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

[Promethean0416]

And he has colored in another character plus...

Another T-shirt design for his still-yet-to-be-released product...Lotta fluff happening as always instead of the actual meat and potatoes.

EDIT: Noticed that there is more inconsistency with the hair on the front two characters there, with shiny and no shiny (I think)...

Edited May 17, 2023 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[babsiwuff]

So in other words, he hasn’t done any work at all.

[Rabbitearsblog]

14 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

So in other words, he hasn’t done any work at all.

Yep, he's basically saying that he hasn't done anything more with the Lara Su Chronicles.  How long has he been working on this project?

[babsiwuff]

22 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Yep, he's basically saying that he hasn't done anything more with the Lara Su Chronicles.  How long has he been working on this project?

Over 10 years at this point. Ah well.  It’s fun to see him flail and lie.

[horridus]

9 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And he has colored in another character plus...

Another T-shirt design for his still-yet-to-be-released product...Lotta fluff happening as always instead of the actual meat and potatoes.

EDIT: Noticed that there is more inconsistency with the hair on the front two characters there, with shiny and no shiny (I think)...

Kinda makes you wonder what kinda conditioner Julie's using to make her hair that shiny, don't it?

But yeah, not surprised. Guy's made it clear that by this point he'd rather work on anything except LSC. He's more interested in putting on the show of getting work done than actually doing it.

1 hour ago, babsiwuff said:

So in other words, he hasn’t done any work at all.

I'm sorta struggling to understand what a 'space story' is defined as in this context given that by that metric, any number of Sonic stuff before he came on board made it a 'space story'. Hell, given that Sonic 2 involved going to a space station and destroying it, one could argue Sonic's been a 'space story' since '92.

Ah whatever. The guy tried to claim he introduced the concept of alternate worlds and timelines in Sonic and that he owned such a concept as applied to Sonic. Gotta love that snide reference to 'fan efforts' when said fan efforts would at least having something to show by this point. Nearly twelve years now and he's no closer to figuring this out than when he began. Its not surprising, but its increasingly pathetic.

[Rabbitearsblog]

51 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

Over 10 years at this point. Ah well.  It’s fun to see him flail and lie.

Wow...that long?

[horridus]

35 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Wow...that long?

Yep. By the time 2024 starts, it will have been twelve years since this was first announced to be 'coming soon in 2012'.

[babsiwuff]

1 hour ago, horridus said:

Kinda makes you wonder what kinda conditioner Julie's using to make her hair that shiny, don't it?

But yeah, not surprised. Guy's made it clear that by this point he'd rather work on anything except LSC. He's more interested in putting on the show of getting work done than actually doing it.

I'm sorta struggling to understand what a 'space story' is defined as in this context given that by that metric, any number of Sonic stuff before he came on board made it a 'space story'. Hell, given that Sonic 2 involved going to a space station and destroying it, one could argue Sonic's been a 'space story' since '92.

Ah whatever. The guy tried to claim he introduced the concept of alternate worlds and timelines in Sonic and that he owned such a concept as applied to Sonic. Gotta love that snide reference to 'fan efforts' when said fan efforts would at least having something to show by this point. Nearly twelve years now and he's no closer to figuring this out than when he began. Its not surprising, but its increasingly pathetic.

I sort of get it.  Ken's work has a planet blowing up, and Geoffrey St John piloting a spaceship, and all these different anim--I mean aliens across the galaxy.  Or something.  Sonic has had some sci-fi stuff down through the years, but not to the level that Penders took it.

[horridus]

35 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

I sort of get it.  Ken's work has a planet blowing up, and Geoffrey St John piloting a spaceship, and all these different anim--I mean aliens across the galaxy.  Or something.  Sonic has had some sci-fi stuff down through the years, but not to the level that Penders took it.

True. Lord knows that nobody else in the franchise at the time thought to turn a character into a bastard hybrid of Superman, Paul Atreides and Wolverine...

[Promethean0416]

Looks like it's Robotnik's turn for his "makeover":

And regarding his tweet, understandably honorable to a degree, but if he wanted to do something like that, shouldn't one try to make a "how-to" video or guidelines for the art of drawing instead of using "progression" tweets to show the work? Thoughts?

[horridus]

12 minutes ago, Promethean0416 said:

Looks like it's Robotnik's turn for his "makeover":

And regarding his tweet, understandably honorable to a degree, but if he wanted to do something like that, shouldn't one try to make a "how-to" video or guidelines for the art of drawing instead of using "progression" tweets to show the work? Thoughts?

I don't believe him for a minute. I think he shows these progress reports just to 'prove' he's actually a Hard Working Artist.

