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

[Candescence]

The Digimon cover shows off Ken's awful shading. Look at how the shadows on the children's heads go from dark to light almost immediately. I'm no artist, but there's something about that that's off.

 

If you ask me, if the faces in that didn't scream "generic anime", then that picture wouldn't look nearly as bad.

Pfft, even most 'generic anime' is better drawn than this.

[biznizz]

The Lien-Da and first Lara-Su pic were done prior to the court case's ending. There are others from that time (Dimitri in particular was also incredibly horrid) so for the morbidly curious, there is Google.

The second Grinch-like "Discover Your Destiny" pic was his revision so it'd look less like Sega style Knuckles.

Apparently, you can't copyright a style, and in a strange case like this, there probably won't be anything Sega or Archie can do unless Ken's art can cause customer confusion with official Sega products. Which, given Penders' incompetent art, probably won't be an issue... :/

[Zaysho]

The Lien-Da and first Lara-Su pic were done prior to the court case's ending. There are others from that time (Dimitri in particular was also incredibly horrid) so for the morbidly curious, there is Google.

The second Grinch-like "Discover Your Destiny" pic was his revision so it'd look less like Sega style Knuckles.

Apparently, you can't copyright a style, and in a strange case like this, there probably won't be anything Sega or Archie can do unless Ken's art can cause customer confusion with official Sega products. Which, given Penders' incompetent art, probably won't be an issue... :/

 

He sorta failed there though... It still looks like a SEGA Echidna, except now with that ugly pug face and severely deformed looking anatomy. It may or may not cause consumer confusion, and it somehow wouldn't surprise me if he decides to put a blurb like "from the writer of Sonic the Hedgehog!" or something along those lines onto the cover. Though, honestly, even if I didn't know about any of this stuff, the artwork just looks unappealing and I'd be hesitant to spend money on it. I might flip through it in a store, but if the art doesn't grab me, and I have to look at that for several dozens of pages (it's a comic, art's sort of a big deal), I think any interest I had would be diminished greatly.

 

Oh lawd, all that dodge and burn... the man needs a color theory lesson, fast! Makes me glad when he did color the Sonic comics he could only use flat colors at the time... I don't want to think about how he'd mangle a great pencil and ink job with this sort of coloring (I know it's an old picture--but this is no different from what he's doing now, and that's a little scary).

[Dejimon11]

You know I thought that the Lara su chronicles pictures where horrible but somehow that digimon cover easily puts those to shame. My goodness that is horrible who approved that and thought that it was a perfect representation for the franchise urgh it's just wrong it's just another example that Ken can't draw cartoony characters if its sonic, digimon and even pokemon(don't look it up please)

[Zaysho]

You know I thought that the Lara su chronicles pictures where horrible but somehow that digimon cover easily puts those to shame. My goodness that is horrible who approved that and thought that it was a perfect representation for the franchise urgh it's just wrong it's just another example that Ken can't draw cartoony characters if its sonic, digimon and even pokemon(don't look it up please)

 

As someone who collected a lot of Beckett's Pokémon magazines as a kid (when I was really into the cards, I got those magazines for info on them), I can tell you without a doubt, Beckett had no standards or quality control. Same with Pojo, if I remember correctly.

[Your Vest Friend]

even pokemon(don't look it up please)

 

They don't have to. :3c

 

 

And your description was skimping it a smidge.

[biznizz]

...Why is a Powerpuff Girl, Bugs Bunny and Sonic on a Pokemon magazine cover?

And dammit Penders, there's enough anti-green eyes Sonic people without making him look like THAT!

[EmmBee]

Why is someone trying to snap Spider-Man's neck?

[Big Panda]

Why is it that when the modern era started Ken decided to make the characters eyes HUGE for no reason?

[VO.SUPER]

Why is it that when the modern era started Ken decided to make the characters eyes HUGE for no reason?

 

He was probably trying to emulate the most notable anime stereotypes.

[DarkLight]

Basically, the bigger they are, the more emotive they look?

[Spin Attaxx]

Guys, I dunno if you've noticed something about that Digimon art, but...

 

...I think I've made an utter masterpiece in highlighting it.

 

[Zaysho]

Guys, I dunno if you've noticed something about that Digimon art, but...

 

...I think I've made an utter masterpiece in highlighting it.

 

Wait, what'd you change?

 

[Delta Starfire]

He was probably trying to emulate the most notable anime stereotypes.

Yeah, there was an awful lot of anime style imagery in the comic in the late 90's/early 00's. Remember Sally Moon...?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Man, that art...

 

Christ, and I thought I drew bad. At least I know my limit is character anatomy and sketching, because I know I couldn't easily keep in mind things like a light source for those images.

[EmmBee]

I kind of get what he's aiming for with that Pokemon picture. But he really fucks it up by having Sonic almost as prominent as Pikachu.

