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

[King Scoopa Koopa]

I'm half surprised, half unsurprised.  Either way, Ian doesn't deserve to be dragged into this, not one bit.

 

Same here, but the guy seems to tag everyone all the time, whether they should be dragged into it or not (usually not).

 

 

Uh... OK, so he's basically undermining the majority of comic books?  Because the way he's saying it, only stuff like Batman, Spider-Man, etc are the really relevant books and anything else is stuff you write simply to make a living off of.  DESPITE his mind numbing statements of how he practically made the Sonic book God's gift to readers, which if we go by that recent tweet of his, isn't a pinnacle book to work on... even though he's sort of been trying to say it is in the not so distant past.

 

I think he's just basically saying that doing the headliner books for a company is like the Super Bowl of the main event of working for that company, to be working on the brands that company is synonymous with.

 

Fair enough.

 

Except that unlike football or fighting or something, you can't just basically do what you've been doing on a bigger stage when jumping to a different book. Even within a company, just because you can write a great Batman story doesn't mean you can write a great Superman story, or vice versa. There's a lot more nuance, tone, and other things to adapt to.

 

Maybe Ian had a chance to write Archie and turned it down? I know I'd be iffy about it; I love Archie, but trying to get inside his head with a lot of the-- and let's be perfectly honest here-- stupid things he does (good intentions or not) is something I could imagine having trouble with.

 

Not to say Ian couldn't do it, but only he could answer if he's confident about that or not.

 

Still, it shouldn't diminish what he is doing for the company. Just look at poor old Simon Furman. He created Death's Head, but never got to write Captain America or Spider-Man (that I know of). Guess he'll just have to settle for being the guy who helped define so much of the Transformers universe.

 

Which, come to think of it, might be where Penders' head is at. Furman took a licensed book in the 80s and basically became forever identified with it across continuities and such. I guess he thought that's what he did and is doing, even though he's effectively burned it all down now.

 

 

They still had a Japanese version to play, which means they could clearly see that A. Super Sonic beats Chaos, B. Knuckles doesn't have any super chaos emerald powers, C. There is no stupid device that Station Square uses to drain energy from emeralds, and D. None of Ken's idiotic characters, including Locke and the Cat Country play any sort of role in the story.

 

To their credit, I did like how they at least tried to avoid having Sonic and the Sega guys just run off and leave Sally, etc. behind for the whole story, choosing to work them in around it. Sort of like how Unleashed is being done, I guess.

[Celestia]

It's funny that they're still like that today; keeping quiet about their game lore, not giving out guidelines on how their characters should act and what their world is like.

Isn't that basically what they do with some of the mandates Archie has to adhere to nowadays?

 

Tails in SLW was probably a result of the game writers (supposedly) having more control over things, and even then I don't think it was too out there. Super rushed and at times giving the impression they were on a budget with the cutscenes, but in concept it wasn't too OOC of Tails to be angry at Sonic for not listening to him (see: Sonic Adventure, though he kept quiet about it at the time).

[Osmium]

Just about every Archie adaptation is rubbish in some sort of way. Many of them were extremely lazy like the Sonic 3 and Sonic Spinball one which basically had some nonexistent story with thing from the games thrown into there. If find it kind of shocking that Archie never took advantage of the Death Egg, and never had an arc based of Sonic and Knuckles, as there was a lot of material in that game to use. The Sonic and Knuckles special was lackluster and unmemorable at most.  Yeah, I know they had an arc based around the Death Egg later, but it had absolutely nothing to do with Sonic 3 & K. It was another more melodramatic story more about the king than anything. 

 

The Sonic triple Trouble adaptation I think was particularly insulting as they just decided to throw in Sonic running around the zones as filler, and the rest of the story was just a bunch of silly drivel, and more Ancient Walkers mumbo jumbo. 

 

The Sonic CD adaptation was better but it still was a bunch of crap. Little Planet and time stones didn't appear at all, but at least there was Metal Sonic, even though he was called Mecha Sonic for some reason.