And frankly even if he was being honest in his motives? This doesn't actually teach anything, especially in an age where artists routinely livestream and can give people a firsthand look at their technique. Trying to present these out as being instructional is less than useless because he does nothing to contextualize the process that he is using and how to get there- we neither see his technique in action, nor any sort of notes on said technique and why he does it that way. Not that it would really help anybody given that he has the digital coloring proficiency of a Middle School student first trying out photoshop, but still.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

So, there's a new Atop the Fourth Wall this week, and while it doesn't involve Penders, I couldn't help but be reminded of him as I watched:

I don't know. Is it just me? Or does this feel like what he basically wants to do in some ways?

[Promethean0416]

Seems some of the tweeters are giving him an idea of sorts in connection with his "progress".

[babsiwuff]

Wow.  Sounds like Ken is mildly self aware here.

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

7 hours ago, babsiwuff said:

Wow.  Sounds like Ken is mildly self aware here.

Yeah, if that was the case, they would have reached out to him a long time ago. I don't think SEGA wants to deal with Ken Penders ever again.

[horridus]

On 5/20/2023 at 3:49 PM, Rabbitearsblog said:

Yeah, if that was the case, they would have reached out to him a long time ago. I don't think SEGA wants to deal with Ken Penders ever again.

Even if they were willing to forgive the whole lawsuit thing, Penders behavior during that time and after it made it clear that he really isn't worth the effort. And that's without getting into how much his name is utterly poisonous within the fandom itself- remember the response to the 'Scourge the Speed Demon' thing? Even ignoring the repeated and blatant displays of unprofessional and juvenile behavior from the man himself, the response to that sent a pretty loud, clear message that the Sonic fandom at large ain't buying anything Penders is selling.

Granted its all kind of moot- Penders has repeatedly made it clear that he has no desire to work under the mandate of anyone else ever again.

[Promethean0416]

Now we are going into the debate of: Did Penders give good development to Knuckles during his time in Archie?

Well, in my opinion...sort of. He did give him a bit more meat and potatoes aside from Knuckles' former bare-bones story of just "some echidna guarding a giant rock on a floating island". But then again, some of his character designs are...questionable:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/archiesonic/images/4/44/BrotherhoodOfGuardians.png/revision/latest?cb=20100321182633

(Can't get this to appear in pic form, so this will have to do.) Anyway, the same Knuckles base template design was used for all of them aside from some minor changes here and there, and the female one seems to be the only somewhat unique design of the bunch.

And of course, we have the nickname lineup from this panel from #183 (I think?):

I wonder if we will ever get a Super Knuckles Bros spinoff?

[MetalSkulkBane]

I don't hate Penders for creating a city filled with Knuckles clones. Frankly, if I was in his position back then I might do the same thing. Even today if I was told to make Knuckles comic I would panic a little.

And there are so many better reasons to hate on him.

[horridus]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Now we are going into the debate of: Did Penders give good development to Knuckles during his time in Archie?

"Kind of, but not really" is how I would put it.

See, I don't object to there being other Echidna. Nor do I even really object to Knuckles serving as the visual basis for all the other Echidna, given that it's probably what most people would do without any solid idea of what other Echidna might look like compared to Knuckles. While it might interfere with his schtick as the last Echidna, one of the problems with Knuckles situation of living a lonely life guarding the Master Emerald is that it kinda makes it hard to convincingly use him without it either being contrived or making him really AWFUL at the one thing that gives his life meaning. And that's without getting into the unspoken fact of how sad his life really is. So yeah, I don't mind there being other Echidna, or at least, him having his own little cast to interact with and bounce off of. I liked the idea of the Chaotix Crew being 'his' team.

The trouble is for all of the development Penders put into things, very little of that development made any sense thanks to his inability to plan ahead. On paper there's plenty of good, interesting ideas- Knuckles being the latest in a long line of Guardians sounds like a very natural, easy thing to conclude with Knuckles, along with notions that there may be other surviving Echidna. Even Fleetway had surviving Echidna, though we never found out about them before the cancellation. The problems arise though is that the more we learn the less things make sense- it turns out that the past guardians are still alive and in a high tech base called Haven, so that begs the question of why, if they were there didn't they help out when Robotnik was attacking? And why would Knuckles be abandoned and left convinced he was utterly alone in the world? Well, the answer to THAT one is because one of his predecessors died on the job, and so the tradition came to involve... abandoning new Guardians in the wilderness and hoping for the best. Then you get into the Guardian-Dark Legion Feud, when it becomes clear Knuckles knew nothing about the Legion when they showed up, especially with later reveals that the Dark Legion had repeatedly been attacking the Island/Echidnapolis for centuries.

