... 

21 hours ago, TideKai said:

You know, it reminds me of a panel that was once on the "A Moment of Archie Sonic" Tumblr. It was a scene from the Knuckles book with Enerjak, and I distinctly remember Enerjak saying some sort of word that was like, college level. Penders had to add a little editor's box showing what the word meant. It's such a small thing in the grand scheme of things but it really stuck out to me. Did Penders know his audience? Did he know he was writing a kid's comic about a video game character (not to say kids aren't capable of understanding complex themes and stories, but you know)? What was he trying to accomplish with all this crazy backstory and exposition that cluttered up the comic and made it into such a dramatic mess? I've always secretly suspected that the Sonic/Knuckles comics were some sort of weird outlet for a bunch of grand story ideas that he really wanted to tell and explore, but he knew he would never be able to get it out to a widespread audience. So, he did it through the one way he knew would reach of lot of people. I don't know, some crazy conspiracy theory from me, haha.

Your suspicions are quite correct. Now, obviously, there's no post going around wherein Penders declares anything like that, but when you read the content of his stories as well as his statements elsewhere, it lends a LOT of credence to the idea that Penders never really wanted to write a book meant for children, and given the comparatively little oversight he had, basically tried to convert the book into something more 'legitimate'. Hence you get all these half-baked attempts at 'mature' subjects and 'mature' storytelling, as well as everyone speaking like a middle aged man who reeds the thesaurus for recreation. What really clinches it though is that he really, really does not care about anything of Sonic that didn't originate from the comic, or from him. See, while the comic was ostensibly there to promote the video games and the SatAM cartoon series around at the time, Penders has made it a point of pride that he never really played any of the games, and as for SatAM? Well, let's take a count- firstly, he tried to permanetly kill off Sally in order to motivate Sonic. Secondly, he mentioned wanting to kill off Rotor and Antoine because he couldn't think of anything to do with them. He succeeded in permanently killing off Robotnik for a time, and on his forum even went on to say that the Dark Legion could 'eat Eggman for breakfast along with any of his incarnations'. Even more damning, in a thread on said forum, he said that in order for a Sonic film to succeed, it would need to 'grow beyond the games and comics'. Heck, when the Sonic Adventure adaptation was forced down on the book, he STILL couldn't bother to do any basic research and simply chose to shoehorn his own shit in where it did not belong (the detour to Cat Country). 

It's incredibly, painfully clear that Penders was never really interested in Sonic for his own sake, and saw Sonic more as a means towards an end that he would never otherwise achieve on his own. One of the reasons he latched onto Knuckles so readily is because Knuckles was a blank slate that he could do whatever he wanted with, and that in turn led to this incredibly derivative, weird ass science fiction story that fixated on the concept of destiny and lineage and so on and so forth, with elements bluntly stolen from his favorite franchises like Superman, Star Trek and even Dune. Hence why as time went on, Knuckles and the Echidna became the most important aspect of the book at the expense of everything else. 

22 hours ago, TideKai said:

This is really puzzling, especially when you consider that so many mainstream comics are one collaborative effort. I mean, not all of them, but surely Penders can see that the comics he was working on were the result of many ideas and many people coming together to make something...together. It's infuriating to see him push down the efforts of all his fellow comic employees. I thought he was all for comic creators or something like that? You'd think he would be singing their praises while condemning the big comic book companies or something like that. It especially makes no sense when he was supporting other comic writers and artists getting copyrights and royalties from Archie (or something like that? I can't find the reference posts anymore so many someone can correct me or job my memories). Penders should be grateful he was a part of something so big instead of trying to hot it and make it all about himself.

I remember tweets of his greatly overstating the importance of the comics, like saying the games don't have enough material or heart for a movie or things similar to that? Look, I love the comics, but at the end of the day...Sonic is mainly a video game series. That's his main claim to fame and where he gets the largest audience and profit. The comics are a great supplement, but that's about it. Yeah, it might kind of bite at first, but Penders was still a part of something that had an effect on the game industry and comic industry and make its mark, especially with it holding the record for the longest running comic series about a video game character. I really wish Penders would be a bit more humble and thankful for the part he played (even if it wasn't necessarily good), instead of turning everything around and making it about himself.

Penders has... an INCREDIBLY warped perspective on such things. See, he doesn't just denigrate the other writers on the book- he's such a blinkered fanboy that he has pretty much declared that 'only the original creators do it right' when it comes to the crap that HE likes, and even when other writers come along and are basically the source of a book becoming a success (such as the case of X-Men and Daredevil), he will still insist they bow and scrape of the original creators, regardless of how much or how little said original creators actually contributed to the popularity of a property (For context, X-Men and Daredevil were both the red-headed stepchildren of Marvel until they were re-invented and re-vamped by later creators). He feels so strongly about this, he actually threw a BITCH FIT when someone pointed out that the Daredevil TV series takes entirely after said later run. This is what forms the basis of his criticism towards Flynn (with him flip flopping between slamming him for 'wasting' characters or 'relying' on older characters), but of course, NONE of it applies to Penders himself or his own body of work, despite the fact that without Sonic he wouldn't have had any kind of career. 

As to the latter point... I'm not sure at what point it happened exactly, but Penders got it into his head that the Archie Sonic comics were some kind of massive, internationally recognized PHENOMENA, and that Sonic is a comic star on par with figures like Spider-Man, and that Penders is the one responsible for this tremendous exposure and fame. Whether he is legitimately blind to the actual order of things or simply deluding himself on purpose to make himself seem more important than he is is anyone's guess. Notably, this intense self-hyping really began to ratchet up after the lawsuit finally ended and everything he made was removed from the book. In any case, whatever the cause, Penders has basically been marinating in his own Kool-Aid for a while now. I think its overcompensation for the fact that his lawsuit kinda proved that nothing he did really mattered, given that the book went on just fine after his stuff was cut out, and IDW is doing likewise. 

