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

[King Scoopa Koopa]

It's like if Penders built homes for people in a valley who had no shelter, then blew up the dam keeping the torrent of water back because someone came along after him and reinforced the structures a bit.

Like, yeah, it was a good thing you did, but...

44 minutes ago, horridus said:

His mythology was bloated and nonsensical, and it's clear over time he saw the book less as its own thing and more of a vehicle for his own ideas that he couldn't get made anywhere else, IE the Knuckles books.

I'll never get over how long the "Zoot Chute" was a thing, never mind one we were supposed to take... seriously?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Honestly, at best, Penders can be credited for the creation of characters, not even really their own quality.

Hell, some of "his" characters practically became different characters with better development, so there's no telling if other writers would've just made better characters off the bat.

[SkullPirateMike]

5 hours ago, Leebo4 said:

most comic writers back then working on a tie in comic especially a video game one wouldn’t have put in the effort he did in trying to expand the universe

I mean, you say that, but most comics from the time were the same. The UK Sonic comic had just as fleshed-out a universe, but they actually fleshed it out by building on stuff from the games, while Penders mostly did it by copying from the series he actually wanted to be writing for, like Superman and Star Trek.

[Leebo4]

1 hour ago, SkullPirateMike said:

I mean, you say that, but most comics from the time were the same. The UK Sonic comic had just as fleshed-out a universe, but they actually fleshed it out by building on stuff from the games, while Penders mostly did it by copying from the series he actually wanted to be writing for, like Superman and Star Trek.

Not like he could have known what fleetway as doing plus despite what he may have claimed about the brotherhood cast; being inspired by is not the same as copying

[SkullPirateMike]

Just now, Leebo4 said:

Not like he could have known what fleetway as doing plus despite what he may have claimed about the brotherhood cast; being inspired by is not the same as copying

Never said he copied Fleetway. I just pointed them out as an example of other licensed video game comics also building a fleshed-out world. He wasn't doing anything uinque is all.

I said he copied Superman and Star Trek, because he did. His stuff was way more than just inspired by them, most of the time he really just changed the names and plugged them into Sonic. His Echidnas are Kryptonians, his Anti-Mobius was Star Trek's Mirror Universe, his Twilight Zone was Superman's Phantom Zone... He pretends he created all this stuff, but none of them have any unique qualities.

[horridus]

1 hour ago, SkullPirateMike said:

Never said he copied Fleetway. I just pointed them out as an example of other licensed video game comics also building a fleshed-out world. He wasn't doing anything uinque is all.

I said he copied Superman and Star Trek, because he did. His stuff was way more than just inspired by them, most of the time he really just changed the names and plugged them into Sonic. His Echidnas are Kryptonians, his Anti-Mobius was Star Trek's Mirror Universe, his Twilight Zone was Superman's Phantom Zone... He pretends he created all this stuff, but none of them have any unique qualities.

For real. The origin of Angel Island can be summed up as 'What if the Kryptonian Government listened to Jor-El', right down to the Echidna Scientist Who Discovered The Peril being Jor-Dann. Hell, Knuckles' mom shares the same name as Superman's birth mother, and her surname of 'Le' is 'El' spelled backwards, with the naming convention itself blatantly lifted from the Kryptonians. 

Oh, and then there's this- 

There's a line between homage, reference, and ripping off. Penders crossed that line a long time ago- so much of his worldbuilding is blatantly derivative it ain't even funny. And this is just stuff I can remember off the top of my head. 

[CertifiedNobody]

26 minutes ago, horridus said:

For real. The origin of Angel Island can be summed up as 'What if the Kryptonian Government listened to Jor-El', right down to the Echidna Scientist Who Discovered The Peril being Jor-Dann. Hell, Knuckles' mom shares the same name as Superman's birth mother, and her surname of 'Le' is 'El' spelled backwards, with the naming convention itself blatantly lifted from the Kryptonians. 

Oh, and then there's this- 

There's a line between homage, reference, and ripping off. Penders crossed that line a long time ago- so much of his worldbuilding is blatantly derivative it ain't even funny. And this is just stuff I can remember off the top of my head. 

To be fair... This is in the same series that has "Not Super Saiyan" forms, Eggman's superweapon a.k.a "the Death Star but with an Eggman face on it", and a character who is literally described in his concept art as Future Trunks.

Borderline ripoffs aren't really anything knew to the series. That doesn't justify what Penders does, but it's not as egregious as it seems.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

2 hours ago, Leebo4 said:

being inspired by is not the same as copying

Yet ironically, he can't seem to discern the difference.

