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


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3 hours ago, antyep said:

I remember reading that Knuckles Chaotix book. His work there was...descent. It's mind-blowing how his Sonic-work can go from that to....this!!! It just proves he doesn't belong in Sonic; not now, not then

For now I assume he fudged up this one out of spite, as a "take that" to Izuka and Archie. 

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3 hours ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

Or is this his Blue spined edgeymurawhatever he calls it for Lara-Su Chronicles?

The more I look at this picture, the more this makes sense - I mean, we know he can draw Sonic to a better degree than this normally, and this does have some LSC-ish traits (huge glassy eyes, oddly proportioned 'realistic' body, face half toon, half human-like)...

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9 minutes ago, Nestor said:

The more I look at this picture, the more this makes sense - I mean, we know he can draw Sonic to a better degree than this normally, and this does have some LSC-ish traits (huge glassy eyes, oddly proportioned 'realistic' body, face half toon, half human-like)...

Nah, if Penders has been consistent about anything regarding the aesthetic of his project it's that everyone has more humanlike proportions now. This... abomination... is still too toon-y to properly be the 'Blue-Quilled Erinacinae' he mentioned. 

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4 hours ago, Tatters said:

Wow, for the first time, I don't know what to feel when I look at it.

 

Cold, is an acceptable feeling when looking at that.

 

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I have a question for everybody here-- we all know that the LSC is bad, but if you suddenly acquired the rights to it and had awesome comic book writing skills, what would you change about the LSC to make it better? (I know the obvious answer is "everything" or "change its position so that it now occupies the bottom of a trash can"-- but please try to put more thought into your response. Think about what's really the issues with the LSC and come up with feasible solutions.)

For the designs, I would not give the characters loincloths because it makes scenes with the characters very awkward and also objectifies the characters. I'd let them have unique space suits instead to go along with the space theme. Or, if there's a situation where it makes more sense for a character to have ragged, sparse clothing, I'd model it after Sticks the Badger's design. That is to say, it looks like something that was cobbled together by whatever the character could scavenge, but its also tasteful and not objectifying. I'd also not give the characters realistic proportions-- because they're surreal cartoon anthros and that's nothing to be ashamed of. I might change the proportions, but not to realistic ones (for example, with faces, I'm fond of small pupils, varied noses, and expressive, not strictly on model, mouths -- but others may have different ideas on how they'd prefer to make redesigns). I might also change the characters species in order to sever the ties with Sonic-- probably  Since I'm not very good at shading, I'd heavily stylize the art so that it wouldn't need a lot of shading. Or y'know, just learn to shade before doing any work. Whatever worked best for my situation. However, if I were an awesome comic book artist, then presumably I could shade just fine and would model it after the post-Super Genesis Wave style.

As for the story, I would cut the cord with Sonic. Change the names to something that isn't Sonic-y and/or laughable (for example, instead of K'nox, I'd call the character Starsoarer or something-- ok, I'm not actually very good at names but at least its better than K'nox). The Super Genesis Wave never happened in my interpretation of the LSC (implied or otherwise) and they are instead space adventurers who face complicated problems. Which is quite similar to the original concept, because like most Penders works, the actual idea behind it isn't bad but rather the execution. I'd also gray up Julie-Su and the other villains of the comic-- they have good intentions, but their methods are controversial. Or they are well aware that they're bad, but pragmatic enough to work for good when it suits their goals and/or have a valid reason to do what they do even if they know its not morally right. Pretty much anything but the Snidely Whiplash types of villains that are in the LSC, because I don't want to claim complexity where none exists. Same for the heroes. Sure the Lara-Su and K'nox equivalents would be firmly on the side of good, but they'd frequently be faced with difficult situations (for example, if they should intervene in a conflict or if their intervening would only make the situation worse). Also action. Not necessarily from enemies, but from the environment. Space is a dangerous place, after all. An asteroid belt could be lethal. Or its possible that they crash land from a planet abandoned because of nuclear disaster and their suits only protect them from the intense radiation for a limited amount of time and the ship's only surviving radiation deflector and neutralizer can only run so long before overheating and igniting the engine-- meaning that they have to resource-manage to survive, repair their ship, and then remove the dangerous radiation (this would be a good place for future-y tech. 

As for nerdy references, yes, they'd be there. I'd definitely have four Arwing-like ships in the occasional background, or some Luma-like aliens. (No Sonic references though, as I would divorce Sonic entirely with my interpretation of the LSC). However, they wouldn't overshadow the work to the point where it seems like a knockoff. The LSC that I would write could stand on its own, but has some references to make nerds smile.

 

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9 hours ago, chaosjam said:

The savior of Sonic everyone...yeesh

You know what freaks me out the most about this image?

It's the eyebrows. They're drawn to the point causing the head to sort of look like a mask/helmet for Sonic, which isn't supposed to be that way. O_O;

Some artists back in the Archie Sonic comic days would draw just a line that doesn't connect with the other for the eyebrows.

Not to mention that the shading and lines on the arms (and legs) makes it look like Sonic has muscles.

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His face looks amazingly flat. Like, there's an inherent flatness to pictures like this due to their being two-dimensional, yet even with shading, this manages to look even flatter.

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Well, that's a relief, I guess.

That it's not Son'k or whatever, I mean. The leg thing sucks.

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1 minute ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Well, that's a relief, I guess.

That it's not Son'k or whatever, I mean. The leg thing sucks.

Give it time. Sooner or later So'nix or whatevs will blight the eyes of everyone unfortunate it enough to witness it, much like this picture has done. 

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See, I was sort of hoping we'd be done with that by now, thanks to this. Now we're back to waiting for Christmas, except all the chocolate is poop and all the presents are kicks in the junk.