22 hours ago, TideKai said:

Also, regarding Dawn Best, I swear there was this one post by her where she said that she only did the base pencils while Penders sort of went over and "fixed" (used loosely) everything? Like, she would basically do the groundwork and then he'd go in and modify it? I don't want to say too much about this since I might be wrong.

Ah, now HERE is a tale. See, in comics, artwork is generally handled by three people- the Penciler, The Inker, and the Colorist. Each job is pretty self-descriptive, and naturally, multiple duties can be handled by a single artist depending on how much of the workload they want to take. Well, the thing of it is, is that Dawn Best was the penciller for several issues, while Ken Penders was the inker. Ken Penders is an absolutely lousy kind of inker- the kind who basically refuses to actually work with the art style of the penciller and just draws his shit over everything, ruining it in the process. And the same happened here- fabulous pencils by Dawn Best basically being deformed into Penders' own shit, but since nobody really considers how the inker is a separate thing from the penciller, Best wound up getting the heap of the criticism and blame, with everyone thinking that THAT was standard for her art. It's a crying shame, doubly so since Penders uses her to prop himself up constantly. 

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On 1/10/2019 at 6:44 PM, horridus said:

You're welcome. It was an odd period in comics history, and the Image Story in particular is one of those things that came to define the decade in which it happened, for better or worse. I've got a bit of fascination for that particular period in US comics given that its the era in which I grew up, even IF my comic of choice was a Hedgehog rather than a superhero, heh.

Definitely agree with you. Something I like to discuss is how a certain piece of media, whether it be movies or books or video games or whatever, can be heavily influenced by the time period it came out. Sonic is definitely a good example of how he embodies a lot of themes and attitudes of the 90's and how that contributed to his popularity. I've always wanted to make a thread about it...but that's another story for another day, haha.

I think someone in the thread about 50 pages ago or something about how Penders seems to have a mindset about Sonic and the comic industry in general that is stuck in the 90's. What are your thoughts about that, horridus?

On 1/10/2019 at 6:44 PM, horridus said:

Your suspicions are quite correct. Now, obviously, there's no post going around wherein Penders declares anything like that, but when you read the content of his stories as well as his statements elsewhere, it lends a LOT of credence to the idea that Penders never really wanted to write a book meant for children, and given the comparatively little oversight he had, basically tried to convert the book into something more 'legitimate'. Hence you get all these half-baked attempts at 'mature' subjects and 'mature' storytelling, as well as everyone speaking like a middle aged man who reeds the thesaurus for recreation. What really clinches it though is that he really, really does not care about anything of Sonic that didn't originate from the comic, or from him. See, while the comic was ostensibly there to promote the video games and the SatAM cartoon series around at the time, Penders has made it a point of pride that he never really played any of the games, and as for SatAM? Well, let's take a count- firstly, he tried to permanetly kill off Sally in order to motivate Sonic. Secondly, he mentioned wanting to kill off Rotor and Antoine because he couldn't think of anything to do with them. He succeeded in permanently killing off Robotnik for a time, and on his forum even went on to say that the Dark Legion could 'eat Eggman for breakfast along with any of his incarnations'. Even more damning, in a thread on said forum, he said that in order for a Sonic film to succeed, it would need to 'grow beyond the games and comics'. Heck, when the Sonic Adventure adaptation was forced down on the book, he STILL couldn't bother to do any basic research and simply chose to shoehorn his own shit in where it did not belong (the detour to Cat Country). 

It's incredibly, painfully clear that Penders was never really interested in Sonic for his own sake, and saw Sonic more as a means towards an end that he would never otherwise achieve on his own. One of the reasons he latched onto Knuckles so readily is because Knuckles was a blank slate that he could do whatever he wanted with, and that in turn led to this incredibly derivative, weird ass science fiction story that fixated on the concept of destiny and lineage and so on and so forth, with elements bluntly stolen from his favorite franchises like Superman, Star Trek and even Dune. Hence why as time went on, Knuckles and the Echidna became the most important aspect of the book at the expense of everything else. 

Hah, I've always suspected that since revisiting the comics as an adult, but it's nice to see that it's true. I've always had that weird inkling of Penders shoving all this crap into the comic because he desperately wanted to tell some kind of epic original story. It's especially telling when you read his list of "inspirations." Now, again, I'm not saying that kids are totally incapable of enjoying or understanding mature and deeper themes. However, a talented writer (which Penders is not) is able to weave it into a story that is still accessible to someone who is younger. I can say right now that as a kid, half of what was happening in the comic utterly confused me. I didn't care of course, since it was Sonic and Sonic could do whatever as long as it was Sonic. I think it's a good example, though, of how out-of-touch Penders can be with his material and his audience. I mean, would you hand Dune or Game of Thrones to a 8-10 year old kid and expect them to completely understand and enjoy all the parts of the story? 

Penders comes off as the kind of person to me who wants to be remembered for making some sort of epic, deep, and heroic story. Unfortunately, the only thing that he's been on board with for an extended period of time and has seen any kind of success with is the Sonic comic, so I guess that became his sort of outlet for all of his pent-up ideas. Or maybe Penders is that kind of guy who thinks a story can't have any merit unless it has a huge amount of backstory baggage or something like that. When I read the Knuckles comic or some of the crazy stories of Sonic fighting aliens in an intergalatic war, it really makes me wonder just what Penders was trying to achieve.

It's too bad, because while I don't agree with how he did it, I do like how Penders tried to take the Sonic comic in a more grounded and serious direction. I do like some of the concepts that he's come up with. I just think he's horrible at the execution.