 

Just about every special described zones as being these super dangerous pocket dimensions that are formed when a Chaos Emerald hits the ground or whatever, instead of just being places that Sonic went. 

 

The Chaotix adaptation was unremarkable, and so was the Sonic 3D one, but I remember there being a lot of mumbo jumbo rubbish about to unrobotizise the Flickies, you had to spray water on them or something. 

 

The Sonic Adventure adaptation had way too much meaningless bullshit thrown into it, like how Station Square was in the mountain (that curiously had the same design as Sonic's home in the OVA), and there being Super Emeralds in Station Square for some reason. 

 

The problems with the adaptations changed over time. The earlier ones suffered from the writing being really lackluster and way to campy, and the later ones from trying to be way too serious and melodramatic, and trying to fit in the Knothole residents and stuff. 

[horridus]

And more from the douchebag. 

 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/598217987607306240

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/598218709031780352

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/598219171789344768

 

Yet more insisting what an honor it would be for Flynn to work on Archie proper, even though Flynn's pretty happy where he is and already does a fucking lot for the company. But hey, since he's not working on the FLAGSHIP character, it's all worthless. Wonder if he views his own run as the same; oh wait, no, he screams about how much better and more successful HIS run was any chance he gets. 

 

And it's still hilarious that he's pretending he gives a shit, given that in the past he's accused Flynn of being a thief, abjectly refuses to read his work and passive aggressively disparaged him whenever he could. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

uhh hate to break it to Pen but...

 

 

(source)

[Zaysho]

I'd imagine it's great on the resume that Flynn has the keys to HUGE properties like Sonic and Mega Man, two beloved video game icons, one of which has the distinction of being the longest running licensed comic from a single publisher. Archie may be the flagship, but is Penders considering that Flynn isn't being "kept down" so much as he might not want to?

 

And honestly, why does he care? Why does any of this matter to him? Why is Archie's business his business still? I seriously don't understand how someone like him can function sometimes. He must really hope the Sonic comic goes away just so he can stand triumphant and say "it wasn't MY run that got canceled, take that! *ignores Knuckles got canceled when he was the sole writer and he begged people to buy two copies*"

 

 

uhh hate to break it to Pen but...

 

 

(source)

 

Facts. Penders does not believe them.

[DarkLight]

_{Penders believes only he can make facts.}

 

 

[Your Vest Friend]

Glad somebody finally brought up the fact that Ian HAS done some Archie stories, that's been in my mind since Penders started going on about it. Heck, one of his Archie stories is being included in a reprint book that's released tomorrow!

[Tenko]

All this talk about the horrible adaptations almost makes me sad that we didn't get a total reboot on the comic. I mean it may be personal preference but I would have loved to see what Ian and the current art team could have done with adaptations of all the older games that in this universe have all happened.

Triple Trouble with the introduction of Nack, and Tails coming into his own more, Sonic 2 with the Death Egg, 3K with Knuckles introduction. Especially Sonic CD with Metal and the concepts of the Little Planet and the Time Stones etc. They could have been some really interesting and fantastic story arcs under Ian's penmanship. The art too would have been great, what with today's talanted team. Especially for Sonic CD when you look at the covers for the giant black and white reprint volumes, they have that old edgy straight line art style of the era down really well.

Such imaginative games with such great stories when you look hard enough and yet what we got back then was so abysmal. Who knows tho, maybe we will get more old stuff via flashbacks like with Sonic 2 (Master System/Game Gear) in the current arc or with Origin stories.

[Osmium]

All this talk about the horrible adaptations almost makes me sad that we didn't get a total reboot on the comic. I mean it may be personal preference but I would have loved to see what Ian and the current art team could have done with adaptations of all the older games that in this universe have all happened.

Triple Trouble with the introduction of Nack, and Tails coming into his own more, Sonic 2 with the Death Egg, 3K with Knuckles introduction. Especially Sonic CD with Metal and the concepts of the Little Planet and the Time Stones etc. They could have been some really interesting and fantastic story arcs under Ian's penmanship. The art too would have been great, what with today's talanted team. Especially for Sonic CD when you look at the covers for the giant black and white reprint volumes, they have that old edgy straight line art style of the era down really well.