[CertifiedNobody]

2 hours ago, SkullPirateMike said:

Never said he copied Fleetway. I just pointed them out as an example of other licensed video game comics also building a fleshed-out world. He wasn't doing anything uinque is all.

I said he copied Superman and Star Trek, because he did. His stuff was way more than just inspired by them, most of the time he really just changed the names and plugged them into Sonic. His Echidnas are Kryptonians, his Anti-Mobius was Star Trek's Mirror Universe, his Twilight Zone was Superman's Phantom Zone... He pretends he created all this stuff, but none of them have any unique qualities.

I never really noticed the similarities until now, then again I don't read either of those two.

[SkullPirateMike]

15 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

To be fair... This is in the same series that has "Not Super Saiyan" forms, Eggman's superweapon a.k.a "the Death Star but with an Eggman face on it", and a character who is literally described in his concept art as Future Trunks.

Borderline ripoffs aren't really anything knew to the series. That doesn't justify what Penders does, but it's not as egregious as it seems.

Difference being, though... Sonic Team were never pretending any of those things were deep, unique worldbuilding, and they never sued anyone for ownership of those concepts.

[horridus]

1 hour ago, CertifiedNobody said:

To be fair... This is in the same series that has "Not Super Saiyan" forms, Eggman's superweapon a.k.a "the Death Star but with an Eggman face on it", and a character who is literally described in his concept art as Future Trunks.

Borderline ripoffs aren't really anything knew to the series. That doesn't justify what Penders does, but it's not as egregious as it seems.

The thing of it is, those things weren't inserted because the makers of Sonic wanted to do something else- Super Sonic was a power up gimmick and the Death Egg a silly parody, meant for a Silly Video Game Series, and while they ARE clearly riffs on pre-existing things, there's enough going on with them that you can see them as homages rather than substitutions. Super Forms in Sonic are only possible via Chaos Emeralds, and the Death Egg isn't the same kind of planet destroying superweapon the Death Star is, and both are basically grandfather'd in by deign of the fact that they were always, as said, just Silly Little Spoofs.

Likewise, while Silver was directly compared to Trunks, his actual schtick is more akin to Kyle Reese of the Terminator, what with the whole 'Time Traveler Going To The Past To Prevent A Bad Future' thing being a trope in of itself, one that influenced Trunks as well. Barring SEGA deciding to reveal that Silver is, somehow, the child/descendant of a pair of existing Sonic characters, there's not enough to Silver beyond being a Time Traveller from a Bad Future to veer into ripoff territory. 

If SEGA had revealed that Sonic was actually an alien from a planet of Super Fast hedgehogs, or had it such that Eggman was secretly his father? Then yeah, they'd be every bit as guilty as Penders is. 

The problem with Penders is that he is far too obvious with his 'influences', and simultaneously invites people to make the comparisons with his actions and general bellyaching about the originality and depth of his own work. His references, as I said, wind up being more like substitutions, and yet he sincerely wants to be treated as a wholly original creative while others doing anything even VAGUELY similar to his work is deserving of scorn. Even before this lawsuit nonsense he accused Flynn of theft because he had Bunnie and Antoine getting married, because according to Penders that's an idea that ONLY he could have. 

Heck, let's take another look at Penders' 'references' just to be clear- 

Yep. It ain't just Superman he's lifting! 

But why limit ourselves to Knuckles, when we also have Sonic stuff! Behold- a speech from the Great War. 

Now, let us compare and contrast THIS speech, from Star Trek: First Contact-

So yeah, in short? Even with the stuff already in Sonic, what Penders' does is lazy and, in the face of his attempts to paint himself as some kind of master storyteller, inexcusable. There's nothing wrong with influences, but when it's done like THIS, then it becomes an issue. ESPECIALLY in the face of Penders taking HIS work deadly serious and demanding others do so as well. 

In the face of all this, Penders absolutely deserves to be taken to the task for the content of his work, and to be called out for his lazy, hack 'creativity' in the face of his egotism and overinflated opinion of the creative values of his own work. 

[SkullPirateMike]

50 minutes ago, horridus said:

But why limit ourselves to Knuckles, when we also have Sonic stuff! Behold- a speech from the Great War. 

Now, let us compare and contrast THIS speech, from Star Trek: First Contact-

 

God, this just reminded me of how he stole that poem about the Holocaust, changed the names of oppressed groups to the names of animals, didn't credit the actual writer, and then got mad when people called him out on it. Guy's a hack. Pretty much any time any of characters says anything 'deep', it turns out it's because he just stole it wholesale from somewhere else. Like this quote he attributes to Spectre, but was actually just an FDR quote, not even paraphrased.

