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

[Gabz Girl]

That description seriously confuses me. Unless he draws the weapon in action, I can't quite work out how it...well, works.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

That description seriously confuses me. Unless he draws the weapon in action, I can't quite work out how it...well, works.

Best way I can make of it is a bow that fires daggers...

 

Which sounds really impractical and clunky. Kinda would have been a bit more awesome sounding if it had been a gauntlet with a blade coming out that can be used for close range (Think Starcraft Zealot Blade), with a built-in launcher to fire the blade out at retreating enemies or something.

[horridus]

Suddenly I wonder if it being bowlike is him trying to piggybank off the Hunger Games craze. Katniss uses a bow, she's a teenaged girl protagonist fighting against horrific odds... aaah cripes, that's precisely what it is. 

[Disonoid 3000]

Not sure if this makes her having access to and being proficient in the thing at age five more or less stupid. 

 

Also, you guys know I love every opportunity to bash on Penders and Mary-Su, and I understand having immediately sour impressions...but it honestly seems really excessive to throw rip off accusations around based solely off her using a bow and arrow like weapon. I mean, if we're going this route we can claim Merida from Brave is a rip off of Oliver Queen, because they use bows and arrows. 

[Zero Dozer]

Ah, I forgot we have some new people here.

Suffice it to say, Pen does indeed have a family and had long since used both the Sonic and Knuckles books as a sort of therapy with family avatars.

His abusive, but repentant-at-the-end-of-his-life father was the basis for Locke. Hell, that's why Locke died of cancer in 25YL and why he said he'd revive Locke after Enerjak Reborn killed him in the present; Kenneth Penders Sr died of cancer and it was Pen's tribute to him.

Julie-Su was Pen's wife Bernedette, making Knuckles himself Pen's analouge.

And thus it can be reasoned that Lara-Su is Pen's son, Stephen.

Hell, for on-page examples of shilling his family, just look at Sonic Live!, where Pen had his son and niece meet Sonic and save the multiverse from a Legion of Robotniks. Pencils by Pen himself and including actual photographs of the kids on display. The fact that story was pure garbage all the way through (Sonic was sketched up by a random sketch artist working for two white guys from SEGA!) was just the icing on the cake.

Okay, and this shows how self-absorbed he is.

Though I can't see much of a bad thing in basing Locke offff his father. Many writers make reflexes of their own lives through characters and stories.

 

And on a lesser note, he named Hershey after his cat, Sonic's mom after his wife, and Snively's abusive and xenophobic father after his step-son (which I still find warped), and for his latest project claims that 'Mykael Taelor' is named after a pair of his good friends. 

 

If there is a line between drawing stuff from your life and just being lazy, Ken crossed that line at breakneck speed years ago.

And then, when Ian Flynn came to save the day, Penders came to fuck it all.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Okay, and this shows how self-absorbed he is.

Though I can't see much of a bad thing in basing Locke offff his father. Many writers make reflexes of their own lives through characters and stories.

 

Yeah, but Penders used the comic to deal with his daddy issues.

[Wittymations]

I'm trying to figure out if Penders is writing a science fiction book or a fantasy one.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I'm trying to figure out if Penders is writing a science fiction book or a fantasy one.

Genre-Busting, except really dull is what this is.

[Wittymations]

Eh, guess I like my scifis to be more pew pew focused and fantasy to be more swish swish.

 

Regardless, Penders would make a boom boom.

[Zaysho]

Well, Penders did say he wanted to make this a HARD SCI-FI story.

 

We all know better, though.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

200 pages again! Oh boy.

 

The dagon doesn't sound that bad. It's kind of confusing the way he put it, but I'm pretty sure it's just a bow and arrow that shoots daggers. Not that bad, but...really not that cool either...I mean, how long did that take him to think up? A bow and arrow that shoots daggers? Really? I mean, it's a bit underwhelming...

[horridus]

Well, Penders did say he wanted to make this a HARD SCI-FI story.

 

We all know better, though.

