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

[King Scoopa Koopa]

48 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Hell he wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't for Sonic period. Like outside of this series all he has to his name are 3 pages of Valiant Legend of Zelda comics and drawing some Star Trek comics here and there as big noteworthy things.

Sonic is and always will be the only thing he did that was popular and that's because it was a part of one of the single most popular things of all time.

Like you could argue the same for Ian but at least he's contributed to popular comics like IDW TMNT and the MLP/Transformers crossovers and has at least once gotten to write Superman and worked with a great like Mark Waid. All-in-all Ian is way more successful than Penders can ever hope to be and he'll always be bitter and jealous of that.

He wouldn't be anywhere if he hadn't made friends with someone who had a quota to fill on a licensed book from a second-string comic publisher and possibly lied* about his credentials.

* If his son really did have the game, then why did they have to use a TV remote for a controller in Sonic Live? Sure, there are probably other explanations, but I don't know that they're any more flattering.

[SBR2]

1 hour ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

He wouldn't be anywhere if he hadn't made friends with someone who had a quota to fill on a licensed book from a second-string comic publisher and possibly lied* about his credentials.

That too. I've heard Mike Kanterovich was originally considering Tom Bervroot his co-writer on several Marvel comics but thought he'd be too high profile.

[horridus]

 

4 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Hell he wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't for Sonic period. Like outside of this series all he has to his name are 3 pages of Valiant Legend of Zelda comics and drawing some Star Trek comics here and there as big noteworthy things.

Sonic is and always will be the only thing he did that was popular and that's because it was a part of one of the single most popular things of all time.

Like you could argue the same for Ian but at least he's contributed to popular comics like IDW TMNT and the MLP/Transformers crossovers and has at least once gotten to write Superman and worked with a great like Mark Waid. All-in-all Ian is way more successful than Penders can ever hope to be and he'll always be bitter and jealous of that.

The thing with Flynn is, Flynn has never pretended otherwise, and would be perfectly fine if he was known as 'The Sonic Guy' forever. He's a fan of Sonic and has been forever, and even with all the crap he gets for it, he clearly enjoys working on Sonic. And despite the legitimate popularity he DOES enjoy for his Sonic work, he's never acted as if he's the end all, be all of Sonicdom. 

Penders by contrast is in a truly warped position of wanting to be recognized as the God-King of Sonic... while at the same time his own writing makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that he's desperate to be seen as a Big Boy Writer rather than a guy who worked on a  glorified commercial targeting 10 year olds. You read his attempts at inserting 'mature' subjects into Sonic and especially Knuckles and you're left with the realization that it wasn't done for the benefit of Sonic, but for himself- so he could pretend he was writing a 'real' book. Not that it helped, given that Penders himself is so insufferably immature and naive that he can't actually convey adult themes in a way that ANYBODY can appreciate. He's too childish to impress adults, and too complex and adult to make children understand. 

And yet despite all that, he still wants to be treated like as if he were Sonic's answer to Jack Kirby, to such an extent that he treats even the most insignificant things as threats to his 'position'. The Bunnie-Antoine Romance is HIS, Angelo DeCesare be damned. Karl Bollers was trying to undermine him for suggesting 25YL was just 'a' future instead of 'the' future. His ideas are all totally unique and unique to him regardless of how broad or generic, and any other instances of similar popping up in the franchise BEFORE his Glorious Reign are to be utterly disregarded. 

To call this man insecure doesn't even BEGIN to cover it. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

33 minutes ago, horridus said:

And yet despite all that, he still wants to be treated like as if he were Sonic's answer to Jack Kirby, to such an extent that he treats even the most insignificant things as threats to his 'position'.

THE ENEMY IS BOTH STRONG AND WEAK

[King Scoopa Koopa]

To me, the best part isn't the picture (though it is very well done, with shades of Yardley in that Sonic), but seeing how many people responding don't know who Ken Penders is or what this is all about.

Keepin' that legacy alive, Ken. Keep it alive.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

36 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

To me, the best part isn't the picture (though it is very well done, with shades of Yardley in that Sonic), but seeing how many people responding don't know who Ken Penders is or what this is all about.

Keepin' that legacy alive, Ken. Keep it alive.

And to think. This guy expects his legacy to last proudly beyond even his death with these comics.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

On 8/26/2021 at 6:56 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

You're correct, technically. But when the only characters of the bunch people might give a rat's ass about is about...three total, then it looks much more ridiculous. 

It's also been pointed out that $10,000 is about the entire budget of creating one whole issue, which would significantly eat into the comic's budget so we can get beloved comic superstars such as Dr. Quack and Dylan the Porcupine back.

Something related to this came across my timeline on Twitter, so I decided to take another look, and...

I don't think he actually specified.

No wonder so many people think it's each. "As clear as I can make it," he says.

As usual, it's clear as mud coming from him. And he seems to be in no hurry to correct anyone on it, while I'm sure he'd happily belittle anyone who asked.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 hour ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Something related to this came across my timeline on Twitter, so I decided to take another look, and...

I don't think he actually specified.

No wonder so many people think it's each. "As clear as I can make it," he says.

As usual, it's clear as mud coming from him. And he seems to be in no hurry to correct anyone on it, while I'm sure he'd happily belittle anyone who asked.

This goes back to an earlier point I made.

If he's being this vague on the matter and that's as specific as he can be, chances are, he's just waiting to see if he really can get away with charging $10,000 per character.

Like I said before, give him an inch and he's liable to take 10 miles. The minute he sees SEGA "crawling back" to him, you know he'd exploit it for all it's worth.

So yeah, for all we do know, he could really be insane enough to charge $10,000 per character. 

Lord knows, he's spiteful enough, that's for sure.

