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

[Vertekins]

The irony of that plagiarized bit of writing was that is not how Robotnik's takeover happened in the comic. He didn't persecute specific species of Mobians at different times during his coup and the Echidna's were off in their own "zone" so to speak during the coup. Which would insinuate that they were oblivious to Robotnik's takeover and subsequent captures and roboticization of Mobians. Therefore not giving this anonymous Echidna as the speech attests to any reasoning to "say" that.

[biznizz]

As I said with my shallow bit.

 

Is the Kristallnacht thing supposed to be what the Dark Legion did? Were they supposed to be the new Nazis after Robotnik died? Because as somewhat cliche as Robotnik being a dictator and controlling most of the planet was, he's at least got a bunch of canon and better writers to make him interesting.

 

Only in Ken's warped world were the Dark Legion better antagonists than Robotnik. Hell, I think Lien-Da didn't get more interesting until after the Dark Egg Legion was actually formed; she'd lost any point for YEARS before Ian.

[Agie]

Read a little bit...oy.

 

Just when you think he can't go any lower, he somehow manages to find a way.

 

All I hear is, basically "it's okay for me to plagarize. It's a parody!" Problem is, I think a parody would require some humor in it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

What Ken doesn't get is that there are people who criticize him for the Hitler allegory, especially since he mixed it with JFK's "Ask Not" speech in 23. The Holocaust poem was just brought up more.

 

 

(For god's sake, they're doing a seig heil! WTF!?)

Intrestingly enough, there's also a bit of Jim Crow in that image.

 

A kitchen sink of allegories, ain't it?

[Tenko]

Is that echidna...missing his tail? That one on the stage in blue looks rather pregnant for a male too. Some odd penciling going on there >.<

Seems most of the effort has gone into Hitler Echidna. The whole thing is rather tasteless, especially when its in a children's comic, I like to think as a kid of 12-13 back then I was pretty on to it, but even I don't recall making these connections when I first read these comics. Talk about flying over your target audiences heads.

[Darth InVaders]

Read a little bit...oy.

 

Just when you think he can't go any lower, he somehow manages to find a way.

 

All I hear is, basically "it's okay for me to plagarize. It's a parody!" Problem is, I think a parody would require some humor in it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

c

Parody can be used for commentary as well as humor - Penders imitating famous phrases and events is clearly fair use

Penders claiming a slightly recolored Knuckles in a wig is his work is not commentary, satire or anything else that would be considered fair use and is thus violating the copyright of Sega

[Salamander]

Agreed; I've no idea how Penders seems to be getting away with publishing a comic full of obvious Knuckles recolours.  Being able to demand royalties for his work on Archie is, regrettably, fair play, but those characters being used independently must be a clear violation of any copyright on Knuckles's design (and I can't imagine "Evil Sonic" and "Robo Robotnik" would fare any better - even the names would be verboten).  I wonder, though... didn't the last teaser image he released for his comic feature a rather more humanoid redesign for its title character?  Perhaps he's edging very slightly away from infringing material...

[Spin Attaxx]

The thing with Penders and his designs, it's pretty hard to tell if it's a conscious attempt to deviate from Sonic, or if it's him being a crappy artist.

[anna]

Is the Kristallnacht thing supposed to be what the Dark Legion did? Were they supposed to be the new Nazis after Robotnik died? 

Christ, Kristallnacht? 

What is with this whole Nazi-Echidna thing? Did he have to make it so...obvious? I mean...seriously?!

 

I guess my real question is; what in the world is wrong with Penders? Using the genocide of millions as reference?

 

 

Read a little bit...oy.

 

Just when you think he can't go any lower, he somehow manages to find a way.

 

All I hear is, basically "it's okay for me to plagarize. It's a parody!" Problem is, I think a parody would require some humor in it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Yeah. Plus in my opinion, even if it is Parody, I kinda feel like the holocaust is off-limits. 

 

Who is letting him even publish this? Is this whole Lara-su chronicles thing self-published or an internet thing or what? 

Honestly, I don't see much a future for it even if it manages to get off the ground.

[biznizz]

I fully admit, I'm not that well brushed up with my WWII timeline/terms. All I know is that in Knuckles 22, the one the stolen "They Came For..." poem, the Dark Legion break into a counsilor's house, beat him senseless, abduct him, destroy his house, and pretty much intimidate his wife into not saying anything, only to operate and brainwash said counsilor into a loyal Dark Legion sympathizer.

 

To me, that seems a bit Nazi-ish. But to answer your question: Penders believes that he is God's gift to comics, when he's basically on the level of Rob Liefeld. He thinks everything he's done is absolutely perfect and that he was held back by editorial at Archie & SEGA.

 

He's self publishing, but even then, he's limited to doing LSC as a graphic novel instead of a monthly, and is even then hoping for mostly digital downloads. If you ever read any of his scripts, you'll see you're probably right, it has almost no future at all.

 

And the old continuity of Archie's Sonic universe was gutted for basically nothing. Life can be a b*tch, right?

[Zaysho]

The thing with Penders and his designs, it's pretty hard to tell if it's a conscious attempt to deviate from Sonic, or if it's him being a crappy artist.

I wouldn't call changing Lara-Su's face to a pug with dreadlocks is much of a deviation from Sonic character design, but that's me. It still looks like a SEGA Echidna, but I think that's what he's going for. If people think it's somehow related to Sonic (and all that material was before this mess), they might give it a look. I'm sure if he really wanted to, he could've dressed up and altered these designs further to differentiate them more, but then it defeats the purpose of all the shit-stirring he caused, not that his changes and alterations to the story/world don't already show this.

