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

[RedFox99]

You know, now that I think about, Ken is similar to Bojack Horseman: both want to live in the glory days that have past  both are selfish, and both tend to put others down needlessly. The only different is that Bojack is trying to be a better person.

[QuantumEdge]

46 minutes ago, horridus said:

I'd pay to see that, both because I think its a good idea, and because I just know Penders would throw a fit over post-Reboot, Flynn penned stuff getting used for the films rather than his own work, which is the only work he views as worthwhile and the only work he WANTS to be adapted whenever he brings up the comics.

It'd be a thing of joy to witness. 

The best part is he never got so egocentric to mention adapting only his work.  It's a hugely long shot, I know, but it would be a moment of poetic irony to see IDW and Flynn announce plans to work closely with Paramount on developing the story that spins off of the recent comic endeavours, or IDW's very own.  And, at the risk of making this post a tad too mean spirited, I can't help but think Penders would scramble for a means of taking legal action on all parties involved with it.

[DabigRG]

On 10/2/2017 at 1:23 AM, horridus said:

Ten years spent working as a professional on a book, and this is what it all amounts to. Granted, the CGI image wasn't made by him, but the design is still disparate to what all the other ones are, so the point remains. 

Whether you mean Taelor or Xero, this holds true, as does the fact that it's clear that none of the figures in the last picture were drawn, colored and shaded the same way. They're all cut and paste jobs, and as such, there is no consistency between any of them. NONE of them look like they belong in the same picture, because ultimately... they do not. 

 

Oh, Xero is it? Okay, yes that's who I was referring to.

[Dr. Detective]

6 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Know what? I actually agree with him. They should use the comics as a source.

I would love to see the stuff we spent the last 40 issues or so seeing brought to life on the big screen. Maybe Ian could be a consultant?

They do that and Ken's response would be, "Now if only they had chosen the correct run of comics to choose from".

 

[CleverSonicUsername]

I still love how he pitched a Knuckles movie as part of a settlement and acts like SEGA was turning their back on a hot deal and profits untold by refusing to go along with it. There's a certain amount of audacity and tone deafness there, like he just bit the hand that feeds then expects to strong-arm them into giving him more work, then acts so stuck up when their response is to pass.

I'd have to imagine SEGA took one look at his pedigree and figured it would be devaluing their brand to let him helm anything, too.

Then again they let Boom happen so what do I know.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

7 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

They do that and Ken's response would be, "Now if only they had chosen the correct run of comics to choose from".

 

"We took your advice, but you weren't exactly being specific there. We can't very well read your mind, Ken."

[horridus]

9 hours ago, CleverSonicUsername said:

I still love how he pitched a Knuckles movie as part of a settlement and acts like SEGA was turning their back on a hot deal and profits untold by refusing to go along with it. There's a certain amount of audacity and tone deafness there, like he just bit the hand that feeds then expects to strong-arm them into giving him more work, then acts so stuck up when their response is to pass.

I'd have to imagine SEGA took one look at his pedigree and figured it would be devaluing their brand to let him helm anything, too.

Then again they let Boom happen so what do I know.

Penders operates on this weird notion that not only are his ideas major money generators (they are not), but that companies and the people who run them are so completely driven by profit that they'd be willing to ignore anything provided 'the right deal' came along. It's an overly clinical and simplisitic view of how businesses operate, working under the assumption that people are robots driven by a single goal. It is at once incredibly cynical and yet at the same time staggeringly naive, and it leads him to operate under the delusion that SEGA would ever want anything to do with him again after he tried to sue them. To say nothing of being completely laden with a very special kind of hubris.

And you know, Boom might not have been the best of ideas, but the show is working out for them pretty nicely, and its still an idea that sprang from SEGA itself. Not from a freelancer who worked on a book they don't really need who, in the process of suing them, tried to extract a *Knuckles* movie they never wanted to make out of them. 

[Sidronas]

On 04/10/2017 at 5:09 AM, horridus said:

I think it has less to do with outside intervention and more with a combination of him being disinterested in actually trying anything with Sonic as well as being too incompetent a writer to actually *portray* what he claims he thought Sonic was like. This is a guy who legitimately thinks he wrote an ambiguous situation with the Brotherhood and that his work was Uber-Feminist even as he stripped Sally of her agency and concocted Julie-Su purely under the optic of being Knuckles' love interest. Penders is *dreadful* at conveying things effectively through writing, relying on exposition and largely assuming that because HE thinks he did a good job, other people see it that way. Remember his attempts to handle political stuff?

