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

[Agie]

I wish I knew. I know if I created a character, I'd either keep him/her, or if I couldn't, at least hand the character to someone who's not an unreasonabe, delusional ass.

[biznizz]

I'm really confused about why a bunch of other past Archie writers decided to sign their material over to Penders.  Are they really happy about the fact that he's now trying to profit off their material?  Isn't this exactly what their original complaint was?

 

I think the major ones were Mike Kanterovich & maybe Scott Fulop. I don't belive it's been revealed if Penders got Gallagher to sign over all of his character rights/(potential) copyrights or just Athair because of the Knuckles/Echidna connection (though obviously for Ken it's "Now Dead Knuckles In All But Name" instead of the SEGA character).

 

I have no clue if Gallagher got burned by Archie outside of being denied reprint rights, but I know he was involved in the book for a long while, at least doing the Off Panels. Or maybe he was just suckered in by Penders' "I'm a Nice, Hard Working Guy" front that everyone says he apprently has.

 

I wish I knew. I know if I created a character, I'd either keep him/her, or if I couldn't, at least hand the character to someone who's not an unreasonabe, delusional ass.

 

We don't know if there was ever an attempt to try to renegociate with any of the Non-Penders writers (who didn't give their rights away). But it... there are few that are as delusional as Ken in trying to use dirivative/supporting characters for a video game comic book as a marketing project. Sometimes it seems like, barring SEGA/Archie just washing their hands of nearly everything, there's nothing preventing them from talking to any of the others.

 

After all, what the hell is Scott Fulop going to do with Mammoth Mogul & the Fearsome Foursome, Mike Gallagher with the Downunda Freedom Fighters & Fiona Fox, or Karl Bollers with Mina Mongoose & Colin & Hope Kintobor? ...You know, outside of sitting on them out of any spite on their part to the companies/misguided support for Penders.

[Zaysho]

I'm really confused about why a bunch of other past Archie writers decided to sign their material over to Penders.  Are they really happy about the fact that he's now trying to profit off their material?  Isn't this exactly what their original complaint was?

It makes me wonder if Penders plans on paying them royalties. I'd hope so, unless he wants everyone to call him out after his idiotic crusade destroyed other writers' legacies on the book in addition to his own. Then again, to pay royalties, he'd need to actually make money off of this project... and save for his most rabid fans or those of us with money to burn and bile fascination, I don't think that's enough to get him out of the hole. At this point, he can only hope for some consumer confusion (hey, my sister said they still look like Knuckles with no knowledge of any of this shit that's gone on) or otherwise putting "From the writer of Sonic the Hedgehog!" on the cover to push sales, and that's presuming people aren't put off by the incredibly unappealing artwork (again, my sister confirmed this, so I know I'm not crazy at least).

 

Though, royalties or not, if I was a creator who got screwed as a result of his actions, I sure as hell wouldn't sign anything over to him. This is a man responsible for causing Archie to do a massive reboot to avoid dealing with any more uppity creators. I'd be pissed if something of mine that was created for a great franchise like Sonic had to be axed because of something this stupid. Never mind I wouldn't trust him to treat said creations with any respect.

[Wittymations]

My biggest fear is Penders Forrest Gumping his way to success with it... I know, reasonably speaking, he shouldn't. But reasonably speaking, he shouldn't gotten as far as he did.

unless he wants everyone to call him out after his idiotic crusade destroyed other writers' legacies on the book in addition to his own.

Even if they did, he'd put his hands to his ears and go, "LALALALALALALA!"

[anna]

I saw this thread updated and immediately I thought to myself; "Oh Penders, here we go again."

 

And here we are.

 

I agree, it certainly sounds like he's making a whole lot of shit up as he goes along. Or is that how professionals in the art of Penders' do it?

All I know for sure is that this thing is going to be absolutely terrible. If he's just making it up, it's likely going to be full of plotholes as well...christ.

[biznizz]

Considering even the stuff he does plan have plotholes... yeah.

 

Just finished reading the last issues of the Knuckles comic an hour ago, and lord, was it sinking like a log in a toilet. At least for most of that book, even if the writing (which I admit was alright at first) sucked, you could at least appreciate the art by Galen & Mawhinney. The Monk/Hunter three parter that it ended on was unforgivable on nearly every level, and that was almost right after the First Date story, which was boring as sh*t.

 

I almost forgot that they were planning to have the Knuckles book tie-in with the Sonic Adventure adaptation in the solicts, so you know the sales on that were getting so awful that not even a huge event like the Adventure story could have saved it.

 

But oh, Knuckles was more popular than Sonic and sold better! Honest~!

[Zaysho]

Considering even the stuff he does plan have plotholes... yeah.