On 1/10/2019 at 6:44 PM, horridus said:

Penders has... an INCREDIBLY warped perspective on such things. See, he doesn't just denigrate the other writers on the book- he's such a blinkered fanboy that he has pretty much declared that 'only the original creators do it right' when it comes to the crap that HE likes, and even when other writers come along and are basically the source of a book becoming a success (such as the case of X-Men and Daredevil), he will still insist they bow and scrape of the original creators, regardless of how much or how little said original creators actually contributed to the popularity of a property (For context, X-Men and Daredevil were both the red-headed stepchildren of Marvel until they were re-invented and re-vamped by later creators). He feels so strongly about this, he actually threw a BITCH FIT when someone pointed out that the Daredevil TV series takes entirely after said later run. This is what forms the basis of his criticism towards Flynn (with him flip flopping between slamming him for 'wasting' characters or 'relying' on older characters), but of course, NONE of it applies to Penders himself or his own body of work, despite the fact that without Sonic he wouldn't have had any kind of career.

This makes no sense...wasn't Penders a "secondary" writer that came onto the book? Like, he wasn't one of the original writers? So...he's being a hypocrite. Nice.

I was thinking about the incident where another writer (Scott Fulop, I think? Or Scott Shaw? Something like that) was also suing Archie for copyright over his characters, or when Penders was making those tweets about supporting (and I think showing up at it too?) the lawsuit of another person who worked under Archie (maybe one of the two that I mentioned before). That seems like someone who's pretty supportive of his fellow employees working for a comic company...but then he turns around and belittles their contributions or downplays them to make himself seem better. I can't wrap my head around it. I know that Archie's not exactly the best company, which is probably putting it very mildly, but you know...still. I feel kind of sorry for Flynn. Imagine being hired to write for a comic you've been passionate about and written your own fan material on...and having its previous writer, your predecessor, just demean you. I know Flynn's not the only one that this has happened to, but I'm sure part of it kind of bites.

On 1/10/2019 at 6:44 PM, horridus said:

Ah, now HERE is a tale. See, in comics, artwork is generally handled by three people- the Penciler, The Inker, and the Colorist. Each job is pretty self-descriptive, and naturally, multiple duties can be handled by a single artist depending on how much of the workload they want to take. Well, the thing of it is, is that Dawn Best was the penciller for several issues, while Ken Penders was the inker. Ken Penders is an absolutely lousy kind of inker- the kind who basically refuses to actually work with the art style of the penciller and just draws his shit over everything, ruining it in the process. And the same happened here- fabulous pencils by Dawn Best basically being deformed into Penders' own shit, but since nobody really considers how the inker is a separate thing from the penciller, Best wound up getting the heap of the criticism and blame, with everyone thinking that THAT was standard for her art. It's a crying shame, doubly so since Penders uses her to prop himself up constantly. 

Ah, I thought I read something like that, maybe from Dawn Best herself. Which is too bad, Best is a great artist. I've seen some of her Sonic work that wasn't messed up by Penders, and it's pretty nice. She's drawn some of her own interpretations of Lien-Da and Lara-Su (which I can't find, ergh) and they look so nice. If Dawn Best was hired by Penders to draw for his comic books / graphic novels / whatever the hell they're supposed to be, I think they would look so much nicer. At least it'd look nice, even if everything else was a train wreck. There was also that statement she made about how Penders apparently told her that he was aware his art was only just "test art" or something and that he knew it would have to improve for the final product. I guess Penders...changed his mind? I don't know. I bet nobody knows.

It's kind of sad, because I think Penders's work, particularly his pencils and his inks, are much better when he's working with others. I found a site that has a few examples of some pencils Penders did for some other comics, and I really do think they look nice. No doubt in part due to the efforts of the inkers and letters, but they still look pretty nice. It makes it all the more ironic that Penders seems to not be much of a team player. Here's a site with some non-Sonic examples, and here's one of what I'm talking about:

Spoiler

FLARE ISSUE #15 BRITANNIA PAGE 1 *** illustrated by Ken Penders and inked by Jack Snider.  Comic Art

(Also, I'm sorry if there's a lot of me saying "this thing happened, but I can't find the source" in this post. I swear I just suck at finding the original post. If I'm wrong on anything, please correct me about it.)

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3 hours ago, DabigRG said:

The aliens thing was Karl Bollers, with maybe a hint of Romy Chacon.

Ah, really? I always get which stories were written by Penders and which were written by Bollers mixed up...I guess Penders was mostly doing the secondary stories and the Echidna ones while Bollers did the main ones (until he left)?

Speaking of Bollers, I know there were some old archived forum posts that sort of detailed the internal feud he had with Penders. Does anyone still have access to those?

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20 hours ago, TideKai said:

I think someone in the thread about 50 pages ago or something about how Penders seems to have a mindset about Sonic and the comic industry in general that is stuck in the 90's. What are your thoughts about that, horridus?

I think that one was a bit more recent than that- @Tylinos, I believe, pointed out the various ways in which Penders doesn't really comprehend a lot about the comic book industry these days given that he hasn't actually been a part of it since 06, and his involvement even before that was never as high level as he likes to talk. PRimarily it shows itself in the way he has demonstrated zero ability to actually maneuver the new landscape of advertising, namely via online means, and likewise doesn't seem to process that this isn't the Image era and that he isn't a superstar by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, his entire twitter account of kind of a testament to how he doesn't 'get' it- one of the worst things to do when trying to be a professional in the internet age is to engage in the kind of squabbling he does on an almost weekly basis, especially since he doesn't really have any kind of clout. Nobody's going to want to pay attention to your launch event if you're acting like an angry toddler. 

Now, on the SONIC front of things? Asides from the fact that Sonic was way more popular then and was pretty much a guaranteed sell compared to the day, Penders doesn't have any kind of clue that the franchise is in a very different place than it was back then. See, back then, SEGA of Japan didn't really care all THAT much about the particulars of Sonic, so long as the games were promoted and sold well. As a result of this, in the Western Hemisphere, Sega of America/Europe created their own localization that would form the basis of the canon for the games in that area, though it was fairly loosely applied and enforced. And since the games were such relatively simple affairs at that time, that meant the various bits of spin-off media could do pretty much what they wanted. As such you had separate continuities for three cartoons, two comics, and a bevy of storybooks. I mean, this was the day and age where something as whacked out as Sonic Underground could get made. 

