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

[Adamis]

45 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

Oh hey, more stock art. Isn't that Remington from a single piece he posted over a year ago?

And St. John's look is completely different from the first page he was shown on, unless he's since changed direction a bit and updated the look...?

So on top of everything, he's a scalper now. That's nice.

 

39 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

What the fuck happened to Geoffrey? 

It's shown on page 2 (which... he didn't show yet), there's "something" that happen and give the characters their Penders redesigns.

Small note : Geoffrey's face on panel 4 is different in the inked page he sent me. Also, Remington was sketched with another pose, not the "stock art" like in the final.

[Betz]

2 minutes ago, Adamis said:

 

It's shown on page 2 (which... he didn't show yet), there's "something" that happen and give the characters their Penders redesigns.

 

A new 52 reboot! In all seriousness, there's literally no way he could start off with one page, in the second have them undergo some huge change, then on page 3 pretend like it was always that way. Unless between the first page and the second there's a 10 year gap where they got hit with an older/redesign stick, this literally can't work.

[Adamis]

No, haha. It happens in three panels.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

The art and designs on page 1 were absolutely awful, the fact that on Page 3, and for the remainder of the "series", this even uglier art style and design will be present is just atrocious.

[MightyRay]

1 hour ago, Tylinos said:

New preview from The Storm:

What in the holy mother of catfish am I looking at? I can draw comics better than that and I suck royally using a ruler! The character designs are just awful. Yep... I really need to get my Lara out of the dust cabinet now. This is just unacceptable on numerous levels.

I just noticed he's still using photos from the net! Look at the hurricane image and tell me that ain't a photo he scabbed from some weather service and didn't bother to check if it's fair use or not.

[BlueSky]

The thing that gives me the most creeps are those eyes, they make me feel pretty nervous for some reason or other.

... Am I a bit odd (like an unexpected value at one of the very lowest parts of the Gaussian distribution) again if that's the most unsettling thing in this I can pinpoint (they look lazy in a wrong way for my liking, and that's just my own thing probably, the fact it creeps me out I mean) considering the majority of the comments here?  

And also the fact Geoff is still trying to pull that old smirk/something is looking interesting in this artstyle. Is he having an accent again? If he is, well, I do hope that if the comics get translated in other languages the translator(s) can pull it trough, I've seen some well-made translations considering different dialects and accents before.

Yep, definitely I'm not rich enough (at least with this artstyle) unless I manage to win some money or government decides to give it me for free. Fat chance really... nothing is more expensive in here than money...  

C'mon, make it into a book, at least the time doing drawings would be used on something else (plot, anything else in bookwriting that needs a lot of time), right? It'd make me to consider more actually, I can buy & read interesting books, but interesting artstyle isn't my cup of tea, it takes too much of my attention out of the plot you see, I like art in comics a bit different.

35 minutes ago, Adamis said:

It's shown on page 2 (which... he didn't show yet), there's "something" that happen and give the characters their Penders redesigns.

Small note : Geoffrey's face on panel 4 is different in the inked page he sent me. Also, Remington was sketched with another pose, not the "stock art" like in the final.

Well, this seems somewhat interesting, I hope we'll see some more soon enough. Though I suppose we won't see "the Something" before it comes out and someone reads about it, considering it could be somewhat important knowledge considering the story thus making it something possibly profitable actually worth the effort keeping it out of previews... or not, economics aren't my thing, too much things depend on people making choices by random chance actually.

... ... ...

[By the way, is that the way these guys order their pizzas, calling holographically/in whatever way?  (Sorry, I just had to, now I want to have some pizza. Homemade pizza, with mushrooms, and lots of tomato, in many different forms... and it's about 1 o'clock in the morning in here, definitely no-oven time...)]

[RobotnikHolmes]

2 hours ago, Tylinos said:

New preview from The Storm:

There are so, so many things to comment on here, but I think I'll stick with "What in the hell is with Geoffrey and the chair thing at the bottom?"  I understand sitting backwards on a chair to be relaxed, but that last shot makes it look like he's trying to ride it like a bike.

I love how Penders stressed time and time again that these characters are aliens and completely unrelated to the Echidnas and Sonic. "Remmington" here is explicitly a Sonic-styled Echidna.