[horridus]

11 minutes ago, SkullPirateMike said:

God, this just reminded me of how he stole that poem about the Holocaust, changed the names of oppressed groups to the names of animals, didn't credit the actual writer, and then got mad when people called him out on it. Guy's a hack. Pretty much any time any of characters says anything 'deep', it turns out it's because he just stole it wholesale from somewhere else. Like this quote he attributes to Spectre, but was actually just an FDR quote, not even paraphrased.

You know the 'best' thing about the Holocaust Poem theft? It doesn't even make sense in-universe. Robotnik's takeover was nothing like Hitler's- he never targeted specific Mobians, he just grabbed whoever he could and fed them through the roboticizer, and likewise, no Echidna lived among other Mobians at the time of the coup. Penders stole that poem in order to describe events that couldn't possibly happen in the comic. 

And heck, the FDR thing reveals another problem of his- he thinks words alone make something significant, but he doesn't understand the part context plays. That speech spoken by FDR was spoken during a time of economic uncertainty and fear, and was his promise to the American people to trust in him to get them out of the Great Depresson. Turning into a war speech by Spectre misses the point, and the word selection becomes baffling since this is meant to be a far more desperate situation than the one that speech actually addresses. In fact you can see it in that stolen Trek speech as well- Picard's speech works because we have witnessed his personal suffering at the hands of the Borg and how that is affecting him, and it is much more powerful for it. We have not actually seen things built up the same way with regards to the Great War and King Acorn, and so, the power is lost. 

Guy steals stuff, and isn't even insightful enough to understand WHY they're appealing, just that they 'are'. It's the icing on top of the plagiarized cake. 

[Dr. Detective]

I can't imagine the speech theft being more damning proof that the man himself truly has nothing to say.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Good lord, I did not know his plagiarism ran that deep...

The Echidna statues holding Angel Island and the Holocaust poem were one thing, but now he’s ripping off actual quotes from other comics.

[Mega]

Just wanna add that Penders sabotaged Ben Hurst's attempts to get a SatAM finale movie made and continued to talk smack about him long after his death.

Ken likes to toot his own horn without ever giving credit to the show that gave him a foundation to make the comics more serious.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

7 hours ago, horridus said:

You know the 'best' thing about the Holocaust Poem theft? It doesn't even make sense in-universe. Robotnik's takeover was nothing like Hitler's- he never targeted specific Mobians, he just grabbed whoever he could and fed them through the roboticizer, and likewise, no Echidna lived among other Mobians at the time of the coup. Penders stole that poem in order to describe events that couldn't possibly happen in the comic.

Penders's politics are completely incoherent. He seems to think that all bad guys have interchangeable ideologies. Eggman is a tyrant, but he's at-best a radical authoritarian transhumanist capitalist -- he's not a fascist, at least not in terms of fascism as a system of beliefs. That very dumb "mobians/robians are oppressed by humans" sideplot was more Bollers' fair, and even that was Eggman playing off other people's prejudices. But the thing is, if you take any politician or businessman that has ridden a wave of fascist sympathy to grab power and ram through policies and lobbying that makes them rich, there's no fundamental difference between fascism and simply racist, authoritarian, nationalist capitalism. Which I'm willing to accept, but we know Penders wouldn't, he hates leftists more than conservatives.

Of course, he also created the Dingo army, which was more traditional in their racial supremacist rhetoric over echidnas, but oops! Ken Penders makes the rise of this group come as a natural extension of the Dingo civil rights movement. He paints the protests of an oppressed racial minority in Echidnaopolis (which I guess is technically a fucking apartheid state?), as secretly being a front for the reverse-racism fascist movement! At no point is there even a distinction made between the citizens and the Nazi-coded leaders. They're just all the same, except for the one guy who is undercover working for the Brotherhood of Guardians, who is a cab driver - a reference to Emil Maurice or a coincidence? Well, the Brotherhood of Guardians is never portrayed as anything beyond "potentially misguided", so they're probably not the "real fascists" even though most of them totally are racist toward the dingoes. So essentially, no matter how you interpret this, the story is tacitly endorsing white supremacist rhetoric, either about oppressed racial minority groups actually just being an "attack" on the innocent oppressors, or transparently about how cool authoritarian governments controlling everyone is.

