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

[Agie]

Well, I do hear there was a lot of crap involved with Boom losing their Disney licenses that had nothing to do with Disney's buying of Marvel. Said crap just happened to be around the time of said buying, so it was used as a convenient story.

 

I don't know too many details, but Jon Gray, who worked with Boom, said so. He didn't go into details because he wants to stay professional.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Well, I do hear there was a lot of crap involved with Boom losing their Disney licenses that had nothing to do with Disney's buying of Marvel. Said crap just happened to be around the time of said buying, so it was used as a convenient story.

 

I don't know too many details, but Jon Gray, who worked with Boom, said so. He didn't go into details because he wants to stay professional.

 

Yeah, everyone thought that all the Star Wars and Duck/Mouse stuff would go straight to Marvel, but that was only half true.

[QuantumEdge]

Seeing Penders recent, unbelievable babble reminds me of a very fitting quote from Squidward.

"Just when I thought they couldn't get any stupider..."

Props to Biznizz for managing to understand all that madness, because I could barely follow it.  Just why, WHY in  the name of heaven would he think Marvel or DC be retarded enough to pass properties off to rivals?  Even if Spider-Man, or Batman weren't bringing in the dough, I'm sure the publishers would figure out ways to make them profitable again and even then they're not having to worry about that by a long shot.  I'm sort of wondering what made him ramble this in the first place.

[horridus]

Seeing Penders recent, unbelievable babble reminds me of a very fitting quote from Squidward.

"Just when I thought they couldn't get any stupider..."

Props to Biznizz for managing to understand all that madness, because I could barely follow it.  Just why, WHY in  the name of heaven would he think Marvel or DC be retarded enough to pass properties off to rivals?  Even if Spider-Man, or Batman weren't bringing in the dough, I'm sure the publishers would figure out ways to make them profitable again and even then they're not having to worry about that by a long shot.  I'm sort of wondering what made him ramble this in the first place.

[horridus]

Apologies for the double post; thought these might go unnoticed if I tacked them on to my last post. 

 

Penders reveals more insight into his... brilliant... ideas regarding the future of intellectual property.

 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590348589076848640

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590350523376664577

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590373688681201665

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590374043011784704

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590375155458711552

 

The third of these I think revealed more than he intended, this talk of 'visionaries with drive'. It's hard to not think he honestly thinks of himself as that and that his 'vision' and 'drive' did great things for Sonic. 

 

Further, he revealed a bit regarding what he would have done if he had stuck with Sonic rather than going over to Knuckles. 

 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590701239941390336

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590701748488118272

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590702298327883777

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590703462356254721

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/590703791462293504

 

Me, I call shenanigans. He has constantly brought up the fact that he had no idea the comic would continue past issue 50, so how could he have things thought out that far in advance? Further... pretty certain that even if he did, it would have just been nonsensical and lackluster, as per usual.

[MightyRay]

Didn't he all ready mention that he was going to ship Rosie and Chuck together and have Sonic apart of the Acorn Kingdom on his forums?

[horridus]

Didn't he all ready mention that he was going to ship Rosie and Chuck together and have Sonic apart of the Acorn Kingdom on his forums?

 

Aye, and he accused Flynn of STEALING the idea among others. And once more, I doubt that Penders had it planned back that far, given that he didn't seem to have any real interest in Rosie OR Chuck at all. 

[MightyRay]

Wouldn't surprise me since Mr Penders tends to come up with ideas on the fly and then get annoyed when others pull said idea off better. But Mr Flynn didn't use the RosiexChuck paring nor have Sonic in the Kingdom of Acorn as Sally's higher up... so Mr Penders can't accuse Mr Flynn of using those two ideas any way.  

[horridus]

Wouldn't surprise me since Mr Penders tends to come up with ideas on the fly and then get annoyed when others pull said idea off better. But Mr Flynn didn't use the RosiexChuck paring nor have Sonic in the Kingdom of Acorn as Sally's higher up... so Mr Penders can't accuse Mr Flynn of using those two ideas any way.  