I'm looking for it, 'cause I SWEAR he mentioned Sonic X being one of the factors involved in his Sonic film going nowhere. It struck me because when taken alongside his comments about Sonic X being a failure, it comes off as a massive case of sour grapes... then again, anything game based succeeding over any of his projects would provoke similar. 

Aand yeah, you pretty much summed it up- in fact, the reason he latched onto Knuckles was because Knuckles was SUCH a cipher at the time, he could do anything he wanted with the guy. Sonic by contrast already had been written for via the earlier issues and the cartoons, and that meant less leg-room for Penders to hijack things towards his own ends. Hence why it becomes clear that he really wanted Knuckles to be the setting's main hero rather than Sonic... 

I think he just tries too hard or overdoes it that it seems to end up showing the opposite or artificial

15 hours ago, horridus said:

Penders operates on this weird notion that not only are his ideas major money generators (they are not), but that companies and the people who run them are so completely driven by profit that they'd be willing to ignore anything provided 'the right deal' came along. It's an overly clinical and simplisitic view of how businesses operate, working under the assumption that people are robots driven by a single goal. It is at once incredibly cynical and yet at the same time staggeringly naive, and it leads him to operate under the delusion that SEGA would ever want anything to do with him again after he tried to sue them. To say nothing of being completely laden with a very special kind of hubris.

And you know, Boom might not have been the best of ideas, but the show is working out for them pretty nicely, and its still an idea that sprang from SEGA itself. Not from a freelancer who worked on a book they don't really need who, in the process of suing them, tried to extract a *Knuckles* movie they never wanted to make out of them. 

I get that feeling too, whenever he says something about how the comic media is best for the Sonic Moive (not the games or the cartoon) the sonic comics during his time.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

I mean, Boom was a better idea than plenty of things. It's not tied to any pre-existing storyline, and it's a self-contained episodic comedy run on a kid's TV network. The only real shaky thing about it was the changing of character designs and world to fit a more general template. It fits the biggest consumer base Sonic has better than pretty much any idea could. And it's certainly better than a theatrical film adaptation of an American hack writer's heavily outdated and misinformed mediocre interpretation of an already not-brilliantly written side character in a Japanese series.

I kind of like to think of Penders's stuff as similar to Dragon Ball GT. Some interesting concepts and ideas that were completely mismanaged into a boring mess of contrivances and melodrama. Except unlike GT, Penders's writing doesn't have an actually-good ending, and unlike the Sonic comics, Dragon Ball GT has yet to be readapted into a halfway-decent plot thread by a writer who actually knows what he's doing.

[Sidronas]

On 05/10/2017 at 6:16 PM, Shaddy the guy said:

I mean, Boom was a better idea than plenty of things. It's not tied to any pre-existing storyline, and it's a self-contained episodic comedy run on a kid's TV network. The only real shaky thing about it was the changing of character designs and world to fit a more general template. It fits the biggest consumer base Sonic has better than pretty much any idea could. And it's certainly better than a theatrical film adaptation of an American hack writer's heavily outdated and misinformed mediocre interpretation of an already not-brilliantly written side character in a Japanese series.

I kind of like to think of Penders's stuff as similar to Dragon Ball GT. Some interesting concepts and ideas that were completely mismanaged into a boring mess of contrivances and melodrama. Except unlike GT, Penders's writing doesn't have an actually-good ending, and unlike the Sonic comics, Dragon Ball GT has yet to be readapted into a halfway-decent plot thread by a writer who actually knows what he's doing.

Dragon Ball GT wasn't bad, unlike Pender's stories it was enjoyable

[Zaysho]

On 10/4/2017 at 12:49 PM, horridus said:

Penders operates on this weird notion that not only are his ideas major money generators (they are not), but that companies and the people who run them are so completely driven by profit that they'd be willing to ignore anything provided 'the right deal' came along. It's an overly clinical and simplisitic view of how businesses operate, working under the assumption that people are robots driven by a single goal. It is at once incredibly cynical and yet at the same time staggeringly naive, and it leads him to operate under the delusion that SEGA would ever want anything to do with him again after he tried to sue them. To say nothing of being completely laden with a very special kind of hubris.

It makes the whole thing with Ben Hurst all the more infuriating when he not only tossed him under the bus to get his foot in the door, he would continue to hammer away that Hurst, someone who worked in the animation industry, had no business acumen or knowledge of the industry well after he had passed away.