[horridus]

2 hours ago, Adamis said:

 

It's shown on page 2 (which... he didn't show yet), there's "something" that happen and give the characters their Penders redesigns.

Small note : Geoffrey's face on panel 4 is different in the inked page he sent me. Also, Remington was sketched with another pose, not the "stock art" like in the final.

Wait, so he already had the pose sketched down and then just inserted the stock art anyway??

Man, I really do not get the way this guy operates, like at all.

[Balding Spider]

*Stares at wristwatch* Golly gee, it's been a minute since I checked the ongoing case study and narcissistic tendencies of this mad adult drug fueled fanfic author.

 

So what did I miss guys?

On 7/14/2017 at 6:37 AM, Fusion Ellipsis said:

Her waist looks so freaking thin holy crap

I see those symbols behind the title are back.

Also given the timespan of this thing, he should really be working on the comic instead of the merchandise.

 

23 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

EDIT: Looks like someone else beat me to the news. Oh well...

I do not know if I did it right regarding inserting this image, but here's the latest "high-quality" print Mr. Penders plans on selling at Comic-Con.

Go-Go Gadget recycled art!

If not, here's the link to the tweet: 

 

5 hours ago, Tylinos said:

New preview from The Storm:

There are so, so many things to comment on here, but I think I'll stick with "What in the hell is with Geoffrey and the chair thing at the bottom?"  I understand sitting backwards on a chair to be relaxed, but that last shot makes it look like he's trying to ride it like a bike.

Art is dead

[AuroraRedwinters]

This thread should just evolve to gif-only responses for any future Penders updates. 

[Tylinos]

47 minutes ago, AuroraRedwinters said:

This thread should just evolve to gif-only responses for any future Penders updates. 

Actually, before anything gets out of hand, I think it might be just about time to remind everyone of the post mentioned in the thread title instead.  I know it's easy to sit back and throw around some memes for a laugh, but I'd really rather if this thread didn't get axed because we got lazy about the rules again.

 

 

[Sidronas]

12 hours ago, Tylinos said:

What I find more amusing is that he's selling the Sonic reprints for more than triple the price that Archie's selling them for at the moment.  (And, on average, double the price they are on Amazon.)

i thought they weren't selling sonic presently?

[Tylinos]

1 minute ago, Sidronas said:

i thought they weren't selling sonic presently?

They still sell back issues and old graphic novels on their website's store.  Most of the old Archives are being sold there for around $3, and most of the Selects for $5.

[Sidronas]

3 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

They still sell back issues and old graphic novels on their website's store.  Most of the old Archives are being sold there for around $3, and most of the Selects for $5.

o ok, great to know =)

[King Scoopa Koopa]

14 hours ago, Âmesang said:

Fusion Ellipsis' title and Professor Ludwig Von Drake avatar perfectly some up my reaction to this latest piece of artwork. Penders is in desperate need of a professional editor… and a few more art classes couldn't help, either.

(And I'm saying this as someone who's own art isn't very good… but I can at least recognize that my artwork isn't good and still needs improvement.)

Look, say what you will about how long this is all taking, but I am every bit confident that Penders is getting as bad as he can as fast as he can. One can only do so much, and art classes would probably only slow him down.

13 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Now that is a total joke. Seriously how on earth does he seriously believe this is a good business idea?

Better still, I'm pretty sure he intends to (if he doesn't insist upon) defacing and devaluing each and every one with his signature before sending them out.

[Apollo Chungus]

Just looking at that page, I'm not even thinking about the artwork. Yes, it's hysterically bad, but what do you expect from Penders after the last five years? (Wow, has that much time passed already? Dang!)

No, my problem with the page is how busy it looks. When writing and drawing a comic, the best thing to do is draw the reader's eye in such a way that they see the actions, read the dialogue and get what's going on as easily as possible. You can show progress by having characters move to the right of the panel, which is natural if you read from left to right (as seen in Hergé's later Tintin books). You can have the dialogue spaced between actions and sound effects, which makes potentially complex scenes a much more comfortable read (as discussed on a Kotaku article analysing the artwork of the Dragon Ball manga). Whatever you do, the end result should always be towards making sure that the reader can understand what they're seeing without going through it multiple times.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens here. There's so much going on in terms of the panels being used and how everything's displayed, all the elements feel like they're being squished together instead of being given room to breathe, and it overall looks like a cluttered mess. And as Penders himself clarified, that's without the word balloons! Having read a bit of Penders' older work with RobotnikHolmes' blog, I imagine that it's going to be even more of a pain to read once the reams of dialogue are included.

