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

[SBR2]

I assume he only thought that because Parent and Ruinz recently had a Indigogo campaign to fund their own comic called "Die, Kitty, Die".

[Your Vest Friend]

On 25/02/2016 at 7:20 AM, Jason the Jackass said:

When he got the rights to his characters thanks to lost contracts, it opened the floodgate for ANY and ALL creators to lay claim to their characters. This means if Archie were to use any of the old characters or reprint the old comics, it would have to go through a lot of channels for everyone to get royalties. Some issues may have characters from four or five creators. If they had to just pay ONE, it would be much easier for them and it would actually make it possible for us fans to actually see reprints again. 

Even if they only had to go through one channel, and even if there was a reasonable deal for it, I doubt Archie would be game at this point in time If it's royalty-related, Archie have a notorious history of dodging paying royalties where they can, so they'd dodge doing them to avoid having to pay out anything for them (especially if they're strapped for cash and the cost of printing and royalties would make the profits gained not worth it). If it's not, we're basically already at that point where they're simply too strapped for cash to put out so many books. 

[Tylinos]

 

Holy crap.  Geoffrey has almost Mary Sue levels of special skills.

Also, his description of Sonic: "...the blue-spined Erinaceinae..."

 

[therealfalconpawnch77]

3 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

 

Holy crap.  Geoffrey has almost Mary Sue levels of special skills.

Also, his description of Sonic: "...the blue-spined Erinaceinae..."

 

For those who don't know what Erinaceinae means, it's the scientific family Hedgehogs belong to, so no, he's not really trying to hide anything.

[Tylinos]

Just now, therealfalconpawnch77 said:

For those who don't know  Erinaceinae means, it's the scientific family Hedgehogs belong to, so no, he's not really trying to hide anything.

Yeah.  It's just that out of all the "hey look I am not saying Hedgehog" terms he could have picked, he went for the most convoluted one to remember.

That, and he spelled "Erinaceidae" wrong.

[Adamis]

"Kintobor", "the Princess of Acorns", "the blue Erinaceidae"...

Oh Ken...

(He also sent this to me earlier for translation purpose)

[therealfalconpawnch77]

1 minute ago, Tylinos said:

Yeah.  It's just that out of all the "hey look I am not saying Hedgehog" terms he could have picked, he went for the most convoluted one to remember.

That, and he spelled "Erinaceidae" wrong.

Good thing it auto-corrects when searching, otherwise some people who aren't into Biology (Me for example) can truly see the depths of this bizarre roller coaster that Ken has created.

[horridus]

You know... I always wondered what he could possibly do to make me miss "Echyd'nya".... and this is it. This is precisely it. Geezum crow. 

[Zaysho]

I don't know whether to be surprised or not when I read this new profile and see that not only is he shamelessly hanging onto the old continuity with no alterations, he's using Kintobor (despite this being an invention of SEGA of America and was used in other continuities like Fleetway and was in the original series' Western bible until Sonic Adventure standardized everything), or that he's probably going to write Sonic in in some daft way and change his species name a la Echyd'nya.

Actually, on that last point, he refers to St. John as a "Mephitidae"... so does this mean he's going to be changing everyone's species name?

[horridus]

Yeah, I think using the scientific names for all their species is going to be his 'Hard Science' workaround for the fact that they're all earth critters, because you know, that TOTALLY validates them as 'hard science', and doesn't look at all glaring next to the 'Echyd'nya'. Good grief this is just... this is just pathetic. It really and truly is pathetic. A *five year old* could put more of an effort into things than this. And then there's the bio itself... I'm trying to read it, but I keep stopping because the whole thing is just so cringe inducing. 

[Tenko]

I also love how the Kingdom of Acorn somehow became the Kingdom of Aoom in the "Rank" section. Dude obviously has his autocorrect turned off.