 

That's kinda why all the accusations blew up in his face. The only idea that Flynn HAD used, Bunnie and Antoine getting married, was both an incredibly obvious, anyone-can-think-this-up idea, and radically different in how it went from Penders plan- Penders wanted to draw the engagement out, while Flynn just sorta sped through that and went to the wedding quickly. Thankfully. 

[biznizz]

Wasn't the idea of Chuck & Rosie getting together implied by Roamy Chacon (who ever he/she really is), at the end of a back up? I remember it because it was a Dub illustrated story. As mentioned, Pen accused Flynn of stealing the natural conclusion of "Bunnie & Antoine get married"; albiet done MUCH sooner than Pen had planned (I think he wanted to drag it out to about issue 200).

 

And Pen's either showing he's a liar (again) or that his plan of Sonic being an ambassador to other nations was an idea that he just let stew for years before planning to pitch it after Karl left and before he left himself.

 

It's amazing just how truly opposite Flynn & Pen can be: Flynn plans his stuff dozens of issues ahead, ready to make alterations to the story depending of SEGA's say-so. Pen just wrote an issue or (at best) a story arc at a time with no real planning, only barely bothering to make it fit into the continuity later, if that. Pen never did explain just what the hell his Brotherhood was doing when Robotnik weaponized Angel Island or threatened to crash the first Death Egg into it; only that he was 'beyond their concern'.

[Zaysho]

That's kinda why all the accusations blew up in his face. The only idea that Flynn HAD used, Bunnie and Antoine getting married, was both an incredibly obvious, anyone-can-think-this-up idea, and radically different in how it went from Penders plan- Penders wanted to draw the engagement out, while Flynn just sorta sped through that and went to the wedding quickly. Thankfully.

 

Even funnier since it was DeCesare (a writer Penders has trashed) came up with the pairing, not him. Though I'm also grateful Penders didn't continue on to see that through. 25 issues of Bunnie and Antoine's wedding plans sounds like the most painfully dull thing ever, even considering all the other stuff pre-160.

 

Speaking of funny, there's this exchange in the whole intellectual property thing he was going on about:

 

"where is the lost one #2"

"In my files along with other stories I illustrated for a number of publishers that never saw print for one reason or another."

 

You know, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the quality of the work or it selling poorly, or even how Penders behaves as a professional. Nope. Couldn't be. It's all that damned executive meddling tying his hands and clipping his creative wings. Oh, and Wal-Mart. That's it.*

 

(*I'm not saying creatives don't get hit with shit or deal with difficulty, I'm just far too familiar with Penders's narrative and how quick he is to blame others for ANY failure while propping himself up.)

 

Going back to his point though, and he sort of has one, at least as far as brand names selling regardless of who actually produces the product... I don't think that really quite applies in the same way he thinks it does with comics. His example of Star Trek seems to be more of a way to prop himself up. It being a property that began life as a TV series and is licensed to hell and back and that's why it changes publishers and hands so much; it's owned by one company/studio, and they basically license out the property to whomever wants to work on it and pay the associated fees (something he goes on about what he wants to do with his own works, including LSC).

 

I suppose, in theory, you can apply this to Spider-Man or the X-Men, but it seems unlikely that a publisher, owned by one of the biggest corporations in the world, would have any need to license out their properties to create more comic books under other publishers. The "Marvel" part of the branding is just as important as the IP itself in that instance. Conversely, I think that's why there's more freedom for IDW or Joe Books or Fantagraphics to handle Disney properties themselves, since it keeps their main brand and the Marvel brand separate. At least, that's how I tend to look at it, I'm sure it's far more complicated than that...

[horridus]

 

Even funnier since it was DeCesare (a writer Penders has trashed) came up with the pairing, not him. Though I'm also grateful Penders didn't continue on to see that through. 25 issues of Bunnie and Antoine's wedding plans sounds like the most painfully dull thing ever, even considering all the other stuff pre-160.