[anna]

I wouldn't call changing Lara-Su's face to a pug with dreadlocks is much of a deviation from Sonic character design, but that's me. It still looks like a SEGA Echidna, but I think that's what he's going for. If people think it's somehow related to Sonic (and all that material was before this mess), they might give it a look. I'm sure if he really wanted to, he could've dressed up and altered these designs further to differentiate them more, but then it defeats the purpose of all the shit-stirring he caused, not that his changes and alterations to the story/world don't already show this.

I'm wondering if SEGA will see this and sue him because of the likeness or copyright or whatever. I mean, he could use parody laws but I think he's a bit too arrogant for that...this whole thing is basically a fan work though. A bad one.

[Zaysho]

I'm wondering if SEGA will see this and sue him because of the likeness or copyright or whatever. I mean, he could use parody laws but I think he's a bit too arrogant for that...this whole thing is basically a fan work though. A bad one.

 

I don't have a very good understanding of that sort of thing, but I thought I read from a legal point of view, you can't really copyright a visual style or something like that. So even though Sonic has a very distinct style, characters in other media that follow similar design rules (intentionally or not) aren't necessarily an infringement. If they claim a connection to Sonic, I presume that's where the lawyers step in. Then again, Penders is really on the borderline, what with clinging to old characters/concepts he created for a licensed comic book (as well as taking things that SEGA/Archie have abandoned such as Mobius) or using the "Acorn" name in some capacity (if those patches are anything to go by), so it's amazing he's getting away with as much as he is.

 

There are plenty of "fan works" that basically just changed the names of characters and got published as legitimate works (50 Shades of Grey being Twilight fanfic, for example). For what it's worth, LSC is a separate entity at this point if we take the changes he did make in his story (aliens instead of echidnas, for example), so I'm guessing he's fine, legally (given he owns these characters outright at this point). Not that any of that means the situation is any less stupid or that LSC itself will be any good.

[Salamander]

I think it's not just claiming a connection to Sonic that would be a problem, in legal terms - it would be an average consumer thinking there was a connection to Sonic.  If there is a chance of confusion and it's proveable in court, I believe that is taken as infringement; you can't just coast to profit on people mixing up your published fanfic with the franchise you're ripping off.  (Which is why the likes of 50 Shades had to change all the names - but otherwise, like most fanfic, that particular example had very little to do with the original work.)

[Gabz Girl]

I think it's amazing that Ken Penders was using Nazi references in a children's comic book based on a videogame character and still didn't get into any trouble. SEGA must have been reeeally lax back then, because I can't imagine that happening in the comic today. O_o

[biznizz]

Not even the SatAM cartoon went down that particular rabbit hole, and that was the more serious "Robotnik's enslaved most of the world" cartoon that Penders was trying to emulate.

 

The idea of using funny animals to tell Nazi & WWII allegories in a smart, tactful way is not beyond the scope of a talented enough writer. However, Ken Penders is not that good enough nor was the Sonic universe the place to do so.

 

But yeah, you're right, SEGA was incredibly hands off during the eras of Ken & Karl. And they skunked up the book so bad, even SEGA had to take notice and tighten the leash towards the end, until Ian came on. And it only got worse since after the Sonic 06 fiasco, they put more mandates in four years then they had in the previous fifteen.

 

But anyways, did you guys know that, in reality, Ken's actually a reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyyy reasonable guy? It's not his fault that all this turned into a clusterf*ck, it was just his stern ol' lawyers who made it into a mess! https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/455945900859199489

 

pleasestopmebeforeivomitallovermykeyboard

[Agie]

Reasonable my ass. He's proven to be unreasonable, even going to lengths I thought it would never go to. Now I expect him to find a way to dig even deeper even though he's already well past the bottom.

 

I don't think I'll buy even a used copy of The Lara-Su Chronicles. I wasn't sold before, but now I'd feel horrible just touching it if it's ever made.

[Chiere]

I'm not sure I'd even borrow it from the library or a friend, to be honest.

[VO.SUPER]

Pirating is the way to go for me. A small serving of karma to a man who needs it desperately.

[Dejimon11]

Oh he intended for something like this to happened I believe he didn't intended that it would take this long and end up like this.

[Mania Pipe]

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/455945900859199489

 

 

"Reasonable" uh-huh sure, whatever you say Mr. Penders. 

[Zaysho]

Oh he intended for something like this to happened I believe he didn't intended that it would take this long and end up like this.

I think he expected a bigger payout that didn't happen, especially considering he took his crusade to SEGA's doorstep first before Archie stepped in in an ill-fated legal battle.

I don't consider what he did reasonable, nor his conditions for Archie to continue using his characters though (especially Julie-Su/Lara-Su and that Future Mobius had to be canon).

[anna]

Wait, the Mobius Future arc is canon?

[Zaysho]

Wait, the Mobius Future arc is canon?

 

No. Penders wanted it to be canon and apparently that was one of his demands if Archie wanted to continue using Lara-Su and them all. At best it was treated like an alternate/possible future.

[anna]

No. Penders wanted it to be canon and apparently that was one of his demands if Archie wanted to continue using Lara-Su and them all. At best it was treated like an alternate/possible future.

 Thank god. Jeez, Penders. I understand you want claim over what's yours, but that's just...ridiculous. 

 

_{^{Also imo I liked that arc but I am really glad it's not canon}}