I also still hate how he draws the characters tho, this tall, everyone has detailed muscle tone, overly detailed for anthro critters,and god awful shading/colouring that's been a thing of his since almost forever, its the same way he drew the Sonic characters multiple times in the comics. One could even argue he hasn't even changed their design as requested due to the fact he has drawn them like that in the Archie comics before. It's an eyesore, not even exaggerating, it's just plain unpleasant to look at.

[Adamis]

I've mentioned this before, but there will be a change in some designs. It begins in page 2 of THE STORM.

[MightyRay]

My goodness... is it just me or does St John have very big lips due to the way Mr Penders has done his shading? 

[Multikaris]

On 2/24/2016 at 11:44 AM, Nestor said:

I do wonder if, in addition to the monetary incentive from resales, he's intending to get as many of the characters he can so that - in his mind - he will look more attractive for SEGA to come to when they see the light and want to restructure the franchise around the old Archie continuity, as he seems to be hoping they will due to it 'making most sense'? I suppose the logic would be that while SEGA wouldn't want to have to deal with a whole ton of different copyright owners and thus would be disincentivised to try to return to the old continuity, they'd be more willing to deal with a single person who owns the majority of the loose non-Archie owned characters.

Gotta catch 'em all!!!

This idea actually makes a great deal of sense for any universe owner. Remember Bloodsucker from the "The River" storyline of the original TMNT comics? He's owned by Rick Veitch, and nobody's bothered to get him back because of one contract. Hence, we got "The Creep" amongst other replacements for the creator-owned TMNT characters. Owning as many characters as possible makes legislation with others more easy and fun. I guess he will also go after the Fleetway characters.

 

Unfortunately, this may only be step 1 for Penders. This might fuel him to go after characters owned by TMS, Bioware, and others after he's done. Maybe one day he will own the Sonic franchise (he'd make a damn better owner than Izuka, that's for fucking sure!)

[Tenko]

37 minutes ago, The Very First Miru to Me said:

Maybe one day he will own the Sonic franchise (he'd make a damn better owner than Izuka, that's for fucking sure!)

Ok, Izuka isn't brilliant, and there's plenty he could do to fix the franchise, but he is a damn sight better than what would become Sonic the Teenage Drama Hog under Penders writing and care. His art, writing and general understanding of the characters is a lot worse than what Izuka has ever given us, and that's saying something considering some of the hits the franchise has taken while Izuka has been in charge.

[Zaysho]

Pen has no incentive to go pursuing characters that had nothing to do with the Archie book, which, to him, is the be-all-end-all of what Sonic is. He doesn't give a shit about any other branches of the series and often downplays their role in the franchise's success. He's pursuing the rights to the other writers' characters because 1) there's no contract so SEGA doesn't own them, 2) the other creators likely did not file for formal copyrights, and 3) he probably believes that by owning them, it'll make LSC a much more attractive story simply because he'd have access to the material Archie can't use (while ignoring exactly why people liked those things--especially when Flynn took over--in the first place).

It's a bit of a leap to even suggest he's going to even know about, or even care, about the rights to characters not related to what he's done in some way, or those that are owned by large corporations and not just other creators (the Bioware characters are owned by SEGA, as far as I know, but they can't use them at the risk of having to deal with Penders again). Or that he even has the clout to do all that.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

I just threw up a little in my mouth. How is it that this guy has only gotten worse at drawing since before? The more detail he tries to add, the more horrifically gross and deformed his art gets. It's like he's trying to draw with no reference on anatomy, or even without looking at what he's drawing. Hell, I would compare it to this if it didn't make it look like I was blindly plugging Joel's channel (which, I am, but that's none of your business).

I mean, his Sonic was never good,

but this at least looks...alive? Like there was effort put into making it look like an established character?