Then of course you have the particular situation at Archie, wherein Penders was able to work under a string of editors who more or less let him do whatever. Under these conditions, Penders and other writers were able to build up a pretty vast extended cast even before before the Knuckles book started up in earnest, as well as fleshing out a general mythology built up from things initially established in the SatAM show, with bits and pieces gradually added from the games. It was during this time that Penders worked, a time when the idea of Sonic was still so undefined that it could be RE-defined into virtually anything, with SEGA not really intervening as much as you would think. As such, Sonic in Archie gradually morphed into the weird semi-superhero, science fiction melodrama that it did, and this came to define Penders ideas of what 'Sonic' would be regardless of the wider context. 

This of course all started to change in 1999- with the release of Sonic Adventure, SEGA decided they wanted a more coherent and unified approach to their franchise, and as such began to enforce the canon and story elements that had always been in the Japanese games while phasing off the loose canon of the Western translations. Naturally, this meant that sooner or later it would start to encroach upon the comic as well, and that would be at least part of the reason that Penders eventually left the book in 06, and why under Flynn the comics would shift more and more towards game focused stuff until the Lawsuit forced the big reboot. 

Anyway, the point of order? Penders' mindset when it comes to Sonic is still stuck in the 'glory days'- he absolutely does not, or will not, comprehend that with the sheer number of games and cast editions since that time, the idea of what 'Sonic' is became far more solidified compared to what it was in his day. Furthermore, he really does not grasp that SEGA now pays a lot closer attention to the comics than they did in the old days and that a lot of the crap he pulled just would not fly under the current management. He doesn't comprehend that his idea of what Sonic is has been out of vogue for a very, very long time- the big proof of this? Him opinining what he'd do if he came back, and immediately deciding to delve into the Love Triangle shit with Sonic and Sally.... without demonstrating any kind of awareness that SEGA does not WANT Sonic to have a girlfriend or family or a detailed backstory or any of the things Penders obsesses over. 

21 hours ago, TideKai said:

Hah, I've always suspected that since revisiting the comics as an adult, but it's nice to see that it's true. I've always had that weird inkling of Penders shoving all this crap into the comic because he desperately wanted to tell some kind of epic original story. It's especially telling when you read his list of "inspirations." Now, again, I'm not saying that kids are totally incapable of enjoying or understanding mature and deeper themes. However, a talented writer (which Penders is not) is able to weave it into a story that is still accessible to someone who is younger. I can say right now that as a kid, half of what was happening in the comic utterly confused me. I didn't care of course, since it was Sonic and Sonic could do whatever as long as it was Sonic. I think it's a good example, though, of how out-of-touch Penders can be with his material and his audience. I mean, would you hand Dune or Game of Thrones to a 8-10 year old kid and expect them to completely understand and enjoy all the parts of the story? 

Penders comes off as the kind of person to me who wants to be remembered for making some sort of epic, deep, and heroic story. Unfortunately, the only thing that he's been on board with for an extended period of time and has seen any kind of success with is the Sonic comic, so I guess that became his sort of outlet for all of his pent-up ideas. Or maybe Penders is that kind of guy who thinks a story can't have any merit unless it has a huge amount of backstory baggage or something like that. When I read the Knuckles comic or some of the crazy stories of Sonic fighting aliens in an intergalatic war, it really makes me wonder just what Penders was trying to achieve.

It's too bad, because while I don't agree with how he did it, I do like how Penders tried to take the Sonic comic in a more grounded and serious direction. I do like some of the concepts that he's come up with. I just think he's horrible at the execution.

Aye, and therein lies the key problem. There is indeed nothing wrong with incorporating more mature subjects into materials meant for children- on paper it is in fact a very laudable thing to try and tell children about these things in a way that they will understand, and it can give a depth to a product that would otherwise not be present. Hell, Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood became such massive and beloved hits precisely because of this, as were cartoons like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Batman the Animated Series. The reason these things were able to triumph in this regard is due to the skill of the people behind these shows in being able to explain these subjects on a level that their intended target audience would understand, while at the same time not dumbing them down in the process... in essence, being able to explain things to kids while simultaneously being able to do so in a way that an adult could appreciate. 

Penders however? Does the exact opposite- he tacks on difficult subjects and by some dark miracle, simultaneously makes them too complex for children while being too childish for adults. Its a major case of him wanting to have his cake and eat it- he wants the accolades for tackling such subjects, but doesn't really put in the kind of effort or nuance to truly make his intended audience understand. This leads to things like him trying to paint the conflict between the Legion and the Brotherhood as a shades of grey conflict, and yet at every given opportunity the Legion is a fairly standard evil organization, and the Brotherhood's similarities to them are not truly explored in a meaningful way. Token attempts are made, but with no follow through, and for all intents and purposes the Brotherhood remain 'The Good Guy' while the Legion are always the bad. Likewise, Penders is highly prone to drawing comparisons to real world conflicts and issues in the most shallow way imaginable. In the infamous 'Poem Incident', he re-wrote a famous poem describing the rize of Nazism, only instead made it about Robotnik. In doing so he completely robbed the original poem of its context (to put it lightly, Robotnik's takeover of Mobius and the reason it happened was NOTHING like Hitler's own rise to power in Germany) and thus its impact, and likewise fumbled in ensuring it would have little to do with the actual story- which amounted to the Dark Legion trying to rig an election by brainwashing the previous leader of Angel Island. 