Now, as for how intentional this is, probably not that much, but this is something I spat out just on a whim without even having to reread the story (which, if I got any facts wrong, let me know) and it is more critical analysis of Ken's work that he has ever done or ever will do, and certainly more than he's willing to take seriously. I fucking wince every time the man demands adoration as a progressive hero when his story's politics are this transparently broken.

[SkyHorizon]

3 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Fascist leaders are not opportunist, they usually believe all the shit they're peddling.

Not that this has anything to do with Sonic, but as en European, I can tell you that, wow, fascist leaders are the epitome of opportunism and rarely believe in the shit they're pedding .

Aside from that, I've always thought that all the whole "Dingo stuff" was totally redundant. I mean, it was a badly executed clone of the Dark Legion. Which was a badly executed clone of the Brotherhood when you look at the similarities you pointed out . 

...aside form that, I think you're completely right in your analysis about "just look at how cool authoritarian governments controlling everyone".

[Shaddy Zaphod]

21 minutes ago, SkyHorizon said:

Not that this has anything to do with Sonic, but as en European, I can tell you that, wow, fascist leaders are the epitome of opportunism and rarely believe in the shit they're pedding .

Okay, fair enough, you're right and I'm completely full of shit. Unironically, I barely even remember what I was thinking as I typed that. I actually feel like a fucking fool for allowing myself to type those words. Edited for clarity.

[SkyHorizon]

1 hour ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

Okay, fair enough, you're right and I'm completely full of shit. Unironically, I barely even remember what I was thinking as I typed that. I actually feel like a fucking fool for allowing myself to type those words. Edited for clarity.

Lol, don't worry, I got what you meant .

[horridus]

10 hours ago, SkyHorizon said:

Aside from that, I've always thought that all the whole "Dingo stuff" was totally redundant. I mean, it was a badly executed clone of the Dark Legion. Which was a badly executed clone of the Brotherhood when you look at the similarities you pointed out . 

The sad thing is, I can see what Penders was INTENDING to do with that. He had this grand idea of introducing a 'difficult' plot point about the people of Echidnapolis suddenly being a position of having to tend to the needs of a people who are traditionally their enemies and with a culture that is the antithesis of their own, and how to react to this enemy now being at their mercy and how to proceed onward. On paper this is something that could, in theory, be compelling. 

The problem is, Penders does nothing to give the DIngo any legitimate sympathy. He offers no insight into why they're such a militant culture. He offers no glimpse into what they are like when not in conflict with the Echidna- we never see Dingo civilian life, no women or children, no hint that they have anything other than their army lifestyle. Harry is the sole exception, and he's such an anomaly that their leader feels a need to seek him out and threaten him back into compliance. So, what is the reader supposed to do? This set up would make you think we're meant to sympathize with the Dingo, yet there is virtually nothing to challenge or contradict what we have seen of them up to this point. Even the implication that they were unwillingly taken up into the skies with Echidnapolis is never elaborated upon. 

In fact, the whole thing is rather similar to the stuff with the Overlanders and the Great War. Despite the stories about the war's origin making it crystal clear that the war was started by a Mobian conspiracy, there is still nothing redemptive about the Overlanders shown, and so we have no choice but to accept that they are in fact a one dimensional Bad Guy faction and that every negative thing said about them is factually true. 

Therein lies one of the great weaknesses of Penders' writing- he thinks that doing stuff is the same thing as doing it well. It's the same with all his political or 'deep' crap in these stories. He thinks that including Mature Stuff is the same thing as actually being a MATURE storyteller, and its only compounded by the fact he's desperate to be acknowledged as that kind of storyteller, when he absolutely does not have the chops for any of it. You might be tempted to think its a result of him trying to dumb things down for the audience and botching things, but no- left to his own devices he STILL can't hack writing more complicated subjects in a meaningful way. 

It's why he gabs about stuff like the Geoffrey-Sally thing. Because that's 'mature', and if he adds 'mature' stuff, it makes his writing mature, you see? Naturally, he is utterly oblivious to how IMmature  he is, and how that shines through in all his facile attempts to be a more adult kind of writer. Like, without getting too deep into it, he's unique among politically minded writers in that he is so bad at adhering to his supposed stances that he winds up creating an underlying message totally at odds with his supposed beliefs. 

[SkyHorizon]

1 hour ago, horridus said:

The sad thing is, I can see what Penders was INTENDING to do with that. He had this grand idea of introducing a 'difficult' plot point about the people of Echidnapolis suddenly being a position of having to tend to the needs of a people who are traditionally their enemies and with a culture that is the antithesis of their own, and how to react to this enemy now being at their mercy and how to proceed onward. On paper this is something that could, in theory, be compelling. 

