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

[Wittymations]

Let us know if he's any better with it. I'm not a Star Trek fan so I couldn't really tell if it's a good or bad.

[Gabz Girl]

While StC is not the most amazing comic book out there, it's certainly more faithful to the gameverse than Archie Sonic ever was back when it started. And it wasn't just Penders who made it less Sonicy and more furry soap opera since I think Karl Bollers is the blame for a lot of the lame ideas in Archie Sonic as well. The infamous Sally slaps Sonic for example was definitely not Penders' idea!

And speaking of StC, it always irked me that Dr Finitevus is basically a copy of Dr Zachary. >>

[Delta Starfire]

While StC is not the most amazing comic book out there...

 

Them's fightin' words, Gabz!

 

Seriously though, it is a very mixed bag. I'd rate most of what Nigel Kitching wrote pretty highly, but most of what Lew Stringer wrote was bad comic relief. Though, credit where it's due, Stringer did give us a long series of Amy and Tekno adventures, which were pretty fun, and a lot more empowering for young girls than anything Penders has written. Certainly, that's how I felt reading them.

 

...it's certainly more faithful to the gameverse than Archie Sonic ever was back when it started. And it wasn't just Penders who made it less Sonicy and more furry soap opera since I think Karl Bollers is the blame for a lot of the lame ideas in Archie Sonic as well. The infamous Sally slaps Sonic for example was definitely not Penders' idea!

 

As I've said before, I think when both comics were in print, StC was the better of the two, because it didn't get sidetracked into its own little universe that had little real connection to the source material. StC was, basically the games plus, whereas StH was essentially SatAM only with very late and begrudging references to the games, which were dealt with quickly, and then swept back under the "zones" rug so Penders and Bollers could get back to telling the stories they wanted to tell. 

 

But, since StC's cancellation, I do think that StH has steadily got better and better until it became a superior comic -- pretty much after Flynn took over, I'd say, though I'm by no means a Penders/Bollers hater. I do like a lot of what they wrote. I've said it before, but I really like #125, for instance. And while I couldn't name specific issues, I do know that there are other stories those two wrote that I dug when I first read them earlier this year.  

 

And speaking of StC, it always irked me that Dr Finitevus is basically a copy of Dr Zachary. >>

 

They have a similar appearance (white echidna), but apart from both being kinda mad scientists, I'm not sure I see much other resemblance. And to be fair, if they'd wanted to, they could have just used Zachary. All of StC's characters belong to Sega, after all, which is why they made a bunch of cameos when Jonathan Gray was drawing for the book.  

 

Heh, talking of which, I had a recent back and forth on deviantART with Nigel Dobyn, who used to draw for StC (mostly working on Knuckles stories), and he expressed an interest in drawing for StH. His art is pretty phenomenal and he's done quite a lot of fan art of the book as it is. I so want that to become a thing. You think you've seen me fangirl before? You ain't seen nothin' yet!

[Your Vest Friend]

All of StC's characters belong to Sega, after all

 

Actually, no. None of StC's exclusive characters are owned by SEGA, they're owned by the comic writers who created them. It's basically how Penders would like the character situation to have been, except the British writers are generally far more lax about the usage of characters they've stopped writing for. 

[Zaysho]

As far as a fan continuation goes, I'm very mixed on that. Waiting for the Lost Hedgehog Tales would at least give us an outline to work with. As far as Penders goes, we'd just simply have to acknowledge the copyright and he's not going to give  a shit. He's said that much, I believe. If he's really going to go out of his way to police a non-profit fan-comic, well that's just bad PR for him. Then again, the man seems to be all about bad PR, so... That said, it could go in any direction unless someone was editing it with some level of strictness to keep it uniform and true to Archie Sonic as it was before "Endangered Species."
 

Bringing the subject back to Penders, I was reading KtE #6 this morning, and this final panel amused me...

[image snip]

"Oh yeah, we threw in Knuckles as a bonus!"

That... is a lot truer than implied... throughout the series as a whole. This is what we call kidding on the square.

It's kinda sad how telling that last line would be, isn't it?

Kinda funny that Penders, despite not being that interested in Sonic lore in general, somehow managed to work in Knuckles's cowboy hat from the OVA. I thought it was a neat touch back in the day when the OVA was this mysterious thing that was only available in Japan. I sorta wonder how he came across it and decided to include it.
 