And then there's Knuckles himself, and the fact that these developments don't actually help or round out his character, and over the course of the series Knuckles really becomes more and more of a proxy for his own father than much of a character in his own right. There are storylines that are resolved either thanks to Deus ex Machina or Locke ex Machina, and Knuckles is more of a bystander in what is meant to be his own series, with him not really being all that relevant to how things play out or how they're resolved. Penders' writing makes it clear we're meat to be interested in Knuckles because of WHAT he is rather than WHO he is- we should be interested because he's some kind of super mutant, then we should be interested because he's got a long noble lineage, then because he's a living Chaos Emerald with Godlike powers who goes on to meet GOD... and ultimately, all this doesn't really do anything to him under Penders' pen, and his explicit destiny is to basically become his father, watching everyone from the shadows and monitoring his daughter.

I could probably write a doctoral thesis on how much Penders' personal issues wind up sabotaging things when his own lack of skill doesn't do the job. Things happen to Knuckles, but there is no development. Even the girlfriend he has is given to him by means of authorial fiat than earned interactions via the Soul Touch, a contrivance meant to justify said fiat. Everything he goes through winds up feeling artificial in an incredibly distracting way.

As I said, on paper there's plenty to like. Knuckles being the latest in a long line of Guardians is a good idea. A surviving Echidna city existing is one that presents intriguing possibilities for Knuckles himself. There being an enemy, evil faction of Echidna with a feud against Knuckles is another idea that is ripe for potential. Heck, even the idea of Knuckles being genetically engineered to fulfill a mysterious purpose is something that could be good, if done with care. The trouble is whatever potential that is inherit in these ideas? None of that potential is really met, and as I said, everything we learn just makes everything seem more and more ludicrous, with none of it really mattering. The big plots set up don't go anywhere, and the ultimate conclusion to those plots is more of the same as we saw in Knuckles- with the Brotherhood versus the Legion, forever and ever. He's absolutely dedicated to preserving this status quo rather than actually moving the story along, and as a consequence he never grows or evolves as a writer, which is reflected in the fact that Knuckles never grows or evolves as a character.

So yeah... it coulda been great, but Penders gotta Penders. I like all that stuff, but not as it was presented, and in the end there's a reason it's removal from Archie was easy to move on from when you realize how much of it was just... zero calorie, narrative fluff designed to look like a Grand Design.

I'll also add that Penders can try and portray himself as the Only One Who Believed In Knuckles And Saw His Potential, but his real motives are a lot more simple and self-serving- he 'believed' in Knuckles because Knuckles was a comparative blank slate that let him do things with him that SEGA wouldn't permit with Sonic. He didn't like Knuckles as he existed, he liked the character wearing Knuckles' skin that he eventually crafted from that blank slate, for that was the chance for him to write the Grand Epic Sci-Fi Story he'd never get to write otherwise. And even then it might not be so bad, were it not for the fact that somewhere along the line Penders seemed to have legitimately forgotten that Knuckles wasn't HIS character and that it wasn't HIS book he was working on.

 

[babsiwuff]

Pender's writing gave me a headache.  But I did like that he kept actual echidna physiology, such as having come from an egg, and befriending a fire ant...whom he attempted to eat at one point (Echidnas feed mainly on ants and termites).  But honestly stuff like that was likely Bob Repas' influence.

Also I think I've asked this, but the Knuckles comic was moving full speed ahead when Sonic Adventure came out.  How come he never bothered with including Tikal or her dad Pachacamac when he was obsessing over lineages and ancient battles?  There could have been some fun opportunities there, like Julie-Su being Tikal's descendant or something.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

22 minutes ago, babsiwuff said:

Also I think I've asked this, but the Knuckles comic was moving full speed ahead when Sonic Adventure came out.  How come he never bothered with including Tikal or her dad Pachacamac when he was obsessing over lineages and ancient battles?  There could have been some fun opportunities there, like Julie-Su being Tikal's descendant or something.

Pretty simple, really. Penders doesn't give a shit about the games' lore. He didn't keep up to date with it, and it's why when he was tasked with adapting it into the canon, the best he could come up with was that Tikal and the Knuckles Clan was a different clan that had little to do with his echidnas, and that was about it. In short, he didn't want SEGA's canon intruding on his own, which is really damn ironic given the origins of the convoluted bullshit he came up with.