But then

oh

oh no

Ngyaaaarlghll

*incoherent gurgling*

[horridus]

Well, since plenty has been said about the art, I might as well talk about the actual writing in this. This biography is not only very haphazard, but it does a lot to horribly inflate St. John's importance and the importance of the Secret Service; given that Penders insists this is aaaallll canon, these retcons regarding the actual scope of the Secret Service during the war against 'Kintobor' fly in the face of what we were actually shown during the course of the comic. In fact, a lot of this reads almost like Penders' personal revenge fiction against fans for not falling in love with St. John; he restructures the conflict with Sonic (oh I'm sorry, the 'Blue Quilled Erinacidae') as somehow being a trifling game for St. John, and then when bringing up the Princess of Acorns, it gets kind of nauseating. This bio rather cheerfully endorses the idea of St. John seeing Sally, his leader and liege, as a piece of meat. It doesn't say anything good about Penders OR about St. John that this would be so cheerfully included, especially if this is truly the unfiltered view of things that Penders had regarding the place of St. John in the grand scheme of things.

Beyond the content issues? This is just horribly written in general. Sentance structures are screwy as hell, and the descriptions veer back and forth between being bland an uninteresting to being purple prose. It reads like a very bad translation of a foreign language translated into english via Google Translate. Similarly if this is meant to help bring new readers up to speed... it's doing a lousy job. The info dumps only leave more questions, and the story told is ultimately superflous to what is intended to go on in the LSC story proper. Somehow we are told too much and too little; there is nothing to draw people in, and nothing that might pique the interest of long term fans, all of which is compounded by the aforementioned Terrible Writing. 

[shdowhunt60]

4 hours ago, Tylinos said:

 

Holy crap.  Geoffrey has almost Mary Sue levels of special skills.

Also, his description of Sonic: "...the blue-spined Erinaceinae..."

 

Wow, I thought it wasn't even possible. I mean, really, I didn't it could be even achieved. Penders accomplished the impossible.

He somehow made Geoffery st. John EVEN FUCKING WORSE!

[D.H]

5 hours ago, Tylinos said:

 

Holy crap.  Geoffrey has almost Mary Sue levels of special skills.

Also, his description of Sonic: "...the blue-spined Erinaceinae..."

 

It is really astounding the number of things wrong with this.

First off:

A: The bio. The blue-quilled Erinacidae, Kintobor, and the Princess of Acorns is just hilariously stupid. I don't get why Penders is trying this hard to cling on to the pre-reboot continuity. I truly, truly don't get the point of it. Also, the part in the bio about the Princess of Acorns being "just another conquest," is utterly cringe-worthy. Why is Ken doing this? It doesn't make him, nor does it make St. John looks any good.

B: The art. Good god, is the art bad here. I know the art for TLSC has never been good, but it looks especially shitty on St. John. The muscles, the face, etc. etc. It just all looks so ugly.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Why the hell is he even trying to cover up mention of Sonic in the description, anyway? The "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20" text is stapled to the top right there. Who does he think he's fooling?

[horridus]

4 minutes ago, Inspector Shaddy said:

Why the hell is he even trying to cover up mention of Sonic in the description, anyway? The "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20" text is stapled to the top right there. Who does he think he's fooling?

Clueless parents and grandparents who tend to buy bargain bin Disney Knockoff DVDs to keep the youngsters distracted? Feels an awful lot like that's the target demographic when you get down to it. 

[RobotnikHolmes]

Dear god. Penders is one of the reasons I distance myself from the pre-Genesis Wave universe. He's just trying to make that his writing domain, and even then, whats he gonna do apart from make an exact copy of Mobius with the Princess of Acorns and a ruling dictator, which starts to look more like Sonic fanfiction.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

3 hours ago, Inspector Shaddy said:

Why the hell is he even trying to cover up mention of Sonic in the description, anyway? The "SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #20" text is stapled to the top right there. Who does he think he's fooling?

He can legally mention where the character first appeared, as far as I know, he just can't actually use that book's namesake character as-is.

[DaddlerTheDalek]

Is Kintobor supposed to appear!?