Let me make it clear, Penders being a bad artist doesn't automatically mean that he can't layout a comic book. After all, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is a fantastic artist, but the way his page design in the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga leaves something to be desired. However, I think that this page suffers from the same problem that I had with the first page back in 2014 (unfortunately, I can't link to the post due to a server wipe that happened round that time): there's too much being introduced too quickly.

None of these elements leave any impact, because there's so much happening in such a short span of time that it leaves the reader unable to really comprehend what's going on. When trying to get someone invested in a story, you've got to start slowly and build up to something much bigger, or you risk going into sensory overload by throwing all of these things in the reader's face. This is the third page, and yet I'm already confused and struggling to understand the very basics of who's who and what's happening. It's a really bad first impression that would more than likely have all but the most curious of people putting the book back where they found it and going off to find something they can at least read.

My only guess as to why it's written like this is because Penders has only written for licensed comics, which are often on some sort of deadline that forces him to make sacrifices, dump exposition on the viewers, and make everything feel rushed. But he's not on a deadline; he's been working at his own pace for five years, so he shouldn't have to worry about establishing things out as quickly as humanly possible. He can pace this comic however he wants, and I feel like it would be best if he found a balance between the rushed nonsense seen here and the meandering timewaster that was Mobius 25YL (personally speaking, I'd much rather he have someone help out with the pacing; even if he never credited them because that's just his way, at least the final work might not be as painful to read).

[Adamis]

12 hours ago, horridus said:

Wait, so he already had the pose sketched down and then just inserted the stock art anyway??

Man, I really do not get the way this guy operates, like at all.

Yep. Although it's not *that* different. Mainly the hands were positioned differently.

Also, I prefer the lineart version.

And I've spotted another difference : Last panel, Remington's eyes had some lines on them, like they're broken glass or something, it's strange.

[RictalRose0]

I can't fucking believe that Pender's book and Chris Chan's new Sonichu issue willl both come before the actual Sonic comics launch a new issue. What kinda weird timeline are we living in.

[BlueSky]

4 minutes ago, RictalRose0 said:

I can't fucking believe that Pender's book and Chris Chan's new Sonichu issue willl both come before the actual Sonic comics launch a new issue. What kinda weird timeline are we living in.

For all we know Penders might still take years for making the stuff ready, considering the time he's already used in on it.

Then again, it could be ready within this month for all I know.

Just don't start to paint devils on the wall yet, these've been previews without speech-bubbles.

[RictalRose0]

You'll see. The Lara-Su Chronicles mega multimedia empire will rise. Just as Penders predicted.

[RetroRy]

Does his App cure cancer or something? All the mentioned company apps allow you to read comics online, sometimes they have motion comics. What does your app do that their's doesn't....have crappy voice acting?

Someone going to SDCC to get an actual look at this "super" app?

[Flyinpenguin117]

1 hour ago, RictalRose0 said:

You'll see. The Lara-Su Chronicles mega multimedia empire will rise. Just as Penders predicted.

We can expect a Lara-Su Chronicles Cinematic Universe within the next 2 years.

[horridus]

1 hour ago, Apollo Chungus said:

My only guess as to why it's written like this is because Penders has only written for licensed comics, which are often on some sort of deadline that forces him to make sacrifices, dump exposition on the viewers, and make everything feel rushed. But he's not on a deadline; he's been working at his own pace for five years, so he shouldn't have to worry about establishing things out as quickly as humanly possible. He can pace this comic however he wants, and I feel like it would be best if he found a balance between the rushed nonsense seen here and the meandering timewaster that was Mobius 25YL (personally speaking, I'd much rather he have someone help out with the pacing; even if he never credited them because that's just his way, at least the final work might not be as painful to read).