[Rabid-Coot]

I think the impliction is that its 10k for the lot for two years not that it matters either way.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Yeah, I think that tweet is part of what led to my previous statement, but if people have to seek something like that out...

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

20 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

To me, the best part isn't the picture (though it is very well done, with shades of Yardley in that Sonic), but seeing how many people responding don't know who Ken Penders is or what this is all about.

Keepin' that legacy alive, Ken. Keep it alive.

This is hilarious as well.

[Mobotropolis]

Gee, you'd think that there wasn't already a team of professional writers/artists hired to create characters more marketable that Sonic in a dress or Knuckles with a goatee the way he's talkin' 

[SkullPirateMike]

Ugh, I missed what's been happening over the last month, but reading through this latest drama it's pretty clear Penders still believes, as he always has, that Sonic Team are writing within the world he created. He's never actually seen one of the games, so he has no idea. He thinks when he took his characters and left, he opened gaping holes in Sega's continuity, and he simply can't understand that those characters were never PART of Sega's continuity. His characters were only ever relevant to a now-cancelled licensed comic that was only allowed to do everything it didn't because Sega didn't really care about it, but acknowledging that means losing the one thing that's given his name any weight.

It's really sad to watch, honestly.

[Rabbitearsblog]

18 minutes ago, SkullPirateMike said:

Ugh, I missed what's been happening over the last month, but reading through this latest drama it's pretty clear Penders still believes, as he always has, that Sonic Team are writing within the world he created. He's never actually seen one of the games, so he has no idea. He thinks when he took his characters and left, he opened gaping holes in Sega's continuity, and he simply can't understand that those characters were never PART of Sega's continuity. His characters were only ever relevant to a now-cancelled licensed comic that was only allowed to do everything it didn't because Sega didn't really care about it, but acknowledging that means losing the one thing that's given his name any weight.

It's really sad to watch, honestly.

I wonder what would happen if Penders decided to work for SEGA again.  Would he try to control the comic industry, despite the fact that SEGA has now become much stricter with their mandates then they were before?  I bet SEGA would fire Penders if he stepped out of line even once.

[Zaysho]

Not really. People who work on most comics are freelancers and Sega doesn't really care who works on the book as long as they follow their guidelines. Penders quit working with Archie because editors suggested basic things like "use the game characters" which he didn't want to do (the reasoning being that the previous editor he worked with gave him too much freedom), and Ian was already coming up in a position to be a writer, so Penders leaving just made Ian the writer instead.

[Kazhnuz]

He certainly wouldn't want to have changes in his stories, but SEGA wouldn't fire him (they can't really do that ?). But he might quit again, or stop getting gig from IDW to write for them.

And I suppose that in an extreme case where he wouldn't comply to a change to a story, the changes would be forced by the editor or someone like that ? IDK exactly on the industry works in that kind of extreme case.

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 minutes ago, Kazhnuz said:

He certainly wouldn't want to have changes in his stories, but SEGA wouldn't fire him (they can't really do that ?). But he might quit again, or stop getting gig from IDW to write for them.

And I suppose that in an extreme case where he wouldn't comply to a change to a story, the changes would be forced by the editor or someone like that ? IDK exactly on the industry works in that kind of extreme case.

Oh yeah!  I forgot that SEGA doesn't run IDW, so technically they can't fire him.  That would be up to the editors at IDW.  

[horridus]

 

And yet somehow, your output, or lack thereof, will remain unchanged. 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Man, that Hershey looks really bad to me. I know Ken's art for this series tends to fall under the Uncanny Valley a lot, but this one in particular looks really creepy because of it.

[Mr Silvia]

God their faces look cancerous... and why does ken hate pants so much? Jesus, I mean, Hershey is completely exposed there. And it looks like Geoffrey lost his shorts from his original TLSC artwork. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

I guess it might be kind of ironic that this Hershey reminds me of the movie, Cats.

You know, the same Cats that got trounced by Sonic at the box office?

[Zonic 2099]

No, I think that is your problem.
Nobody is going to license Scourge the evil counterpart to {REDACTED} the {REDACTED} and waste their time making a new design for this character for licensed use when they can just make a new character from said new design.

I mean 10K for a bunch of former Sonic characters that will have to be redesigned from the ground up or just make new legally distinct characters... I think it's obvious which options has the better benefits.

[SkullPirateMike]

God, I keep thinking about this. I've been a Sonic fan since 1991, played every game except Boom and Free Riders, watched every episode of all the shows... but in Ken's paragraph of characters he's opening up licensing rights for, I've heard of exactly two of them. Geoffrey and Scourge. And I only know about them from the internet. It really hammers home how niche his stuff is, and how oblivious to that he is. Those comics were only available in North America. By the time comic stores here in the UK started importing them, his characters were already long dead, and with each passing year the portion of the fanbase who remember them gets smaller.

Back around when Ken blocked me (for pointing out the UK comics did technologically-advanced echidnas years before he did), he kept saying he was able to sue Sega for Shade and the Nocturnus Clan because they were clearly derivative of his characters, but... does he really not realise that argument works against him, too? He's really here arguing that Evil Sonic isn't derivative of Sonic in any way? It's baffling.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

27 minutes ago, Zonic 2099 said:

No, I think that is your problem.
Nobody is going to license Scourge the evil counterpart to {REDACTED} the {REDACTED} and waste their time making a new design for this character for licensed use when they can just make a new character from said new design.

Hell, depending on how the Imposters saga goes, we may get an even better replacement outside the bounds of Kenny Boy's copyright wonderworld. 

[SkullPirateMike]

11 minutes ago, Zonic 2099 said:

No, I think that is your problem.

It's sure as hell gonna be his problem when somebody he took 10 grand from sues him to cover the costs of Sega taking them to the cleaners for their Green Sonic comic.