 

What, didn't you hear? ANYTHING people liked about the comic began with him. EVERYTHING people didn't like was the fault of either the artists, Flynn, the editors, Flynn, SEGA, Karl Bollers, and did I mention Flynn?

 

Speaking of funny, there's this exchange in the whole intellectual property thing he was going on about:

 

"where is the lost one #2"

"In my files along with other stories I illustrated for a number of publishers that never saw print for one reason or another."

 

You know, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the quality of the work or it selling poorly, or even how Penders behaves as a professional. Nope. Couldn't be. It's all that damned executive meddling tying his hands and clipping his creative wings. Oh, and Wal-Mart. That's it.*

 

(*I'm not saying creatives don't get hit with shit or deal with difficulty, I'm just far too familiar with Penders's narrative and how quick he is to blame others for ANY failure while propping himself up.)

 

You gotta love how he never specifies what those 'reasons' could be, like, almost ever. Or that he makes these answers under the desperate hope that nobody on Earth will somehow make the correlation that lack of sales would ever be the reason any work of his got cancelled. And when he DOES bother to explain, it's every reason under the sun except that. Seriously, he actually said The Lost Ones got cancelled due to a shake-up at Image, not seeming to want to acknowledge that if his book had been as much as a hit as he likes to claim it was, then maybe, juuust maybe, it might have actually continued rather than getting the axe after ONE friggin' issue. 

 

Going back to his point though, and he sort of has one, at least as far as brand names selling regardless of who actually produces the product... I don't think that really quite applies in the same way he thinks it does with comics. His example of Star Trek seems to be more of a way to prop himself up. It being a property that began life as a TV series and is licensed to hell and back and that's why it changes publishers and hands so much; it's owned by one company/studio, and they basically license out the property to whomever wants to work on it and pay the associated fees (something he goes on about what he wants to do with his own works, including LSC).

 

I myself found it kind of funny that he brought up Star Trek given that while Star Trek HAS had a fairly extensive comic book history under multiple publishers, Star Wars had an even bigger run in comics under far fewer publishers, namely Marvel and then Dark Horse before going back to Marvel due to the buy out. 

 

But yeah, it's pretty clear to me that this entire 'view of the future' he has is more about what he WANTS to happen for his own ends rather than an honest view of how things might turn out. One thing I notice with him is that he seems to think that companies all operate like a hivemind with the same goals and desires out of their franchises and properties... he doesn't seem to get that just because company A does something, doesn't mean that company B would want the same. 

 

[Verb & Noun]

It's funny how he talks about sales being a sign of quality when, as the Knuckles comic was dying, he was literally telling people to buy two copies instead of one.

 

Strange.

 

But poor sales on that comic are due to Wal*Mart, not actual quality issues with his writing, of course. Sonic lived through that just fine though, strangely enough.

 

How odd.

[Disonoid 3000]

 

Seeing Penders recent, unbelievable babble reminds me of a very fitting quote from Squidward.

"Just when I thought they couldn't get any stupider..."

 

"Penders, we already played 'Babble Like an Idiot'!"

 

 

 

It's funny how he talks about sales being a sign of quality when, as the Knuckles comic was dying, he was literally telling people to buy two copies instead of one.

 

Strange.

 

But poor sales on that comic are due to Wal*Mart, not actual quality issues with his writing, of course. Sonic lived through that just fine though, strangely enough.

 

How odd.

 

 

> Denounce variant covers

> Tell people to buy two copies for the hell of it.

 

Oh Penders.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

You gotta love how he never specifies what those 'reasons' could be, like, almost ever. Or that he makes these answers under the desperate hope that nobody on Earth will somehow make the correlation that lack of sales would ever be the reason any work of his got cancelled. And when he DOES bother to explain, it's every reason under the sun except that. Seriously, he actually said The Lost Ones got cancelled due to a shake-up at Image, not seeming to want to acknowledge that if his book had been as much as a hit as he likes to claim it was, then maybe, juuust maybe, it might have actually continued rather than getting the axe after ONE friggin' issue.

