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

[horridus]

Yep, two years now. Three years once October 27th hits. Astoundingly enough, people are not willing to shell out 20 bucks for a badly designed phone case. Go figure. 

[Afro Thunder]

5 hours ago, horridus said:

Nope. 3/3 Still left unsold. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PRAETORIAN-iPHONE-5-CASE-as-seen-in-THE-LARA-SU-CHRONICLES-Ken-Penders-/282307856155?hash=item41badc071b:g:BqkAAOSwDN1UTvmw

 

Well, I'll give him points for persistence ;p I would've said "Fuck it" by now.

[Tylinos]

So, it might just be coincidental timing, but Ken's website and forum, along with the mostly unused TL-SC website and the Floating Island Productions website seem to have all been down since about the 1st of the year.

[horridus]

All of them? Huh. How unusual. Well luckily Penders' forum is pretty thoroughly saved on the Wayback Machine, so that at least stands as a record of his less than admirable statements and actions. 

Also, an LSC update. 

I'll take "Catastrophically Horrible Ideas" for 500 points, Alex. 

Edit: You know, after giving it some thought, it occurs to me that in the past PEnders has mentioned something about getting a new site for the Lara-Su Chronicles. Maybe all his sites being down is to signify the move to a new page?

[Tylinos]

And I'll take "Unsurprising Things Ken Thinks Everyone Will Be Shocked By" for 300.

Yes, Ken, we've been made well aware over the past six years that Archie's legal team during the case against you was awful.  This wasn't exactly the only stupid move they made throughout it.  Definitely one of the sillier things they've done (especially if the concession he asked for was simply reprint royalties), but not at all shocking to anyone who was following the case.

[horridus]

9 hours ago, Tylinos said:

And I'll take "Unsurprising Things Ken Thinks Everyone Will Be Shocked By" for 300.

Yes, Ken, we've been made well aware over the past six years that Archie's legal team during the case against you was awful.  This wasn't exactly the only stupid move they made throughout it.  Definitely one of the sillier things they've done (especially if the concession he asked for was simply reprint royalties), but not at all shocking to anyone who was following the case.

This is the same guy who treated Bunnie and Antoine getting married as a conspirational act of theft against him by Ian Flynn, despite all the evidence not even remotely supporting it. And who repeatedly tries to pass himself off as someone 'in the know' when it comes to comics and business despite demonstrating little understanding of how either subject works in the modern context. 

Edit: 

Yeah... because SEGA themselves specifically told Archie that they didn't want to get involved. 

[goku262002]

Has anybody told him his various websites are down?

[horridus]

As of yet, nobody has asked. 

And in other news, we got another Penderlanche-

You know, it would be really nice if you just... explained. In full. If evidently the NDC is broken, then you've really got nothing to lose by elaborating upon what it is that they did exactly. And for some reason, the revelation that this app will have 'features not commonly used on others of its type' is not something filling me with a lot of confidence. 

And finally it dawns on him that the Pre-Reboot really is kaput, along with his legacy on the book. Only took how many years for it to sink in?

I wonder how long he's going to cling to this even when Riverdale comes along and the book isn't cancelled as a result?

 

Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg didn't feel entitled to the things that you feel you're entitled too, "Mr. Reasonable." Even if Archie wasn't a dickbag company there'd be problems. 

I'm really not sure what this is meant to accomplish. Archie is already viewed in a bad light, and this kind of behavior wasn't really contained to them during those days- Fleetway skirted the line a bunch of times and just started flat out ignoring SEGA. It's a particulary amusing thing for him to say this given that he says he wouldn't have worked at Archie under the current constraints and attention SEGA gives it, so in effect, he's admitting he owes his career to ARchie's shoddiness more than anything. 

[dwitefry666]

Right i'm confused, the link failed so what did Archie do to Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg?

Also, was that rule about seeking written permission from Sega a thing when Penders/Bollers/etc was writing the book? or at least during the  majority of their time? I thought that was a newish thing?  