The problem is, Penders does nothing to give the DIngo any legitimate sympathy. He offers no insight into why they're such a militant culture. He offers no glimpse into what they are like when not in conflict with the Echidna- we never see Dingo civilian life, no women or children, no hint that they have anything other than their army lifestyle. Harry is the sole exception, and he's such an anomaly that their leader feels a need to seek him out and threaten him back into compliance. So, what is the reader supposed to do? This set up would make you think we're meant to sympathize with the Dingo, yet there is virtually nothing to challenge or contradict what we have seen of them up to this point. Even the implication that they were unwillingly taken up into the skies with Echidnapolis is never elaborated upon. 

In fact, the whole thing is rather similar to the stuff with the Overlanders and the Great War. Despite the stories about the war's origin making it crystal clear that the war was started by a Mobian conspiracy, there is still nothing redemptive about the Overlanders shown, and so we have no choice but to accept that they are in fact a one dimensional Bad Guy faction and that every negative thing said about them is factually true. 

Therein lies one of the great weaknesses of Penders' writing- he thinks that doing stuff is the same thing as doing it well. It's the same with all his political or 'deep' crap in these stories. He thinks that including Mature Stuff is the same thing as actually being a MATURE storyteller, and its only compounded by the fact he's desperate to be acknowledged as that kind of storyteller, when he absolutely does not have the chops for any of it. You might be tempted to think its a result of him trying to dumb things down for the audience and botching things, but no- left to his own devices he STILL can't hack writing more complicated subjects in a meaningful way. 

It's why he gabs about stuff like the Geoffrey-Sally thing. Because that's 'mature', and if he adds 'mature' stuff, it makes his writing mature, you see? Naturally, he is utterly oblivious to how IMmature  he is, and how that shines through in all his facile attempts to be a more adult kind of writer. Like, without getting too deep into it, he's unique among politically minded writers in that he is so bad at adhering to his supposed stances that he winds up creating an underlying message totally at odds with his supposed beliefs. 

This and he keeps building the hype without giving any real progression to his story.

[Promethean0416]

Speaking of hype, another thing that has me scratching my head at times is why he would compare a multimillion-dollar film to his incomplete project saying that it follows the source material from the original Archie comics better than the film did from the original comics. 

 

I get why he does it (I think?), it's just comparing two different things: a more complete franchise versus a not-so-complete "franchise".

[horridus]

18 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Speaking of hype, another thing that has me scratching my head at times is why he would compare a multimillion-dollar film to his incomplete project saying that it follows the source material from the original Archie comics better than the film did from the original comics. 

 

I get why he does it (I think?), it's just comparing two different things: a more complete franchise versus a not-so-complete "franchise".

Oooh right, that time he tried trash talking that horrid Fantastic Four movie in 2015. Well to begin with, Penders is comics fanboy and in particular lionizes the works of Jack Kirby, so naturally that means he's a major league fan of the original Fantastic Four run. That movie generated a LOT of hate due to how radically different it's tone was, and rightly so- even before the reveal of just how bad a movie it was, much of its tone was at odds with the source material. So naturally that meant that Penders wasn't exactly keen on it either, which is understandable enough.

What he did was basically attempt to flex on the movie and it's makers, but Penders being Penders all it really did was just highlight his egotism and ineptitude, as per usual. Firstly, whatever the quality, the Josh Trank Fantastic Four movie at least existed and was released in theaters, even if it was terrible. To this day, The Lost Ones movie does not exist, and boasting about it being accurate to the source similarly rings hollow given that the Lost Ones is an unknown, failed comic series that didn't even make it past it's first issue. 

I think it's because at some level, Penders thinks his efforts ARE on the same level or at least worthy of similar respect to things that have actually been released. He once got into an argument on his forum because someone pointed out how shoddy his Lost Ones trailer was, and he justified it as 'using the same techniques as Hollywood' or some crap. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

4 hours ago, horridus said:

To this day, The Lost Ones movie does not exist, and boasting about it being accurate to the source similarly rings hollow given that the Lost Ones is an unknown, failed comic series that didn't even make it past it's first issue. 

And he wants to make a movie out of that, why?

4 hours ago, horridus said:

He once got into an argument on his forum because someone pointed out how shoddy his Lost Ones trailer was, and he justified it as 'using the same techniques as Hollywood' or some crap.

Did he magically forget how much Hollywood gets called out on its crap while comparing himself to them?