 

The story I heard (I don't remember where, probably on the BumbleKing forums somewhere) with the Lost Ones is that for some reason (the company not doing well enough financially I'd presume) they were going to drop all their comics that didn't sell above a certain number of issues. I suppose that number could've been really high, and so the Lost Ones could've sold decently well but still not made the cut, but...well, who knows. At any rate, it's still not likely to be a "best-selling comic" as Ken Penders explicitly calls it in his trailer (Even if it shouldn't be surprising coming from Penders' lips, that claim still baffles me.) 

 

It's funny how he talks about sales being a sign of quality when, as the Knuckles comic was dying, he was literally telling people to buy two copies instead of one.

 

Strange.

 

But poor sales on that comic are due to Wal*Mart, not actual quality issues with his writing, of course. Sonic lived through that just fine though, strangely enough.

 

How odd.

 

KP seems inconsistent about how much sales matter. He seems to think that sales validate his work on Sonic, but at the same time are meaningless with regards to his Knuckles comic...go figure I guess.

 

Where/when exactly did he ask people to buy two copies? That's sort of hilarious.

[Zaysho]

The story I heard (I don't remember where, probably on the BumbleKing forums somewhere) with the Lost Ones is that for some reason (the company not doing well enough financially I'd presume) they were going to drop all their comics that didn't sell above a certain number of issues. I suppose that number could've been really high, and so the Lost Ones could've sold decently well but still not made the cut, but...well, who knows. At any rate, it's still not likely to be a "best-selling comic" as Ken Penders explicitly calls it in his trailer (Even if it shouldn't be surprising coming from Penders' lips, that claim still baffles me.)

I believe Penders told the same story, but he really went out of his way to not mention that sales were a factor and seemed to blame Image for the book's failure. The book barely broke 4,000 copies (I don't remember the exact number, but it most certainly was not a huge seller at least compared to other books). EDIT: Correction, the book sold 4,861 copies and was ranked #226 out of 300 for the month it was released. In case anyone's wondering, Sonic #83 sold 5,209 copies and was ranked #214. I'm not sure what Image's threshold was when they were making cuts (if anyone has that info, that'd be awesome), but it's doubtful the Lost Ones would've survived anyway.

 

I do wonder if anything that transpired with the Image crossover may have been a factor as well. I'm not familiar with the characters, but the Image heroes did not have particularly flattering portrayals in that story (and the Sonic characters were written rather dully too, even Knuckles, and he dimension fixes everything 'cause Knuckles). Then again, it sold fairly well, if only due to the sheer novelty of it (over 9000 copies... no, really).

Edited April 23, 2015 by Zaysho

[horridus]

I believe Penders told the same story, but he really went out of his way to not mention that sales were a factor and seemed to blame Image for the book's failure. The book barely broke 4,000 copies (I don't remember the exact number, but it most certainly was not a huge seller at least compared to other books). EDIT: Correction, the book sold 4,861 copies and was ranked #226 out of 300 for the month it was released. In case anyone's wondering, Sonic #83 sold 5,209 copies and was ranked #214. I'm not sure what Image's threshold was when they were making cuts (if anyone has that info, that'd be awesome), but it's doubtful the Lost Ones would've survived anyway.

 

I do wonder if anything that transpired with the Image crossover may have been a factor as well. I'm not familiar with the characters, but the Image heroes did not have particularly flattering portrayals in that story (and the Sonic characters were written rather dully too, even Knuckles, and he dimension fixes everything 'cause Knuckles). Then again, it sold fairly well, if only due to the sheer novelty of it (over 9000 copies... no, really).