 

I still do not get how he can claim it as 'hard science fiction' when the plot involves chunks of a planet being propelled through space that have self-contained biospheres. Just to name ONE of the incredibly un-scientific things proposed in his work.

 

I wouldn't care because I don't see anything wrong with soft science fiction, but he keeps harping on the idea that this is a legitimately 'hard' work, when it's the sci-fi equivalent of a marshmellow at the very *least*.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

I like to assume the best, that he just literally doesn't know what the term "hard sci-fi" actually means. Because seriously, there's just no way that even he could think this stuff was "scientific". I mean, aliens that look just like anthro animals are so totally "hard sci-fi", right. It just boggles the mind.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Oh-ho. Oh-ho boy. Pen has been kind enough to give us some insight into what a 'Dagon' is. On the one hand, it's not JUST a dagger. On the other hand... it's even dumber. 

 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/603309346953437185

 

 

Even by the standards of bullshit sci-fi and fantasy weapons, that doesn't begin to make sense. 

[Agie]

You forget that Penders is behind on...pretty much everything.

 

I like living in the past myself and I feel more "current" than him.

[Zaysho]

To no one's surprise, the Dagon talk isn't even the stupidest thing on his twitter currently:

 

Fan:

why are you making them alien like what Michael bay almost did to the TMNT.

[horridus]

To no one's surprise, the Dagon talk isn't even the stupidest thing on his twitter currently:

 

Fan:

 

Pen:

 

(x)(x)(x)(x)

 

Now, besides the fact that I consider anything Platinum Dunes tried to do in TMNT's development indefensible, I'm just rolling my eyes at the self-importance here. I also don't like that he's implying that the Sonic concept, as it is, can't be taken seriously, and that it was his contributions that allowed it to be taken seriously. You know, it's not like it's about the approach or execution or anything...

[Osmium]

Well, Penders did say he wanted to make this a HARD SCI-FI story.

 

We all know better, though.

 

Hard Sci-Fi? I seriously hope he's fucking joking.

 

Yeah, a graphic novel with fucking pseudo Sonic characters running around is hard sci-fi. 

 

And plus, isn't one of the key things about hard sci-fi is to be logical and technical, and whatever events happen should be theoretically possible and should seem realistic? With Penders you pretty much get the opposite of that. 

 

You wanna see what Hard Sci Fi is? 

 

 

That's fucking hard sci-fi.

 

You've probably never heard of this movie. It was made in 1950 and was about the moon landing. The thing is, is that it's actually eerily similar to how the moon landing would take place 19 years later, and is very technically accurate, and consistent with it's use of physics and engineering.  Despite the somewhat cartoony rocket used throughout the move. 

 

It could almost be considered an alternate world where the moon landing happened in 1950 instead of 1969. 

 

It's a very far cry from Penders' world of technobabble and anthro figures. 

[Salamander]

The idea of a bow that shoots knives I think isn't innately terrible, but it does have some obvious problems of practicality.  I'm willing to overlook them, though, as it's hard coming up with basic weapon types that haven't already been invented when you're crafting your suitably exotic fantasy alien weapon.  I don't know if I'd call it hard science fiction, though.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

 

Way back when I first worked on the series, no one outside the fans took the book seriously, so to counter the perception it was just a "talking curries" (SIC) book, I treated the stories like sci-fi I considered the characters no different from Klingons and Wookies, which fans did take seriously. So I understand why Michael Bay considered that approach.

 

Next to his utter disdain for other creators, the number one thing that annoys me about Ken Penders is his utter lack of interest in or respect for Sonic the Hedgehog, or even Knuckles the Echidna. Despite working on the book for years, he seems to have absolutely no interest in Sonic, except for his own contributions. Certainly, not every person who works on a licensed book should be a fan, but they should at least try to be knowledgeable about the property they're working on and understand why people like the property as it is, as opposed to trying to reshape it in accordance with their own likes (which in his case include Star Trek).