Also, also, don't most of the pre-Reboot creators not work at Archie anymore? Pat Spaz does but Karl Bollers and Mike Gallagher are both off the payroll right? I don't want to be seen as defending Archie too much, they're  a dickbag of a company (such a good term) and no mistake, but why would Archie need to bother with people who don't work at their company, and who's characters they're not using and seemingly who's work they're not reprinting? 

I am so confused by this man tonight. 

And I really wish he'd just say what he thinks Archie have done to break the settlement/Non-Disclosure Agreement, this cryptic stuff just makes it sound like he's not quite telling the truth. 

[horridus]

41 minutes ago, dwitefry666 said:

Right i'm confused, the link failed so what did Archie do to Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg?

Also, was that rule about seeking written permission from Sega a thing when Penders/Bollers/etc was writing the book? or at least during the  majority of their time? I thought that was a newish thing?  

Also, also, don't most of the pre-Reboot creators not work at Archie anymore? Pat Spaz does but Karl Bollers and Mike Gallagher are both off the payroll right? I don't want to be seen as defending Archie too much, they're  a dickbag of a company (such a good term) and no mistake, but why would Archie need to bother with people who don't work at their company, and who's characters they're not using and seemingly who's work they're not reprinting? 

I am so confused by this man tonight. 

And I really wish he'd just say what he thinks Archie have done to break the settlement/Non-Disclosure Agreement, this cryptic stuff just makes it sound like he's not quite telling the truth. 

Dammit, the board is still doing that thing where it cuts up the link. Okay, you see that "9" up in the address bar? Add "&t=2595", and you should be taken to a post in Ken's forum that outlines the kind of stuff he feels entitled to, which go beyond things like Royalties. Dan DeCarlo and Stan Goldberg were both former contributors to Archie, and DeCarlo in particular was responsible for the distinctive look of Archie's distinct in-house look, as well as the co-creator of Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. When Universal Studios made a film of Josie, DeCarlo tried to get a share of the profit... which resulted in Archie firing him and removing his name from stories he'd worked on. Sufficed to say, Archie has a very legitimately terrible track record with it's employees... the problem with Ken invoking DeCarlo and Goldberg however is that Penders demands were never simply about royalties. That link is meant to illustrate that his trying to present himself as 'reasonable' is dubious given that he feels like he SHOULD have a continued say in the comic if his characters were to be used. To say nothing of his repeated desire to retain copyright overh is characters even if they had continued use in Archie, something that would result in Archie losing it's contract with SEGA and thus losing the Sonic property. While he is correct that Archie is not a good company, he is leaving out certain details that even a very, very reasonable company would be disinclined to create and thus refusing to acknowledge how they might have impacted past negotiations. 

Penders is claiming that the 'permission for new characters' thing was a rule back when he was around and that, evidently, Archie never followed it or told Penders or any of the other creators about it. It's a fairly naked attempt to paint Archie as an untrustworthy and dishonest company- which it is, but doing so in this way is only more damaging to him due to the fact that it was thanks to that detail that he was able to flood the comic with as many of his creations as he did. He is trying to paint it as a negative when he benefited tremendously from it, particularly since he has gone on about how he wouldn't work for the comic back then if SEGA had overseen it the way it does now, and in doing so hurts the credibility of his entire career there all the further. 

You're correct, the vast majority of the book's former writers and artists no longer work there. Bollers as a matter of fact has gone on to produce an independent series that has gone on to be nominated for an Eisner Award, a very prestigious award in Comics, and indeed at this stage of things no Pre-Reboot work is being reprinted. It is suspected though that there MIGHT be a kerfluffle going on over *digital* resales, as the last time Penders started up over this it was because of Archie's comic book app. As you mentioned, the fact that Penders refuses to explicitly explain what exactly they have done is making his case very hard to take, frustratingly so given that he clearly desires supporters but at the same time doesn't see fit to elaborate. 