Such imaginative games with such great stories when you look hard enough and yet what we got back then was so abysmal. Who knows tho, maybe we will get more old stuff via flashbacks like with Sonic 2 (Master System/Game Gear) in the current arc or with Origin stories.

 

God, I would have LOVED to have seen that. 

 

I know it will never happen, but it would be awesome if Archie made another series, similar to Sonic Boom or Sonic X but based on the classic games. 

[Tenko]

God, I would have LOVED to have seen that.

I know it will never happen, but it would be awesome if Archie made another series, similar to Sonic Boom or Sonic X but based on the classic games.

Maybe they should have just turned Sonic Origins into a comic series and used it as a platform for classic stories telling the past of the current universe that we all missed out on.

[Osmium]

That would be pretty cool. I think it would please a large amount of fans if they do something like that.

[antyep]

Fund it so, SEGA!

[Tenko]

Only issue with that would be Ian being stretched even more thin, poor guy. Cause I don't know if I would want anyone else writing it. But selfishly I wouldn't want him ditching any of his other work either. >.<

[biznizz]

I have mixed feelings about having an Origins/from the beginning comic series.

 

On one hand, it would be great for the large majority of the games to finally get proper adaptations and actually see the dynamics between the characters start from the ground up. Seeing Snively from when he started working for Eggman to his "defection" to G.U.N. for example since I have seen several people upset at his current status quo.

 

On the other, I feel that that ship has long since passed. That it would keep a good portion of Ian's time focused on the past rather than moving onward. Not to mention what would happen if SEGA decided to keep a tight leash on how the past is portrayed on the page. With things now, Ian can at least allude to theoretical years passing from when Eggman launched his coup and created the Eggman Empire (what with the younger FF's and the younger Sonic seen from time to time). Isn't SEGA's official statement about the games is that they take place in the same year since Sonic and co never age; the hedgehog always being 15, even when it came to Generations?

 

I dunno.

 

But on topic.

 

The talk of Pen saying that Archie needs to give Ian more to work with by stretching his wings pisses me off as well. Did Pen ever work on any of the Archie/Sabrina/Josie/etc titles himself? Did he even try to submit a proposal or script while he was busy creating his city of Knuckles clones? Hell, he keeps talking about how Ian needs to do more than Sonic; has he EVER brought up Mega Man or the rave reviews his series is getting?

 

Hell, there's still rumors of an X ongoing after Worlds Unite, unless the plan in the long term is for the Mega Man Classic book (when it runs out of source game material) to be renamed into Mega Man X with the same numbering. Unless Capcom decides they care enough to enforce their belief that each of the series are their own universes (I believe I heard a statement that the X series isn't officially related to the Classic series?).

[Ryu the Weredragon]

Yeah, I'd want someone to point out to Penders about Ian having written Archie comics, as well as Mega Man, New Crusaders, ect, but I'm afraid he'd just not listen. (I won't do it myself because I don't USE twitter).

I really wish there was a way to end this trainwreck before it happens, but... Looks like he's going full steam ahead no matter what.
 

Despite Sonic The Comic having almost no source material, it still was way better than Archie's adaptation. At least the dialogue in Fleetway wasn't completely cringeworthy to read.

Off topic, but... yes, yes it was. =_= Honestly, I couldn't draw straws between them when it came to which one was the worse adaption. To be fair, the storylines in Sonic the Comic were pretty bad to begin with, less being Sonic based and more being random events plot (though less random than Boom). That doesn't mean it's a bad comic mind, that just means that storytelling wasn't what it was good at.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

 

 

If you work for a major company, the pinnacle is working on their main character, such as Superman or Batman for DC. They just don't put anyone on those books, even if it seems like it to some at times. Besides, Ian needs to do more than Sonic.

Somebody didn't do their research.

 

Has Penders done anything else besides Sonic and The Lost Ones? (I think)

 

And something different, if there's someone who should do more work, it's Penders. I mean, where's that (dreaded) second page of the prelude of LSC already?