 

Apart from that, though, I don't really know what he's talking about. Who exactly wasn't taking the book seriously, and who started taking it seriously once he treated the stories "like sci-fi"? He says "no one outside the fans took the book seriously", but then after he started working on the book, "fans did take [it] seriously". It sounds like the same people who were taking the book seriously to begin with started taking the book seriously when he started working on it, which obviously makes no sense. I know he probably wasn't meaning to write this, but what was he meaning to write? Also, how exactly was he treating the characters like "Klingons or Wookies" in any meaningful way? Maybe if I'd read more of his stuff, I'd know...

[Agie]

If anything, people probablytook the book less seriously after Penders got involved.

[horridus]

Apart from that, though, I don't really know what he's talking about. Who exactly wasn't taking the book seriously, and who started taking it seriously once he treated the stories "like sci-fi"? He says "no one outside the fans took the book seriously", but then after he started working on the book, "fans did take [it] seriously". It sounds like the same people who were taking the book seriously to begin with started taking the book seriously when he started working on it, which obviously makes no sense. I know he probably wasn't meaning to write this, but what was he meaning to write? Also, how exactly was he treating the characters like "Klingons or Wookies" in any meaningful way? Maybe if I'd read more of his stuff, I'd know...

 

It's funny he says that, because I cannot for the life of me recall the book getting ANY kind of attention outside the fandom. Like at all. Ian Flynn's run on Megaman has gotten reviews (glowing ones too) from comic book websites rather than just floating around in sites specific to the Megaman fandom. I've never seen anything of Penders get anything like that, even his 'masterpiece' Endgame. 

 

As for Klingons and Wookies, well, his written characters ARE unintelligible and prone to making rash decisions that make no real sense...

[Osmium]

Next to his utter disdain for other creators, the number one thing that annoys me about Ken Penders is his utter lack of interest in or respect for Sonic the Hedgehog, or even Knuckles the Echidna. Despite working on the book for years, he seems to have absolutely no interest in Sonic, except for his own contributions. Certainly, not every person who works on a licensed book should be a fan, but they should at least try to be knowledgeable about the property they're working on and understand why people like the property as it is, as opposed to trying to reshape it in accordance with their own likes (which in his case include Star Trek).

This is one of the main reasons Penders absolutely pisses me off to no end. For someone who worked in the Sonic franchise for years, he sure couldn't give a shit about it.

I love how he pretended to be some huge Sonic fan, but is willing to kill off the main villan of the series because He didn't like him. Penders couldn't give a single fuck about anything Sonic or Knuckles that he wasn't given control over. I doubt that he's even seen a Sonic game after Adventure 1.The only reasons why he knows about the classic games is because his son played them and then two dollar symbols flashed in his eyes.

It's astounding how much he's trying to promote his graphic novel based on a franchise he couldn't give one fuck about. Well, that's because Penders only really knows and cares about that piece of Sonic media that he was given total control of and strangled in the late 90s.

The only things he has passions for are the things he's allowed to have total control over and everything else is meaningless in his eyes. Sonic the Hedgehog was just an outlet for him to express his control freak personality.

[biznizz]

Way back when I first worked on the series, no one outside the fans took the book seriously, so to counter the perception it was just a "talking curries" (SIC) book, I treated the stories like sci-fi I considered the characters no different from Klingons and Wookies, which fans did take seriously. So I understand why Michael Bay considered that approach.

Sometimes... I see things this man say, and I have no idea what gigantic leaps in logic he has to take to lie to make himself seem important.

Even if that was what he was trying to do, it only served to make the book more of a joke because that's absolutely not what friggin' Sonic the Hedgehog is about.

Jesus Christ, everytime this man spews his garbage all over his Twitter, I feel like Will Ferrel in Zoolander, and that I'm taking crazy pills! I... lklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklklkl

I nearly just f*cking broke my keyboard, for real. Holy crap.

Edited May 31, 2015 by biznizz

[Agie]

Don't break keyboards! Wait...Penders makes that difficult, if not impossible.