There does exist a possibility that he is hiding something. Penders has repeatedly demonstrated a great deal of dishonesty in the past with regards to facts about the trial, his career, his professional relationships and his success outside of Sonic- this is a man who accused Ian Flynn of stealing from him under incredibly flimsy pretenses, has repeatedly tried to cover up the fact that he feuded rather badly with Karl Bollers and even downplaying how much he resented the man, and most damningly stole the title of his intended series from a fanwork made by a long term defender of his. That he could easily dispell any accusation of crying wolf but still chooses not to is indeed *baffling*. There is a possibility that he simply cannot talk about it, but if that is the case, then it begs the question of why he said anything to begin with?

Until something happens we can only really speculate, but the fact remains that Penders is not doing anything to help his case. Like at all. 

[MightyRay]

So... err... who wants to see Lara-su look badass?

I drew this when I was bored... thought I'd make the cheapo power armour something all the Dark Legion grunts wear since the robes made me think that they were running around in pajamas or something. I didn't have a lighter pink for her fur so she's got the same colour as her mum though turquoise goes great with pink so I used that for the hair. I added some flames to the image just to spruce things up since she looked odd standing at that angle by herself.

Rough colouring aside I hope to do a proper coloured image of her. I wouldn't mind redoing those two covers Mr Penders put out and see if I can do better. If not hopefully I can have a crack making not Knux look badass and redo Remington along with Lara-Su's chums. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 hour ago, Mightyray said:

 I would mind redoing those two covers Mr Penders put out and see if I can do better. If not hopefully I can have a crack making not Knux look badass and redo Remington along with Lara-Su chums. 

I hope you meant "wouldn't mind," because I'd like to see it. Heck, this is already better than what he's doing with them. XD

[MightyRay]

Thanks for catching that typo KingScoopaKoopa! I'm not great at typing or proofreading! 

[Kintor]

1 hour ago, Mightyray said:

I drew this when I was bored... thought I'd make the cheapo power armour something all the Dark Legion grunts wear since the robes made think that they were running around in pajamas or something. I didn't have a lighter pink for her fur so she's got the some colour as her mum though turquoise goes great with pink so I used that for the hair. I added some flames to the image just to spruce things up since she looked odd standing at that angle by herself.

Rough colouring aside I hope to do a proper coloured image of her. I would mind redoing those two covers Mr Penders put out and see if I can do better. If not hopefully I can have a crack making not Knux look badass and redo Remington along with Lara-Su chums. 

Nice picture Mightyray, it's always good to see fanart of the pre-reboot characters. Even with the rough colouring I still think that you can give Penders a run for his money.

For what it's worth I actually like the robes on the Dark Legion, it helped to give them a distinctive look. Showing that the Dark Legion were as much about being a techno-cult as a paramilitary force. Lately I've been wondering what the Dark Legion would look like if they took design elements from the Adeptus Mechanicus of Warhammer 40,000, keeping the robes while taking those cybernetic enhancements to the next level. But since I can't draw I have to leave it at that...

Anyway, don't get me wrong the Power Armour on Lara-su still looks great.

[RetroRy]

Probably the terms were that he wanted the unpublished works as canon and Archie said no?  Seriously why would it feature UNpublished works rather than his main stories?  Sounds more like something he suggested, they thought maybe, then he said "well this is how you are going to do it", then they were like nevermind...

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Yes, ARCHIE. OF ALL PEOPLE, WOULD MAKE A PENDERS COLLECTION. 

ARCHIE

THE SAME PEOPLE WHO'S TOO CHEAP TO GO OVER FOUR ISSUES IN THEIR GNS

[horridus]

Man, he is *really* pushing the "ARCHIE ARE SMALL MINDED FOOOOOLS!" narrative hard this month. But really it was nice of him to provide us with absolutely no insight into *why* they were being unreasonable. Seriously he's trying to run a PR campaign that is almost entirely reliant upon his *implications*. 

Also, Penders has decided wax philosophic about himself and Sonic. 

Gotta love how he's framing it as him being still a part of things and super devoted because he just loves it so gosh darned much. And not because he wants Sonic to be a money faucet for him and is refusing to leave it alone because he literally has nothing else to his name. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

8 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Yes, ARCHIE. OF ALL PEOPLE, WOULD MAKE A PENDERS COLLECTION. 