 

Actually, no. None of StC's exclusive characters are owned by SEGA, they're owned by the comic writers who created them. It's basically how Penders would like the character situation to have been, except the British writers are generally far more lax about the usage of characters they've stopped writing for.

 
Ah. That explains why Flynn mentions that one of the writers offered to let him use the Metallix in the Archie book...

[Adamis]

I thought about that as well. Honestly, the whole fan-online comic continuation thing ran in my head for a while.

On one hand, it seems like the purest route to take. On the other, if fans were to do their own take, it's more of showing their own abilities and writing style.

 

Some of the first issues of StCO did use ideas Nigel Kitching would have used if StC wasn't discontinued back then, and then we used newer ideas.

[biznizz]

Possibly.... I should really track down those Star Trek issues he wrote, (all 4 of them or so), if only to see how he holds up when writing for something he DOES respect (the guy is a vocal trekkie). I'm betting it'll just be horribly boring rather than horribly boring and asinine.

Star Trek Voyager: Threshold. Written Brannon & Ken Penders as an uncredited story & co-writer.

...Yeah not only would it be complete bullsh*t that Ken EVER made it to anywhere close as TV... but wouldn't the awfulness of that episode have made that much more sense...?

[horridus]

Star Trek Voyager: Threshold. Written Brannon & Ken Penders as an uncredited story & co-writer.

...Yeah not only would it be complete bullsh*t that Ken EVER made it to anywhere close as TV... but wouldn't the awfulness of that episode have made that much more sense...?

 

That would make far, far too much sense ID

 

On that front, Ken Penders has an article on the Star Trek Wiki, Memory Alpha... interesting tidbits to be had there. 

 

"Ken Penders is a comic book pencil artist. He is best known for his work on the Archie Comics title, Sonic the Hedgehog over the course of fifteen years. A lifelong Star Trek fan, Penders ended up working on DC Comics' Next Generation line at the request of Robert Greenberger. [1] He was originally intended to be the primary artist on the Next Generation line, but deadline pressures and art approval requirements forced Greenberger and DC to work with an artist based in New York City."

 

 

This is straight from the wiki, and I mentioned this earlier, but I think I should reiterate this is a recurring theme with his non-Archie work; getting hired on by an inside source, and then not sticking around long after... does it surprise anyone at all that a company with standards gave him trouble?

[Johnny2071]

I have an idea:

 

Why don't we find all of Penders' designs (especially ones from TLSC) and Yardley-ize them.

 

I got the idea from:

http://www.cosmicremix.com/pretty/julisuoutline.jpg

 

As well as these:

http://blehmaster7.deviantart.com/art/Viv-by-Tracy-Yardley-COLORED-305244779

http://snowify.deviantart.com/art/Crystal-By-Tracy-Yardley-168139246

 

And if Penders' took Flynn's changes as an afront, wait until he sees the rest of his own work.

[Zaysho]

I have an idea:

 

Why don't we find all of Penders' designs (especially ones from TLSC) and Yardley-ize them.

'Cause they were already Yardley-ized...?

And Penders really doesn't care about people's opinions on his work?

[Big Panda]

And Penders really doesn't care about people's opinions on his work?

Yes, we established that.

[Zaysho]

Yes, we established that.

Maybe I just misunderstood the intention, since I got the impression that this is just trolling Penders when it's established he doesn't care. They won't be his "official" models, and even when it's clear that everybody hates his new designs, he believes in just powering through with them anyway.

If the intent is to just create new designs for a possible fan continuation of the old 'verse, then... alright. People are probably going to do that after "The Lost Hedgehog Tales" is released anyway.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

While I'm sure Yardley could do Pender's models far more justice than the man has showed for them, there would be problems with it, mainly being Yardley would have no reason to do them, Ken would probably want mention to how they are his characters as he keeps complaining about people doing fan art without mentioning Ken's name on it at all, and on top of that, Ken probably wouldn't care if the designs were brilliant because knowing him, he'd probably say he didn't like them and believe his designs to be far more superior.

 

A small thing but did anyone see the picture of Classic Remington he put on Twitter as he said a fan commissioned him to do it. It's more or less Remington in Ken's art style when Ken drew him in the comics so It means big manga eyes and that sorta thing.