In of itself, no. Comic books in the US tend to be released on a monthly basis, and writing them well is an art form unto itself. Penders issues have less to do with the medium itself and more with both his own flaws and the kind of environment he got used to working in. Penders came into the book during the days when the Sonic franchise was a red hot property, and anything with the Hedgehog's face on it would do well. He is rightly credited with taking things in a more story driven direction, and for a time he's stories were okay enough. Not horrible or anything, but decent. 

The thing of it is though, when he was working for Archie? Neither SEGA nor Archie itself really gave a lot of oversight or demanded a lot of quality control. The book sold well regardless of those issues because Sonic as a whole was enormously popular, and after SatAM was cancelled and no new major games came out for a while, the book was pretty much the only game in town, as Penders himself was once able to admit (he has long since exchanged this in favor of claiming it was all him). Compounding this was the fact that for a veeery long time the editor for the book was a guy called Justin Gabrie, who was notorious for being very hands-off and only rarely intervening in the book. 

So, end result? Penders got complacent. He spent years and years in an environment that demanded very little of him, where regardless of how poorly executed or conceived his writing and art got, it would sell well and nobody from on high would really complain. As such, there was never much need for him to improve himself, and he got used to being lavished with praise by people who didn't know any better with regards to what made storytelling good. He got lazy as a result, overly reliant on things like exposition and telling rather than showing, and most infaously, began to insert his pet political issues into the book. Most notably, it destroyed whatever sense of pacing he might have had. This is what would lead to self-indulgent tripe like the Chaos Knuckles story arc and Mobius: 25YL, as well as the abominable Image Crossover. He became a spoiled, entitled brat, and the moment things became difficult for him (a more stringent editor and SEGA exerting more influence) he left the only place that had given him a noteworthy career. 

I know all this because I have seen his sole original work, The Lost Ones. Given the chance to do things EXACTLY how he would like with his own characters and world, and he fell into every single trap that plagued his work on Archie, only without the name brand recognition and Sonic connection, the Lost Ones fizzled and died after a single issue. By this stage, these flaws are a wholly ingrained part of him and his work, and worse, he see's no desire to improve and refuses to listen to any kind of criticism from anyone. Maybe if things at Archie had been more strict he might have changed for the better, but as it stands? He's a man stuck in a time long since passed. 

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

Huh now that I think about it, the avatar does fit with the reactions to most of the art here... O_O

19 hours ago, Tylinos said:

New preview from The Storm:

There are so, so many things to comment on here, but I think I'll stick with "What in the hell is with Geoffrey and the chair thing at the bottom?"  I understand sitting backwards on a chair to be relaxed, but that last shot makes it look like he's trying to ride it like a bike.

Oh boy... Where do I begin...

The art style is pretty bad. The eyes are creepy anime like. The hair details still make the characters look weird. The shading has made Geoffrey shiny in some points. This and the expressions (good god these expressions) don't make the characters better. These expressions make them look dull and lifeless! Every panel has got the characters with half eyes (bedroom eyes?) It seems like everyone is completely bored of whatever the heck the situation is, When it's probably supposed to be that the characters were supposed to be serious on whatever the situation is.

Secondly, those backgrounds are...pretty lazy. Just searching for hurricane like photos and other wallpaper like photos and photoshopping them as a background. It would have been much better if we could have gotten a sketched with some details background instead. Of course, this takes time. (I think the first page had both of them in a space station-esque area with a bunch of holograms? I think some holograms were literally images, even that one panel from the Sonic comic.)

And there's the reused image of Remington, and...he's got eyebrows to make the design a bit more worse than usual D: I wonder why there's a black and white gradient behind that last panel where Geoffrey is sitting? I want to think it's for the speech bubbles, but then there can be another box outline instead of an oddly placed gradient??? I'm wondering how the speech bubble format will be arranged in this page.

There should've been more time spent for this page to be honest. Some parts of the background arrangement is a bit of a mess.

 

 

 

[SBR2]

19 hours ago, Adamis said:

 

It's shown on page 2 (which... he didn't show yet), there's "something" that happen and give the characters their Penders redesigns..

*Cough*Genesis Wave*Cough*