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38 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

See, I was sort of hoping we'd be done with that by now, thanks to this. Now we're back to waiting for Christmas, except all the chocolate is poop and all the presents are kicks in the junk.

If you're talking about when his comic would come, then his presents are usually an IOU.

Seriously, I think he knows his comic won't sell unless he gets a main Sonic character like Knuckles. I believe he even once admit he wanted the rights to use Knuckles.

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1 hour ago, antyep said:

If you're talking about when his comic would come, then his presents are usually an IOU.

Seriously, I think he knows his comic won't sell unless he gets a main Sonic character like Knuckles. I believe he even once admit he wanted the rights to use Knuckles.

He can deny his attachment to the Sonic series as much as he wants but he's never been good at hiding how crucial he actually believes it to be in his heart.

Or his twitter posts.

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Something worth noting is that, as off-model as the uncanny valley Sonic drawing is, and even with literally hundreds of replies worth of criticism and rejection on it, it's still netted him nearly 400 Likes as of now, which may actually be the most Likes he's ever received on a tweet by a wide margin.  For comparison, his actually-legitimately-decent drawing of Captain America from the other day only has 9 Likes.

Regardless of the quality, people are going to pay attention to him when he puts up Sonic-related work.  And Ken isn't going to just ignore that.  You can be fairly confident he's going to try and use this info to his advantage going forward.

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9 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

Something worth noting is that, as off-model as the uncanny valley Sonic drawing is, and even with literally hundreds of replies worth of criticism and rejection on it, it's still netted him nearly 400 Likes as of now, which may actually be the most Likes he's ever received on a tweet by a wide margin.  For comparison, his actually-legitimately-decent drawing of Captain America from the other day only has 9 Likes.

Regardless of the quality, people are going to pay attention to him when he puts up Sonic-related work.  And Ken isn't going to just ignore that.  You can be fairly confident he's going to try and use this info to his advantage going forward.

This is practically where the outrageous "I'm the savior of Sonic" came from. Despite the critical backlash in the dark ages of the comics, people came just for Sonic. Not because of Penders work, but for Sonic. It's kinda the same with the games; no matter the many disappointing games, people will come for Sonic. Penders just seems to refuse to accept that.

But it's sad. I see more passion in his life-like work of superheroes and other people than Sonic, and he doesn't get much recognition in that or his own work such as Lost Ones (or whatever it's called. Never mind it sucks. He should probably stick with pencil n inking or just the guy who comes up with ideas.)

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13 minutes ago, antyep said:

This is practically where the outrageous "I'm the savior of Sonic" came from. Despite the critical backlash in the dark ages of the comics, people came just for Sonic. Not because of Penders work, but for Sonic. It's kinda the same with the games; no matter the many disappointing games, people will come for Sonic. Penders just seems to refuse to accept that.

But it's sad. I see more passion in his life-like work of superheroes and other people than Sonic, and he doesn't get much recognition in that or his own work such as Lost Ones (or whatever it's called. Never mind it sucks. He should probably stick with pencil n inking or just the guy who comes up with ideas.)

Yea as a kid you didn't care who was writiting.  You just saw Sonic, Tails & The Freedom Fighters on the cover & nabbed it!

Penders is by no means the savior of anything.  He was just one of many writers & artists that worked on the book.  He may have contributed a verse but he didn't write the whole dang song!

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2 hours ago, Tylinos said:

Regardless of the quality, people are going to pay attention to him when he puts up Sonic-related work.  And Ken isn't going to just ignore that.  You can be fairly confident he's going to try and use this info to his advantage going forward.

Indeed. The fine advantage of knowing that no matter what he does, the only thing that gives him any kind of popularity has been and always will be Sonic, and if that means becoming a sideshow attraction who can't even manage to draw the character decently despite YEARS of exposure, then so be it. 

This seems less like an advantage he will press and more like a confirmation that despite his best efforts, he can't escape the shadow of Sonic. It's the Sonic stuff that sells big at these events (which he paid Archie to get), not his LSC products, and it's the terrible Sonic drawing that gets a lot of likes and comments, even though most of them are negative. 

This feels less like something he can use to his advantage and verification that he really doesn't have anything else going for him. 

 

1 hour ago, SonicComicFanboy said:

Yea as a kid you didn't care who was writiting.  You just saw Sonic, Tails & The Freedom Fighters on the cover & nabbed it!

Penders is by no means the savior of anything.  He was just one of many writers & artists that worked on the book.  He may have contributed a verse but he didn't write the whole dang song!

It's particularly loathesome, as Penders has done things like try and claim credit for the BUnnie and Antoine ship, which was started by Angelo DeCesare, while at the same time dismissing the man's work as 'furry Archie' within the same breath as admitting he never actually read any of DeCesare's stories (a particularly astounding accusation given what his own work would later become on the book). He's careful to bring up Gallagher and Bollers these days, but he never elaborates on what he liked about their work or why they were important- he paid so little attention to Gallagher's work that he repeated the more-than-overused-by-then 'Sonic is Framed' plot point in Endgame despite Gallagher doing likewise mere months earlier, and he continues to deny his past feud with Bollers despite having accused the man of trying to undermine him and blatantly admitting that his goal in taking over afterward was to reverse things to being like how they were around the time he left. 

It's pretty astounding that Penders has gotten to the point where it's not enough that he was once the most prolific writer for Sonic, but that he MUST be regarded as THE best, most daring, most innovative writer EVAR for the book. 

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I absent mindedly scrolled down the page as soon as it loaded without reading anything and shat my pants.

Thanks for that.

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