Like, I could probably write a collegiate thesis on why none of this works, but this is long and complex enough as it is. In short though, you are correct that Penders WANTS to be remembered as someone who wrote something challenging, deep, and meaningful, but he just doesn't have the chops or the insight. Instead he's just a prime example of the kind of pretentious dolt who quotes things without really understanding what any of it means. The kind of guy who wants to appear deep, but can't actually manage the real thing to save his life. 

And yeah, you are indeed correct that Penders' ideas are not INNATELY terrible. Knuckles being part of a lineage of Guardians and there being a hidden city of surviving Echidna? That can work. King Acorn actually being a horrible king? Hey, that would be a fresh take on the possible perils of the 'Rightful King Returns' bit! One of the Freedom Fighters being gay and trying to find the strength to reveal this sensitive secret to their friends? Sure, nothing wrong with that! THe problem is... Penders cannot do any of it well, at all. He doesn't think things through. He doesn't really consider or develop characters. He takes too long or ignores basic logic to make things work. He gets waylaid by his personal pet obsessions. 

It's just all so... disastrous. 

21 hours ago, TideKai said:

I was thinking about the incident where another writer (Scott Fulop, I think? Or Scott Shaw? Something like that) was also suing Archie for copyright over his characters, or when Penders was making those tweets about supporting (and I think showing up at it too?) the lawsuit of another person who worked under Archie (maybe one of the two that I mentioned before). That seems like someone who's pretty supportive of his fellow employees working for a comic company...but then he turns around and belittles their contributions or downplays them to make himself seem better. I can't wrap my head around it. I know that Archie's not exactly the best company, which is probably putting it very mildly, but you know...still. I feel kind of sorry for Flynn. Imagine being hired to write for a comic you've been passionate about and written your own fan material on...and having its previous writer, your predecessor, just demean you. I know Flynn's not the only one that this has happened to, but I'm sure part of it kind of bites.

Penders can talk a good game, but at the end of the day its all performative. One way or the next it's all meant to lead back to him and done for his own benefit. He earnestly could not give any kind of a crap about his fellow co-workers, given the way he boosts his own contributions while downplaying or diminishing what everyone else has to say. He only cares as far as it allows himself to look like a bigger man than he is and allows him to rail against his former employers. 

21 hours ago, TideKai said:

Ah, I thought I read something like that, maybe from Dawn Best herself. Which is too bad, Best is a great artist. I've seen some of her Sonic work that wasn't messed up by Penders, and it's pretty nice. She's drawn some of her own interpretations of Lien-Da and Lara-Su (which I can't find, ergh) and they look so nice. If Dawn Best was hired by Penders to draw for his comic books / graphic novels / whatever the hell they're supposed to be, I think they would look so much nicer. At least it'd look nice, even if everything else was a train wreck. There was also that statement she made about how Penders apparently told her that he was aware his art was only just "test art" or something and that he knew it would have to improve for the final product. I guess Penders...changed his mind? I don't know. I bet nobody knows.

Knowing Penders, he only said that in order to placate her. Penders tends to be the kind of guy who says what he thinks others want to hear him say, largely to get them off his case. Its why he tends to be so inconsistent about things like when Lara-Su Chronicles is coming out or all the other crap pertaining to it's precise relationship with the Sonic books. The guy's kind of a weasel. 

11 hours ago, TideKai said:

Speaking of Bollers, I know there were some old archived forum posts that sort of detailed the internal feud he had with Penders. Does anyone still have access to those?

Yep- I am, in fact, the individual who captured a thread detailing Penders actions.

It's a series of screencaptures, and alas its only one page of a multi page thread, but it more than establishes Penders... distaste... for Bollers' creative direction.

And then of course, there is this-

http://web.archive.org/web/20101105110828/http://kenpenders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20

Just in case the link doesn't work (because for some god awful reason linking to his archived page causes this site to get a vase of the vapors)-

Quote

The Aurora that is depicted in SONIC #125 is at odds with how she is depicted in AFTERLIFE because Karl didn't follow the notes I provided for the script. She wasn't even supposed to be in SONIC #125. Knuckles was supposed to encounter a barrier which prevented him from making the final step all the way back to his life with everyone he knew and loved, and the device that sent Sonic out to space was really supposed to open the barrier which allowed Knuckles pass through. Once it was clear Karl and I didn't see eye to eye on the story for #125, Justin had to step in and referee the donnybrook. 

At that point, I had lost all interest in continuing writing the character due to the constant changes in scheduling the stories at the time. It had long become apparent that the back-up format was too constricting for the character, especially since it really limited the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. Both Archie and SEGA were making it clear they wanted a red Knuckles, so I used the conclusion of the previous story and the AFTERLIFE saga to both make the powers that be at Archie and SEGA happy while allowing new readers to get caught up with the character. The only problem was that I hadn't really resolved in my head what was next because I had to deviate from my original plans once again. 

Justin mentioned resetting the KNUCKLES series back to square one, starting over with the same character we first met in SONIC #13, which resulted in me seriously giving thought for the first time of actually leaving the book. What hooked me back was Justin reconsidering his position due to negative fan reaction at his idea and allowing me to do KNUCKLES: 20 YEARS LATER. He had one caveat, and that the concept be retitled MOBIUS: 25 YEARS LATER so it could include Sonic and the rest of the gang in exchange for allowing Karl to play with Knuckles and friends in the present day. I accepted the assignment, figuring Karl would be happy in his playground while I did what I wanted in mine. I never saw any conflict as I always felt that no matter what I depicted didn't hamstring Karl from doing whatever he wanted to. If he killed off a character that I depicted alive, that still left a lot of questions to resolve for the readers, to say nothing of explaining away the differences between the present and future versions of the characters.