[Dejablue]

Yeah I've been out of the loop. Where is the first page? And why is it taking him so long to put something out? It's been like...a year since I last even thought about Penders. 

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Yeah I've been out of the loop. Where is the first page? And why is it taking him so long to put something out? It's been like...a year since I last even thought about Penders. 

Here.

 

Also, has anyone seen the pencilled PG 2 of the Knuckles 20 years later?

[Cradily Lover]

 

 

If you work for a major company, the pinnacle is working on their main character, such as Superman or Batman for DC. They just don't put anyone on those books, even if it seems like it to some at times. Besides, Ian needs to do more than Sonic.

 

Says the one who STILL hasn't moved on from Sonic.

[horridus]

On the other, I feel that that ship has long since passed. That it would keep a good portion of Ian's time focused on the past rather than moving onward. Not to mention what would happen if SEGA decided to keep a tight leash on how the past is portrayed on the page. With things now, Ian can at least allude to theoretical years passing from when Eggman launched his coup and created the Eggman Empire (what with the younger FF's and the younger Sonic seen from time to time). Isn't SEGA's official statement about the games is that they take place in the same year since Sonic and co never age; the hedgehog always being 15, even when it came to Generations?

 

I dunno.

 

But on topic.

 

The talk of Pen saying that Archie needs to give Ian more to work with by stretching his wings pisses me off as well. Did Pen ever work on any of the Archie/Sabrina/Josie/etc titles himself? Did he even try to submit a proposal or script while he was busy creating his city of Knuckles clones? Hell, he keeps talking about how Ian needs to do more than Sonic; has he EVER brought up Mega Man or the rave reviews his series is getting?

 

Hell, there's still rumors of an X ongoing after Worlds Unite, unless the plan in the long term is for the Mega Man Classic book (when it runs out of source game material) to be renamed into Mega Man X with the same numbering. Unless Capcom decides they care enough to enforce their belief that each of the series are their own universes (I believe I heard a statement that the X series isn't officially related to the Classic series?).

 

SEGA's policy about the age thing in the comic at least is... extremely odd. Generations the game would imply at the least that Sonic HAS aged a bit since the time of the classic games to the start of the Adventures era, but when it comes to the comic SEGA doesn't want any of their game characters being depicted as having aged on-screen. Flynn has to be extremely careful about anything to do with Sonic and the past because of it. 

 

As for Penders, he's done all of exactly three issues for the Archie crew; two for Archie and Friends, and one of Jughead Double Digest. His involvement in the flagship has been extremely limited, which, again, is just his usual hypocrisy as Flynn has literally done the same amount of work on the main Archie title as he has. And no, he has not brought up the Megaman series or its successes at all.

 

Somebody didn't do their research.

 

Has Penders done anything else besides Sonic and The Lost Ones? (I think)

 

And something different, if there's someone who should do more work, it's Penders. I mean, where's that (dreaded) second page of the prelude of LSC already?

 

Let's see, as I mentioned he's done two issues of Archie and Friends, one issue of Jughead Double Digest, aand has done a few stories for Star Trek. His writing work outside of Sonic forms a very meager part of his professional resume, and most of his work has been done as a penciller, inker and letterer. 

 

As for the second page of the prelude, don't ask me. He promised that thing would be released within the same week as the FIRST page. 

[Streaksyd]

Despite already writing 4 stories, Ian apparently still wants to write more. He is trying to get a new monthly series started called Raiders of the Abyss.

https://www.patreon.com/IanFlynnBKC

Meanwhile Penders still is taking an eternity releasing one book of TLSC. The difference between the two is night and day.

[Disonoid 3000]

The difference between the two is night and day.

 

And it's only compounded by Flynn's idea sounding genuinely interesting, and its big gimmick being fan feedback having an effect. 

[Verb & Noun]

Also compounded by Ian actually giving credit to where he got the music and background images.

[Osmium]

I think it's hilarious when people say Ian was the one who ruined the comic.