ARCHIE

THE SAME PEOPLE WHO'S TOO CHEAP TO GO OVER FOUR ISSUES IN THEIR GNS

Well, if it was a "Best of Ken Penders" collection, I could see it maybe being about the same size as a GN...

[SBR2]

16 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Yes, ARCHIE. OF ALL PEOPLE, WOULD MAKE A PENDERS COLLECTION. 

ARCHIE

THE SAME PEOPLE WHO'S TOO CHEAP TO GO OVER FOUR ISSUES IN THEIR GNS

Four issues is basically industry standard though dude. Especially for kids comics.

[horridus]

In supremely lesser bits of news, all of Penders websites are now back online. So yeah, them being gone ultimately ammounted to nothing, and I am once more left to wonder why he keeps clinging to them given that he hasn't updated any of them in a long, long time, and hasn't posted on his forum for nearly two years now. 

[Kintor]

It's probably pride more than anything else that keeps Penders’ old websites online. So long as those websites exists Penders can claim he his grand vision is still on track. Going offline permanently might as well be an admission of failure, even if everybody already knows that the Lara-su Chronicles will never succeed.

[horridus]

13 minutes ago, Kintor said:

It's probably pride more than anything else that keeps Penders’ old websites online. So long as those websites exists Penders can claim he his grand vision is still on track. Going offline permanently might as well be an admission of failure, even if everybody already knows that the Lara-su Chronicles will never succeed.

Well it's not just that. Sites like that cost money. It'd be a lot smarter to just ditch the other sites and make them sub-sections of his main website rather than keeping three different, separate websites. There's doing stuff out of pride, and then there's paying moolah in the name of maintaining said pride. 

[Tylinos]

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819336807934345216
He's STILL doing this.  You'd think at some point he'd stop pretending that paying him isn't a factor, but apparently he still likes lying to people while pretending that he isn't doing anything shady.

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337078332735488
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337213171273728
You know, I almost wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turns out that the part of the agreement that he claims Archie's "breaking" is that the agreement says that they acknowledge his ownership of his material, and he took that as them having to make a public statement on it.

[horridus]

7 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819336807934345216
He's STILL doing this.  You'd think at some point he'd stop pretending that paying him isn't a factor, but apparently he still likes lying to people while pretending that he isn't doing anything shady.

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337078332735488
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337213171273728
You know, I almost wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turns out that the part of the agreement that he claims Archie's "breaking" is that the agreement says that they acknowledge his ownership of his material, and he took that as them having to make a public statement on it.

Penders is going to cling to that narrative all the way to his death bed at this rate, and nothing on heaven or earth is going to dissuade him from that, not even when all the evidence out there points to the fact that his desires go above and beyond royalties for past work. 

Good God if it turns out to be that, I wouldn't know whether to laugh or slam my head against the wall... fitting as it would be for him to get worked up over something so insignificant. 

[RetroRy]

13 hours ago, Tylinos said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819336807934345216
He's STILL doing this.  You'd think at some point he'd stop pretending that paying him isn't a factor, but apparently he still likes lying to people while pretending that he isn't doing anything shady.

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337078332735488
https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/819337213171273728
You know, I almost wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turns out that the part of the agreement that he claims Archie's "breaking" is that the agreement says that they acknowledge his ownership of his material, and he took that as them having to make a public statement on it.

God it is so hard to fight the urge to respond to some of these misinformed followers of Penders or Penders himself (I did cave by the way, I feel dirty now).  Spitting half-truths and allowing fear mongering, I don't care if Archie has issues internally as a company, ever damn company has them.  I care about purposely spreading and inflating misinformation that he know, THAT HE KNOWS, to be untrue and he just sits there with a shit-eating grin and let's people buy it.  Not trying to get political here but he talks so much about hating Donald Trump he acts a hell of a lot like the guy.

Archie may have it's problems, but at least they cut a huge one out of their circle years ago.