[Sidronas]

And yet Ken constantly says that he doesn't wish to speak ill of the dead, and he does =(

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Of course, praise from him would be like speaking ill from anyone else anyway, so...

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I wonder what Ken Penders thinks about Ian Flynn being the first head writer for IDW Sonic.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

25 minutes ago, DaddlerTheDalek said:

I wonder what Ken Penders thinks about Ian Flynn being the first head writer for IDW Sonic.

I imagine jealousy and envy mixed with contempt.

[RetroRy]

43 minutes ago, DaddlerTheDalek said:

I wonder what Ken Penders thinks about Ian Flynn being the first head writer for IDW Sonic.

I’m shocked he has responded yet. More than likely he will give a half ass congrats then ramble off why IDW is a horrible publisher and that “someone” else would do better.

Also he will mention that he will make sure to offer them the chance to use his characters, pretend that he made the offer and lie that they refused and make them sound like the bad guy. 

Also again talk about that stupid app for a comic that hasn’t been fully written yet. 

[horridus]

Yeah, that about sums it up nicely. Passive aggressive sniping at Flynn is also all but ensured. By this point it's not really matter of 'what he'll say', just when he'll say it. Though really we should edge away from this, at least until SOMETHING is actually said. Don't wanna get off topic now, do we?

[DoubleXXCross]

Connected to his complaints that the movie will be based on the games and not the comics.

I'm sensing some kind of cognitive disconnect over the whole thing.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I was about to bring up the fact the best burn towards Ken ever had to be the sheer fact Aaron and the group said they have no idea who Penders is. Some people might not get why, but considering how much of an ego the man has and how much he pretends to be a big-shot that's always on SEGA's radar, it's the biggest fuck you he could be given offically by them. 

And I love how he's trying to deny the claims despite the fact it literally came directly from SEGA's PR man and several other SEGA members.

[horridus]

Technically he is correct- they likely do 'know' who he is. Thing is though, its still pretty much a declaration of his status as persona non-grata. Nothing he did in the past means anything to them now, and this pretty much officiates it. Likewise, his attempted snipe at the games crucially ignores the fact that whatever comes will still be far more game influenced, as it was with the Pre-Reboot continuity. 

So yeah, he's grasping at straws and is likely going to continue doing so. And this is as far as our commentary on the matter should go, lest this get out of hand or divert too far away from the purview of this thread. 

[RetroRy]

Finally some good news! ?

[horridus]

Indeedy. Now if only he could stop riding SEGA's coattails and divest himself of the Sonic connection entirely... which, given that he intends to use an actual Sonic comic story (The DIe Is Cast), seems tragically unlikely. 

Also...

1 hour ago, DoubleXXCross said:

Connected to his complaints that the movie will be based on the games and not the comics.

I'm sensing some kind of cognitive disconnect over the whole thing.

Oh, this is hardly the first instance of cognitive dissonance in Penders. He likes to claim that the niche Archie Comics are more widespread and influential on the fanbase than the games themselves. He likes to talk about creator's rights, but doesn't actually respect the wishes of a copyright holder when its inconvenient towards him, and that's without getting into how many times he lifts stuff from other franchises for his own work or the time he stole from a fan of his to make his series. He also holds a peculiar opinion that the Original Creator of a work deserves credit and accolades for EVERYTHING good about it regardless of their actual role in things (he thinks Stan Lee is more worthy of praise than Miller for Daredevil, despite Daredevil only really being a thing thanks to Miller), but when it comes to his own work in Sonic he feels he is far more deserving than the actual creators of the franchise. On and on it goes. Frankly, anything that inconveniences the narrative he's made for himself doesn't matter, and criticisms he levels against others can never apply to him. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 hour ago, DoubleXXCross said:

Connected to his complaints that the movie will be based on the games and not the comics.

I'm sensing some kind of cognitive disconnect over the whole thing.

This would frankly be kind of insulting, if I were Vipere. I'm pretty sure no one, including them, thought they meant it literally, yet that's how he responds to it.

And who's to say the universe will be any more separate from the games than the last time they had to throw the bath water out with the baby?

[Forte-Metallix]

1 hour ago, DoubleXXCross said:

 

He might as well be selling bridges, 'cause he ain't selling any Lara-Su crap any time soon. Then again, given how he treats his cohorts, he probably wants to sell bridges for the same reason as Eggman:

 

Spoiler

 

[Razule]

Is it even possible Aaron Webber doesn't know who Ken Penders is?