[horridus]

As has been pointed out more than once... there's little point to doing anything with Ken's designs. He refuses to see them as anything other than perfect, and nothing will change his mind; dredging around that sewer hole he calls a forum, there was a thread where the posters showed the numerous fan-made redesigns of his characters, wonderful pictures that went out of their way to NOT look like Sonic ripoffs. He didn't bother to respond to any of it. The guy has his head up his ass in ways that we are simply not equipped to understand. 

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Now what I'd want to see is the Sonic cast redesigned LSC-style.

 

 

Why I would want to see that is up for debate.

[Wittymations]

Why I would want to see that is up for debate.

The same reason I love bad movies, perhaps?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Hey look, a Lara-Su Chronicles wiki.

Sigh. That might as well be an equivalent to a wiki for Armada of the Damned at this point.

[Delta Starfire]

Actually, no. None of StC's exclusive characters are owned by SEGA, they're owned by the comic writers who created them. It's basically how Penders would like the character situation to have been, except the British writers are generally far more lax about the usage of characters they've stopped writing for. 

 

 

Is that so? In that case, I stand corrected. 

 

Ah. That explains why Flynn mentions that one of the writers offered to let him use the Metallix in the Archie book...

 

Wow... That would so not work in Archie's Sonic... I'm not even particularly enamoured of it in StC... At least, not the brotherhood part. Individuals were fine, but an army of them independent from Robotnik that were a bigger threat than him... Nah, I didn't care for that. I also never understood why Metal Sonic needed to be renamed... But oh well. 

[biznizz]

If there is one good, personal thing that's come of Penders & his ever-delayed opus, it's that it's inspired me to start writing my own personal stuff again.

 

And if I ever hit a block and lose heart, I'll be able to say to myself with the absolute truth, "At least I'm making more progress than Penders has, and no matter how ameteur it is, it'll still be of better quality than his."

 

So thank you Ken. You (and a few other, fanfic, writers whose writings of.... dubious quality) have given me the resolve to try to be a better writer than you. Even if my story right now is about Green Lantern (no Sonic, however), I know I have more respect for that IP than you ever did with Sonic's.

[Delta Starfire]

If there is one good, personal thing that's come of Penders & his ever-delayed opus, it's that it's inspired me to start writing my own personal stuff again.

 

And if I ever hit a block and lose heart, I'll be able to say to myself with the absolute truth, "At least I'm making more progress than Penders has, and no matter how ameteur it is, it'll still be of better quality than his."

 

So thank you Ken. You (and a few other, fanfic, writers whose writings of.... dubious quality) have given me the resolve to try to be a better writer than you. Even if my story right now is about Green Lantern (no Sonic, however), I know I have more respect for that IP than you ever did with Sonic's.

 

Heh. I started up my comic again last year, before I was into Archie's StH, but now that I'm into it and have become aware of the Penders saga, I can say very much the same. My art is not great. Nowhere near the quality I'd hope for in a professional publication. But, my goddess, if it isn't galaxies better than any of the tripe Penders comes out with. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

He's mentioned on Twitter that he's heading to a convention in a few days, I'm curious will anyone even bother going over to him to talk about Lara-Su Chronicles.

[horridus]

*I'm* curious as to what in God's name he even has to offer there. He's not close to being done with the first volume of his intended series, so he's not going to use this as a jumping off point... so what the heck can he do even? Say stuff he already says on his twitter about the series?? 

[The Tenth Doctor]

Is he going to be selling anymore of his "amazing" merchandise like the Secret service badge last time? 

[Zaysho]

He's mentioned on Twitter that he's heading to a convention in a few days, I'm curious will anyone even bother going over to him to talk about Lara-Su Chronicles.

 

Yeah, FL Super Con... I did wanna go and see what the hell he's doing (as well as meet some people I actually want to meet), but I flip-flopped a bunch and I think it's too late to get tickets. Oh well.

 

I guess a crappy con in Miami is easier for him to get into than SDCC. Did his connections not come through?

 

 

Is he going to be selling anymore of his "amazing" merchandise like the Secret service badge last time? 

 

Maybe he'll be signing more books he had nothing to do with.

 

You know, for his sake, I hope there aren't going to be any rabid Archie fans that are going to harass him. He deserves all the ridicule and criticism that's being hurled at him, but I hope it doesn't go any further than that.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

If I remember right, didn't he mention that he was planning on having cardboard stands of the characters and something to do with that Lara-Su costume that looked like The Grinch?

 

That would be a great way to attract people at a con. Have creepy stands of CGI Lien-Da and that new character he announced along with someone in a creepy costume of Lara-Su.