 

Just finished reading the last issues of the Knuckles comic an hour ago, and lord, was it sinking like a log in a toilet. At least for most of that book, even if the writing (which I admit was alright at first) sucked, you could at least appreciate the art by Galen & Mawhinney. The Monk/Hunter three parter that it ended on was unforgivable on nearly every level, and that was almost right after the First Date story, which was boring as sh*t.

 

I almost forgot that they were planning to have the Knuckles book tie-in with the Sonic Adventure adaptation in the solicts, so you know the sales on that were getting so awful that not even a huge event like the Adventure story could have saved it.

 

But oh, Knuckles was more popular than Sonic and sold better! Honest~!

 

'ey, man, it was all Wal-Mart's fault! You know that shit was good! You just don't know what good writing is! Have you ever written something? Do you understand? You can't criticize Penders! You just can't, man!

 

It's too early to be drinking...

 

On a serious note, the Monk issues were such a terrible note to end that series on, and that's when the series was already down the tubes. I never finished that three-parter, but I figure I didn't have to, either. Maybe if Penders actually did something to move the Knuckles story forward earlier, it wouldn't have gotten canceled when it did. I feel like the initial set-up from the mini-series was interesting, and at least the first 12 issues were arguably the best since they actually had shit happening and were directly tied-in to Sonic's adventures. After that though, it was either all about the Brotherhood, the Legion, or when it did focus on Knuckles, it was about the characters around him. Not that any of that stuff is bad per se, but when the star character is a bit player in his own series, you know there's trouble.

 

I'd like to give the Knuckles series a proper readthrough myself, I might pick up the rest of the Archives and binge read it; I know what I'm getting into already, but since I'm missing a lot of the later issues after #18 (with maybe only one arc filled in--"The First Date" of all things), I'd sorta like to get a good view of it after so long.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Indeed, it is too early to be drinking the kool-aid.

[Big Panda]

It's worth noting that the "First Date" and Monk arcs are the only two Knuckles stories to be accompanied by back-up stories.

If you get burned out trying to read "First Date", the Mighty storyline next to it (a very loose adaption of the SegaSonic arcade game) should at least be a bit more interesting.

[Zaysho]

It's worth noting that the "First Date" and Monk arcs are the only two Knuckles stories to be accompanied by back-up stories.

If you get burned out trying to read "First Date", the Mighty storyline next to it (a very loose adaption of the SegaSonic arcade game) should at least be a bit more interesting.

 

Yeah, the Mighty/Ray back-ups were pretty much the only redeeming parts of that particular run of issues. Refresh my memory, was the back-up for the Monk story the Espio story? I hadn't read it all the way through, but I remember the art being quite good (Colleen Doran illustrated them, I believe? Did she do anything else for Sonic?), especially considering it was following something Penders handled the art for, though not much else.

[biznizz]

The backups for those issues were the Espio ones. They showd Valdez getting roboticized and upgraded beyond a mindless drone (which implied he was the first to do so, when Antoine's dad had earlier acted just as autonomous...)

Colleen's art wasn't quite my bag, but it was a huge step up from Penders' own pencils in the main stories. It's still mindblowing to know that Penders' pencils and sense of design would only get worse.

[superwplf]

Ken just Tweeted this and

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/459558921359720448

I mean. Just. Hello, nurse?

This may be old but...

I CAN'T LOOK AT THIS THING WHILE EATING!!! It makes me want to throw up...

[Tenko]

Hmm so apparently via questions on Twitter again, he considers all the characters while changed, to be the exact same characters from the Archie comics, and that their past is the past from said comics, the jumping off Archie and into his pages point being the 25 Years Later story from #144 of Sonic, and that it ISN'T a different universe or parallel dimension etc, it IS the "proper" continuation of the comics in his eyes....but it's NOT piggybacking....but he IS calling it a spin-off.....I don't understand!!

Also he's stated AGAIN, that it was HIS stories that gave the Sonic comic (he didn't say comic, but surely he can't think he gave the games their world too) universe value and it's mythology. Go figure, I thought the comic had pretty much gotten most of the basis of that from Sat AM...Penders just tried hijacking it :/

[Dejimon11]

That makes no sense. How can it be an offical continuation of the comics if 1) mobius 25 years later was retconned to be a possible future(or parallel zone) and 2) the comics got rebooted meaning everything he established means nothing. He might as well say its a parallel universe or a new thing all together. I really don't get this guy

[Salamander]

Obviously, the reboot doesn't count.  Penders's world is the true continuity.