The only edict I had for Justin to relay to Karl was that Locke was the sole untouchable character. I had planned out how his life story would conclude ever since I first conceived KNUCKLES: 20 YEARS LATER and considered it a major event in the character of Knuckles, and I was bound and determined to fit that story in somewhere along the line. (This is why I don't consider anything Karl or Ian or any other writer do with the character to be official. They didn't create him, and they didn't do the heavy lifting of establishing him as a pivotal character to the Knuckles saga.)

At the time of SONIC #125, Karl saw himself for whatever reason as the primary creative force on the book, first laying claim to it with the credit "Karl Bollers and J. Axer present SONIC THE HEDGEHOG" on the title page of SONIC #123, which caused Richard and Michael to blow a gasket when they saw it, then asserting himself as a defacto editor in Justin's place. In fairness to Justin, Karl had a habit of delivering his stories at the last minute so there was little or no time to make adjustments as deadlines had to be met. This also explains Karl's hissyfit in his attempt to undermine whatever I did in MOBIUS: 25 YEARS LATER.

So the long and short of it is, Aurora wasn't supposed to come back and instead of viewing it as a cosmic life exchange - Knuckles' return in exchange for Sonic's disappearance - Karl was bound and determined to do it his way, cutting me out of the loop.

Yeah, Penders likes to pretend there was never any issue between him and Bollers, but the truth of the matter is he DEEPLY resented the man's writing on the book, particularly when it seemingly intruded into what Penders regarded as his own private domain. 

And then of course there's this-

http://sonicretro.org/2013/01/mobius-25-years-later-the-review-part-12-the-emotional-key-to-lockes-psyche/

Quote

I never expressed any opinion about Karl or his work until I was dragged into the debate whether or not M:25YL was just a possible future or the actual future of the characters. I never thought there was – or should have been – a debate as it was made clear to me I would be writing the actual future of the characters. The only thing was, I wanted to write KNUCKLES: 20 YEARS LATER, and Justin offered me the Sonic cast of character in exchange for allowing Karl to use the characters set in the present day. I was all for it on one condition: Locke was the sole untouchable character. I already knew then I wanted to do the “FATHER’S DAY” storyline in some form, and didn’t want anything to detract from that. Otherwise, I was cool with everything. Justin and I even touched on how the 25 year difference in timeline meant Karl was free to do whatever he wanted, as there was always the gap between his setting and mine that allowed for any evolutionary changes that may seem at first irreconcilable. Neither one of us didn’t realize Karl wouldn’t see it that way. As such, people took sides for whatever reason when they didn’t have to. I was angry at Karl because he was essentially attempting to delegitimize what I was doing when I never took any such approach to his work. I didn’t agree with anything he did with the cast from about issue #100 onward, but you never saw me tear his work down to promote my work at his expense.

Soo yeah, sufficed to say... Penders does not play nice with others. At all. 

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Everything Penders related linked by Horridus:

Spoiler

The Aurora that is depicted in SONIC #125 is at odds with how she is depicted in AFTERLIFE because Karl didn't follow the notes I provided for the script. She wasn't even supposed to be in SONIC #125. Knuckles was supposed to encounter a barrier which prevented him from making the final step all the way back to his life with everyone he knew and loved, and the device that sent Sonic out to space was really supposed to open the barrier which allowed Knuckles pass through. Once it was clear Karl and I didn't see eye to eye on the story for #125, Justin had to step in and referee the donnybrook. 

At that point, I had lost all interest in continuing writing the character due to the constant changes in scheduling the stories at the time. It had long become apparent that the back-up format was too constricting for the character, especially since it really limited the kinds of stories I wanted to tell. Both Archie and SEGA were making it clear they wanted a red Knuckles, so I used the conclusion of the previous story and the AFTERLIFE saga to both make the powers that be at Archie and SEGA happy while allowing new readers to get caught up with the character. The only problem was that I hadn't really resolved in my head what was next because I had to deviate from my original plans once again. 

Justin mentioned resetting the KNUCKLES series back to square one, starting over with the same character we first met in SONIC #13, which resulted in me seriously giving thought for the first time of actually leaving the book. What hooked me back was Justin reconsidering his position due to negative fan reaction at his idea and allowing me to do KNUCKLES: 20 YEARS LATER. He had one caveat, and that the concept be retitled MOBIUS: 25 YEARS LATER so it could include Sonic and the rest of the gang in exchange for allowing Karl to play with Knuckles and friends in the present day. I accepted the assignment, figuring Karl would be happy in his playground while I did what I wanted in mine. I never saw any conflict as I always felt that no matter what I depicted didn't hamstring Karl from doing whatever he wanted to. If he killed off a character that I depicted alive, that still left a lot of questions to resolve for the readers, to say nothing of explaining away the differences between the present and future versions of the characters.

The only edict I had for Justin to relay to Karl was that Locke was the sole untouchable character. I had planned out how his life story would conclude ever since I first conceived KNUCKLES: 20 YEARS LATER and considered it a major event in the character of Knuckles, and I was bound and determined to fit that story in somewhere along the line. (This is why I don't consider anything Karl or Ian or any other writer do with the character to be official. They didn't create him, and they didn't do the heavy lifting of establishing him as a pivotal character to the Knuckles saga.)

At the time of SONIC #125, Karl saw himself for whatever reason as the primary creative force on the book, first laying claim to it with the credit "Karl Bollers and J. Axer present SONIC THE HEDGEHOG" on the title page of SONIC #123, which caused Richard and Michael to blow a gasket when they saw it, then asserting himself as a defacto editor in Justin's place. In fairness to Justin, Karl had a habit of delivering his stories at the last minute so there was little or no time to make adjustments as deadlines had to be met. This also explains Karl's hissyfit in his attempt to undermine whatever I did in MOBIUS: 25 YEARS LATER.

So the long and short of it is, Aurora wasn't supposed to come back and instead of viewing it as a cosmic life exchange - Knuckles' return in exchange for Sonic's disappearance - Karl was bound and determined to do it his way, cutting me out of the loop.