[biznizz]

Ironic, given in the grand scheme of his tenure, Penders barely gave two sh*ts about Sonic. That incredibly stupid name he tried to make canon (which, in a sane world, Archie & SEGA would have said "Hell friggin' no!") is just the cherry on the sundae that was Ken's apathy for the character who allowed him to have freakin' work.

 

And now... brace yourselves. I present to you, Kenders' concept are for his (SatAM?) Sonic movie. I believe the one he sabotaged Ben Hurst for. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. But I can't help myself.

 

 

 

 

 

[Zaysho]

Ah, I remember we had a topic that covered his proposed movie and saw these shots before. It's no wonder SEGA kept telling him no if this was the work he was handing them. Maybe if he had commissioned Spaz to draw these scenes, at least his pitch would've looked good, even if the movie is shit and was just furry Star Wars/Trek.

 

Yeesh, that third picture. The composition just feels so cramped and some of the tangents in that picture keep the perspective from making sense. I see what he's going for, but it just doesn't work. And everything seems so stiff. Granted, I'm no perspective king, but it scares me that a professional who's been in the game this long is making the same mistakes an idiot like me is making in his pictures... well, I guess that's how connections work, I suppose.

[Delta Starfire]

Ironic, given in the grand scheme of his tenure, Penders barely gave two sh*ts about Sonic. That incredibly stupid name he tried to make canon (which, in a sane world, Archie & SEGA would have said "Hell friggin' no!") is just the cherry on the sundae that was Ken's apathy for the character who allowed him to have freakin' work.

 

And now... brace yourselves. I present to you, Kenders' concept are for his (SatAM?) Sonic movie. I believe the one he sabotaged Ben Hurst for. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. But I can't help myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My eyes hurt. Seriously. 

 

Would it kill him to just give the characters some freakin' outlines?!

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Ah, I remember we had a topic that covered his proposed movie and saw these shots before. It's no wonder SEGA kept telling him no if this was the work he was handing them.

Which one? This stillbirth of an abomination?

 

[Spin Attaxx]

No, he means that Ken proposed a Sonic movie to Sega, and that this was what he gave them.

 

Also, apparantely Ben Hurst (of SatAM fame) was going to propose a Sonic movie to them (I think in hopes of making a third season of SatAM?) and had teamed up with Penders for it, but then Penders decided to backstab him by giving them the synopsis in a "less than flattering way".

 

Please correct me if I got any facts wrong.

[biznizz]

This give some information about what happened, (use a word find for "Penders"). Apparently, Ken basically "offered" to help Hurst out (the plan was to make a story proposal to get SEGA interested in the project), and Ken (most likely) deliberately sabotaged or (also likely) inadvertently blew the plan with terrible business sense.

 

The fact that Penders basically mocked Hurst later for "not knowing how things in Hollywood work" twisted the knife.

 

And... huh, I am surprised about the origins of Robotnik & Snively in the show. Learn something new everyday...

 

 

From the alt.fan.sonic-hedgehog newsgroup (1997/1998):

Well, bearing in mind that we were given no history of the Sonic characters when we came on board, we created a "White Paper" that created a history for the characters. This doesn't mean that what we created is the definitive backstory. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the document, but as I recall, Julian and Snively were part of a space expedition from about 2200 (or thereabouts). Julian attempted a takeover of the colony, but his technology got out of control and he wound up destroying everything, narrowly escaping with his (and Snively's) lives.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, a nuclear holocaust had destroyed human life as we knew it - and the animals who survived mutated into sentient beings and built the society which you see in the form of Mobius. Einstein's ideas of the passage of time during faster-than-light space travel kick in and thousands of years have passed by the time Julian and Snively returned to find this "Animal" world. Well, Julian's thought was that in the land of the four-pawed critters, the two-handed man is king and so he set about to take over - as outlined in Blast to the Past.

Again, this is just what we came up with and may not reflect the backstories created by the comic book writers.

Hope this helps,

Ben

[Spin Attaxx]

So are we all in agreement that this "Sonic and friends came from a nuclear holocaust while Robotnik and Snively are the last humans" backstory is pretty stupid?

also when you think about it it kinda makes them the good guys - i mean wouldn't you try to reclaim your planet if it was taken over by a different species?

 

EDIT: 2,000 posts now. God time flies :U

[biznizz]

Yeah, but at least SatAM's backstory didn't involve enternally vengeful aliens who apparently didn't know what the fallout to their own weapons do. It also gives unwarrented sympathy to the Robotniks just because they're the last humans.

 

At least the comic had other humans/humanoids to balance out and show that the whole bunch wasn't rotten (though not for Penders' lack of trying...). As it was planned in the show, it makes the whole "human/technology bad, nature & Mobians good" even more blatant & worse if it's just the two last humans ever.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

So are we all in agreement that this "Sonic and friends came from a nuclear holocaust while Robotnik and Snively are the last humans" backstory is pretty stupid?

also when you think about it it kinda makes them the good guys - i mean wouldn't you try to reclaim your planet if it was taken over by a different species?

 

EDIT: 2,000 posts now. God time flies :U

AdventUre Time did it so much better anyway.