[Zaysho]

Hmm so apparently via questions on Twitter again, he considers all the characters while changed, to be the exact same characters from the Archie comics, and that their past is the past from said comics, the jumping off Archie and into his pages point being the 25 Years Later story from #144 of Sonic, and that it ISN'T a different universe or parallel dimension etc, it IS the "proper" continuation of the comics in his eyes....but it's NOT piggybacking....but he IS calling it a spin-off.....I don't understand!!

Also he's stated AGAIN, that it was HIS stories that gave the Sonic comic (he didn't say comic, but surely he can't think he gave the games their world too) universe value and it's mythology. Go figure, I thought the comic had pretty much gotten most of the basis of that from Sat AM...Penders just tried hijacking it :/

 

This is a man who believes he was the savior of the comic book and discounted the contributions of just about everyone else that worked on that book with him, it wouldn't surprise me if he believes HE'S the only reason the Sonic property as a whole was as successful as it was (I don't think BioWare using the framework of the Knuckles comics as a basis for their own game helped matters). I don't doubt the comic contributed in a way, seeing as the sales slowly climbed since the end of "End Game" (and Knuckles didn't move much), but people read those books because of Sonic, not because "Gosh, have you read these new stories by this Ken Penders cat?! This guy is a fucking genius! He just revealed Sonic's middle name is Maurice! And look at all these Echidnas! Incredible stuff, man!"

 

I say all this as someone who really loves the old comic universe, but admittedly that's because somebody else came along at a time when SEGA finally started giving a shit about Sonic's image and managed to clean up the previous writers' messes and, in effect, bring value to all the crap that drove me away from the book. It, to me, showed that it wasn't that the characters themselves were bad, they were just horribly written for years. I do believe Penders is responsible for the book's early success by steering it more as an action adventure series, and he did indeed have some interesting ideas and characters, but they just weren't well executed and detracted from the fun one would associate with Sonic or otherwise took the focus away from the stars of the book.

 

 

Obviously, the reboot doesn't count.  Penders's world is the true continuity.

 

Man, the Super Genesis Wave really screwed up the characters now that I think about it. It flung Sonic and the rest off into an alternate world and then converted all the Echidnas not Knuckles into aliens with an affinity for tacky, early 90s aesthetics. A cruel fate, indeed.

[kboyrulez12345]

What about people who are not familiar with Mobius 25 Years later? Will there be some kind of recap. Is Penders even expanding his audience? It's honestly hard to tell.

[anna]

He probably assumes that his audience already read 'Mobius 25 yrs later'

 

But I don't understand, does this mean he'll be incorporating Knuckles, Sonic, etc? Because they were definitely in that arc...

[Jet Prower]

Since, he is hoping to make a financial gain on this thing, even though most people even hate the very idea of this after all the things he has done, he could never use any official characters at all. If he even tries even just the littlest bit, who knows if Sega wouldn't be just almost watching for him to make a mistake to sue him back for trying to profit off of them.

[kboyrulez12345]

He probably assumes that his audience already read 'Mobius 25 yrs later'

 

But I don't understand, does this mean he'll be incorporating Knuckles, Sonic, etc? Because they were definitely in that arc...

 

I actually asked him on Twitter. This was his response:

 

Dang it. Can someone tell me how to put a Twitter response here? 

[Your Vest Friend]

There's quite a bit of broken code there. The code execution commands should be square brackets instead of points, script codes don't really work and whatever code cmdr mykhal taelor is does not get covered by the forum software.

 

...Oh, Cmdr. Mykhal Taelor is the character name? What the fuck kind of name is that?!

[kboyrulez12345]

Meh, I'll just quote it:

 

 

 

The character of Cmdr Mykhal Taelor is pivotal as he acts as a means for new audiences to enter a world longtime readers...

 

...Cmdr Mykhal Taelor? How do you even pronounce that?

 

 

 

...are familiar with while allowing longtime readers to discover aspects of the world & history they never saw before.  

[Vertekins]

...Oh, Cmdr. Mykhal Taelor is the character name? What the fuck kind of name is that?!

 

The kind of name you'd expect to see on a shitty Sonic fancharacter?

 

Oops, my bad. Penders' characters already are shitty fancharacters.

[Your Vest Friend]

The kind of name you'd expect to see on a shitty Sonic fancharacter?

 

Oops, my bad. Penders' characters already are shitty fancharacters.

 

Nah, I'd be able to pronounce the name of a shitty Sonic fancharacter because they at least stick with the idea that the names in the series are either completely normal names or nouns/verbs, their issue lies in the fact certain name concepts have been run into the ground. 

[biznizz]

Commander Michael Taylor? For a bit, I though Ken ripped off the name of Heston's character in Planet of the Apes (George Taylor) for allegorical symbolism of an outsider seeing a strange new world that is oddly familiar.