Sheesh, the man really doesn't have any ounce of self awareness does he? I highly doubt that Karl Bollers was really anywhere near as petty and vindictive as he's made out to be here, and that his animosity towards you was probably because of you constantly making an ass of yourself. And even if all of this was true Pendy, he's CLEARLY moved on and grown overall as a comics writer/artist/whatever his job currently is, while you're still stuck on the hamster wheel running in place. And EVEN taking all that into consideration, do you seriously think that posting about your former colleague in such a nasty, vindictive and douchey fashion is really going to make you look any better?

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So I have a copy recorded of Ken Penders' The Lost Ones Trailer that got removed from YouTube recently, via recording from the Wayback Machine. Want me to reupload it for "archival" purposes?

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1 hour ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

So I have a copy recorded of Ken Penders' The Lost Ones Trailer that got removed from YouTube recently, via recording from the Wayback Machine. Want me to reupload it for "archival" purposes?

Sure. I'll see any trainwreck if it's from Penders.

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3 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

So I have a copy recorded of Ken Penders' The Lost Ones Trailer that got removed from YouTube recently, via recording from the Wayback Machine. Want me to reupload it for "archival" purposes?

May as well. If nothing else it will serve as an example of what Penders' writing is like when left to his own devices.

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5 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

You know, I usually just follow this topic for the interesting history relating to the comic but sometimes I just have to comment and this line just blew my mind

How was it exactly that Penders thought he had the right to completely change a licensed character in a book that was at the end of the day a glorified commercial? I know people loved the old Archie continuum and still do so I mean no offense to them, but did Penders actually have any concept at all of what he was working on? It's not even that I haven't read the tales on this very thread already detailing the man's delusions, but this line just reads as if he was still shocked when he wrote it years after the fact that SEGA had the audacity to want their character to resemble how they designed him. When exactly did he cross the line in his head that SEGA had gifted him this franchise to do with as he pleased with all of no regard to the fact that he was writing a long-winded commercial that had long since forgotten it's purpose? I know people liked his works but was people liking his work really enough for him to believe that the franchise was pretty much his? His disconnection from reality really just boggles my mind when I read stuff like this. I mean just wow. Wow.
 

 

It is genuinely amazing how Penders clearly had no idea the limitations of what he was working on. 

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@Sonic Fan J @SBR2 He did understand at one point, but his ego grew due to a lack of real quality control and anyone putting the brakes on him. Why it surged in relatively recent history is likely due to him realizing just how obscure he really was and how little of an impact on the industry he actually left, thus likely making him more of a loony and determined to do anything to keep himself in the spotlight.

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2 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

How was it exactly that Penders thought he had the right to completely change a licensed character in a book that was at the end of the day a glorified commercial? I know people loved the old Archie continuum and still do so I mean no offense to them, but did Penders actually have any concept at all of what he was working on? It's not even that I haven't read the tales on this very thread already detailing the man's delusions, but this line just reads as if he was still shocked when he wrote it years after the fact that SEGA had the audacity to want their character to resemble how they designed him. When exactly did he cross the line in his head that SEGA had gifted him this franchise to do with as he pleased with all of no regard to the fact that he was writing a long-winded commercial that had long since forgotten it's purpose? I know people liked his works but was people liking his work really enough for him to believe that the franchise was pretty much his? His disconnection from reality really just boggles my mind when I read stuff like this. I mean just wow. Wow.

It's hard to say for certain. I think it's because of the fact that when he was writing it was kind of jungle law when it came to Sonic- so long as Sonic was used in some form, it didn't matter how close or how distantly it resembled the games, and Penders was able to find a great deal success. Now obviously, you and I know that it was due to Sonic being a super popular property at the time and the fans basically buying/watching anything with Sonic on it. But Penders? Penders never really came to comprehend Sonic in the context of being a video game star with an unusually successful and expansive media empire, but almost purely saw Sonic through the lens of a comic book property. A comic book property that HE was responsible for 'saving' and bringing to such great heights, which he views as some kind of international phenomena that evidently ECLIPSED the video games. 

Ah, but then that brings us to Knuckles- the blank slate that he was allowed to mold into whatever he wanted, where he got to do things he wasn't allowed to do with Sonic, and for a time this series was critically received as being the best Sonic thing, period. Yeah, I know, we were a pack of imbeciles in the day, but hey, it had the Echidna in it, and to our little kid minds it was all AMAZING and DEEP, man! Knuckles was a character with barely any backstory at the time, unlike Sonic or any of the other main characters on the Sonic book (who, thanks to SatAM, had a bit more established). This was a character he could do whatever he wanted to with, and he wound up emotionally investing way, way more of himself into the character, and was fairly convinced that the Knuckles book was destined to last a long, long time (he boasted he had planned ahead for the next hundred issues). Then, suddenly, it was cancelled. Worse than that, SEGA decided to expand Knuckles history a little with Sonic Adventure, which contradicted and intruded into what Penders had come to view as his own private domain. 

In short though, while he's never CLAIMED that he thinks he owns Knuckles, he developed this weird, entitled mentality that makes it clear that he feels he did as good as invent the character given the amount of time he put into him. Enough so that even after the Knuckles book ended he continued to pretty much RAM Knuckles crap into the comics in order to pick up where he left off (by contrast, he tried to kill Sally off when her mini-series tanked), and enough so that he actually attempted to strongarm SEGA into making a Knuckles movie during the early days of the lawsuit-

tumblr_inline_okknmdwzCr1re1bwb_500.png&

So yeah, I can't fully explain why it came to this. I think part of it was him never truly recovering from Knuckles cancellation and thus feeling a need to 'prove' the worth of his Knuckles content, and the other part of it being that he simply became a spoiled brat due to the circumstances of his early success. 