[therealfalconpawnch77]

The Maxx in the crossover bothers me. He's drawn with rounded teeth for some reason, when in the show, his own stories, and the cover of the issue he has his usual flat teeth. Also he has pupils, which takes away from what I liked about the characters design. Also they horribly misused him, and could have had any number of other Image heroes in that place.

[Verb & Noun]

Where/when exactly did he ask people to buy two copies? That's sort of hilarious.

 

Ages ago. Last I saw it was on the remains of some ancient Knuckles fansite where the site owner was worried about the comic cancellation and were showing various chat logs with Pendejo. I don't remember the URL of the site, and at this point I'm worried if even the Waybackmachine would be able to find it.

 

The problem with some of Pendejo's grander moments is that they were in the past, before things were strongly documented. So things like him claiming that SEGA owned all his characters or him asking people to buy multiple copies of Knuckles to prevent cancellation gets lost with websites being torn down, altered, etc. Hell, a good example is how many pages in this very thread were lost.

 

So I'm very sorry I don't have a link to give you right now, but I promise you I've seen it. It may be out there on the internet still but I unfortunately don't have the time or even know what to put as keywords to find it.

[Neon Zephyr]

things like him claiming that SEGA owned all his characters 

 

If I recall, this was actually on his forum, years ago. Which means that he (or his... mod) erased/hid it. Because reasons.

 

Not like it was much of a jump, after the whole Bollers thing.

[Verb & Noun]

A lot of material was removed from his forums during the court case.

[horridus]

If I recall, this was actually on his forum, years ago. Which means that he (or his... mod) erased/hid it. Because reasons.

 

Not like it was much of a jump, after the whole Bollers thing.

 

I can confirm that this is the case. Penders liked to boast on his forum about how he never deletes stuff, but that's a big fat lie, and I do know that at least once in the past he copped to the fact that SEGA owned his stuff.

[Verb & Noun]

It doesn't really matter if he copped to it or not. He says he said that because he wasn't aware of his rights and it's hard to prove that one way or the other.

[Zaysho]

Speaking as a longtime reader of Savage Dragon, I can confirm that the depiction of that character was... horrendously out of character, him going after Sonic and crew with guns blazing. Part of the SAvage Dragon's 'deal' was, that while still a bit of a maverick, he was a super COP and not simply a vigilante. In fact, at several points the comic goes out of its way to point out the STUPIDITY of that approach and so forth. I can't speak for the other Image Heroes, since the ones I know most about other than the Dragon barely do anything; Spawn shoes up for one panel and does nothing, and The Maxx just randomly appears and using the Master Emerald as a bowling ball. 

 

As for the others? By simple fact of Penders being so lackluster at writing ANY kind of characterization he mis-characterized them, for the simple fact that they were all a singularly un-interesting and un-memorable mass of suck. Even with the standards of Image Comics at the time, they were still sub-par in that book and barely did much of anything.

 

Huh. Good to know, actually. When I first read it and was writing a review I never finished (maybe I should if people want to read it), I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about the way those characters were portrayed didn't sit right with me. Like, I know the Sonic characters, so I could recognize when Penders treats them like worthless lumps, so I figured something had to be off with the Image heroes, too, at least the ones that had more than two panels. Valentino probably had some input on Shadow Hawk though, since he seems... the least poorly written, and that's considering he does jack-all like the rest of them.

 

The only characters that got any major screentime were Particle and Droid... what a waste that was. There's no way Image fans could've enjoyed this crap, either. I can't imagine the Image creators were happy with Penders's treatment.

 

 

It doesn't really matter if he copped to it or not. He says he said that because he wasn't aware of his rights and it's hard to prove that one way or the other.

 

If he did admit it at one point, it must've been before he learned about the problem with the contracts. It seems he changed his tune the moment he did.

[Disonoid 3000]

The way that crossover focused so much on his characters astounds me. I know it's been said his editor was pretty much asleep at the wheel, but seriously, NO ONE was watching this thing and stopped him? I'd think this would have more people watching it before release than a run of the mill issue.