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It still honestly amazes me though how disconnected one man can get from reality. He constantly acts like a know it all but he somehow doesn't seem to grasp that it is all only in his mind this world that revolves around him. It's kind of sad to think about, even more so when one considers that if he woke up to reality it would probably break him as a human being. I guess in a way, Penders if anything a great cautionary tale to any who desire to tread his path anyone who desires to hire a creative.

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Reading Ken's notes It really makes me sad that Ken had the nerve to Blame Ben Burst for the failure of the Satam Movie. When it really was his fault.

 

And Also wait is hé saying hé wanted to attempt to pitch a Knuckles movie at Sega during the time hé SUED Archie and Bioware ? Does hé not know OR understand that Sega by al right want Nothing to do with him?

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1 hour ago, Kellodrawsalot said:

Reading Ken's notes It really makes me sad that Ken had the nerve to Blame Ben Burst for the failure of the Satam Movie. When it really was his fault.

And Also wait is hé saying hé wanted to attempt to pitch a Knuckles movie at Sega during the time hé SUED Archie and Bioware ? Does hé not know OR understand that Sega by al right want Nothing to do with him?

He basically assumes that as a company, they would only care about the money aspect, and thus would overlook how much of a nuisance he was for the chance for a money making Knuckles movie. It's a super cynical and extremed detached way to think about things, since while corporations certainly are focused on profits first and foremost, they do have SOME standards on how they intend to get it.

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12 hours ago, horridus said:

It's hard to say for certain. I think it's because of the fact that when he was writing it was kind of jungle law when it came to Sonic- so long as Sonic was used in some form, it didn't matter how close or how distantly it resembled the games, and Penders was able to find a great deal success. Now obviously, you and I know that it was due to Sonic being a super popular property at the time and the fans basically buying/watching anything with Sonic on it. But Penders? Penders never really came to comprehend Sonic in the context of being a video game star with an unusually successful and expansive media empire, but almost purely saw Sonic through the lens of a comic book property. A comic book property that HE was responsible for 'saving' and bringing to such great heights, which he views as some kind of international phenomena that evidently ECLIPSED the video games. 

Ah, but then that brings us to Knuckles- the blank slate that he was allowed to mold into whatever he wanted, where he got to do things he wasn't allowed to do with Sonic, and for a time this series was critically received as being the best Sonic thing, period. Yeah, I know, we were a pack of imbeciles in the day, but hey, it had the Echidna in it, and to our little kid minds it was all AMAZING and DEEP, man! Knuckles was a character with barely any backstory at the time, unlike Sonic or any of the other main characters on the Sonic book (who, thanks to SatAM, had a bit more established). This was a character he could do whatever he wanted to with, and he wound up emotionally investing way, way more of himself into the character, and was fairly convinced that the Knuckles book was destined to last a long, long time (he boasted he had planned ahead for the next hundred issues). Then, suddenly, it was cancelled. Worse than that, SEGA decided to expand Knuckles history a little with Sonic Adventure, which contradicted and intruded into what Penders had come to view as his own private domain. 

In short though, while he's never CLAIMED that he thinks he owns Knuckles, he developed this weird, entitled mentality that makes it clear that he feels he did as good as invent the character given the amount of time he put into him. Enough so that even after the Knuckles book ended he continued to pretty much RAM Knuckles crap into the comics in order to pick up where he left off (by contrast, he tried to kill Sally off when her mini-series tanked), and enough so that he actually attempted to strongarm SEGA into making a Knuckles movie during the early days of the lawsuit-

tumblr_inline_okknmdwzCr1re1bwb_500.png&

So yeah, I can't fully explain why it came to this. I think part of it was him never truly recovering from Knuckles cancellation and thus feeling a need to 'prove' the worth of his Knuckles content, and the other part of it being that he simply became a spoiled brat due to the circumstances of his early success. 

Oh, God it just dawned on me how many movie attempts Penders has been involved in. Ironically all of them failing due to something he did.

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10 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

He basically assumes that as a company, they would only care about the money aspect, and thus would overlook how much of a nuisance he was for the chance for a money making Knuckles movie. It's a super cynical and extremed detached way to think about things, since while corporations certainly are focused on profits first and foremost, they do have SOME standards on how they intend to get it.

Yeah. It's actually kind of incredible really- Penders tends to express a disdain for 'suits', yet his mindset is SO corporate and profit driven that he can't seem to comprehend why there would be hard feelings from SEGA, or why they would be adverse to his 'creative vision' for Knuckles. A vision that ceased to have any kind of relevance for nearly a decade. God, can you imagine what it must have been like for whoever SEGA sent to negotiate? To hear this guy essentially go 'I'll call it all off if you let me make my Knuckles movie'? 

Unrealistic expectations, thy name is Penders. 

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19 minutes ago, horridus said:

Yeah. It's actually kind of incredible really- Penders tends to express a disdain for 'suits', yet his mindset is SO corporate and profit driven that he can't seem to comprehend why there would be hard feelings from SEGA, or why they would be adverse to his 'creative vision' for Knuckles. A vision that ceased to have any kind of relevance for nearly a decade. God, can you imagine what it must have been like for whoever SEGA sent to negotiate? To hear this guy essentially go 'I'll call it all off if you let me make my Knuckles movie'? 

Unrealistic expectations, thy name is Penders. 

I’d imagine whoever met him would have a hell of a story to tell to his coworkers.

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Lets say Sega did have a moment of madness and let Ken do a Knuckles movie what next. Assuming he hasn't acquired much hollywood experience and connections since then where would the financing, studio, distribution and all the other things that go into a movie come from?

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8 minutes ago, Rabid-Coot said:

Lets say Sega did have a moment of madness and let Ken do a Knuckles movie what next. Assuming he hasn't acquired much hollywood experience and connections since then where would the financing, studio, distribution and all the other things that go into a movie come from?

I think Penders' assumption is that SEGA would either finance it directly or otherwise do all the heavy lifting.

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