[babsiwuff]

14 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Pretty simple, really. Penders doesn't give a shit about the games' lore. He didn't keep up to date with it, and it's why when he was tasked with adapting it into the canon, the best he could come up with was that Tikal and the Knuckles Clan was a different clan that had little to do with his echidnas, and that was about it. In short, he didn't want SEGA's canon intruding on his own, which is really damn ironic given the origins of the convoluted bullshit he came up with.

That is absolutely stupid on his part.  But at the same time I'm also surprised Bob Repas didn't push the issue.  He was a sucker for cute furry cartoon girls and had it bad for Sally and Bunnie; I'm kind of surprised he didn't help Ken figure out a way to incorporate Tikal into the lore.  

That aside, I have a question, speaking of extended family.  Whose idea and design was it that turned Sally's relatives into foxes??  Was that Ken? Cos Elias (Ken's character and her dad ended up with fox tails ears and cheek ruffs, and it started to get REALLY hard to determine who was what species when the Acorns would interact with Tails' parents. >.< 

[StreetSonic2022]

2 hours ago, babsiwuff said:

Also I think I've asked this, but the Knuckles comic was moving full speed ahead when Sonic Adventure came out.  How come he never bothered with including Tikal or her dad Pachacamac when he was obsessing over lineages and ancient battles?  There could have been some fun opportunities there, like Julie-Su being Tikal's descendant or something.

Oh please, I heard rumors that he was having hissy fits back then during the Archie SA1 tie-in because it messed up his "grand storyline". It was that we got the Mysterious Cat Country plot existence. He doesn't care for the SEGA/Sonic Team lore (in which he should had care!, because, hello, who is the actual creator of Knuckles in the first place?!) But yeah, it was also the reason why he and Justin Gabrie (I'm not letting Karl Bollers off the hook either) didn't do a proper Sonic Adventure 2 adaption because Knuckles was in his Chaos Knuckles schtick that was basically near/past Shadow's power level (before Shadow even came into exist!). Meanwhile, Tails had that Turbo Tails BS with the cloning (and also had a battle with Chaos Knuckles). Sonic had to deal with the melodrama with Sally and love triangle with Mina. Not to mention Eggman's latest schemes and boring storylines (why there was even a Guardians of the Galaxy tribute to begin with?!) Also, Amy had off-screen training with her cousin after dealing with Knuckles in Avalon to become Chaos Knuckles with Bunnie and Antoine involved with the latter's father. (Honestly, I did not read the dork/dark age of Archie, I did not even know the comics was still running after receiving issue 13 as a child until I got Sonic Shuffle and saw the advertisement on the manual).

But following from horridus' post, in short I agree: good ideas and concepts but badly executed to the point it became so bloated and hardly any resolution. Also, Penders want to his way or the highway with Knuckles by ignoring information that was even provided by SEGA because in his mindset, Knuckles is an actual COMIC BOOK character, screw the actual term, LICENSED video-game character. (I can go on and on about Penders' run, I can write long paragraphs about his writing and terrible execution.)

BTW, I like the idea of Julie-Su being Tikal's descendant. That would've made her 10x more interesting as a character.

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

But yeah, it was also the reason why he and Justin Gabrie (I'm not letting Karl Bollers off the hook either) didn't do a proper Sonic Adventure 2 adaption because Knuckles was in his Chaos Knuckles schtick that was basically near/past Shadow's power level (before Shadow even came into exist!). Meanwhile, Tails had that Turbo Tails BS with the cloning (and also had a battle with Chaos Knuckles). Sonic had to deal with the melodrama with Sally and love triangle with Mina. Not to mention Eggman's latest schemes and boring storylines (why there was even a Guardians of the Galaxy tribute to begin with?!) Also, Amy had off-screen training with her cousin after dealing with Knuckles in Avalon to become Chaos Knuckles with Bunnie and Antoine involved with the latter's father. (Honestly, I did not read the dork/dark age of Archie, I did not even know the comics was still running after receiving issue 13 as a child until I got Sonic Shuffle and saw the advertisement on the manual).

I'm actually going to go to bat for Karl Bollers. Karl was the main writer of the main series, as Penders had opted to focus solely on the Knuckles side stuff that would be going on in the back-up stories, and while Penders was free to do whatever bullshit he wanted with little oversight, Bollers was the one stuck dealing with the mandates coming in from Archie.

It's easy to blame Bollers for shit that happened in the Dork Age, but as documented via Thanks Ken Penders, quite a lot of that was pushed onto him by Archie's oversight, aiming to try make the book more in-line with their usual brand of comics, and pushing in melodrama. A lot of the love triangle nonsense and high school shit from his run was stuff he was just told to do, and he made the best of a bad situation. Meanwhile, other arcs like Return to Angel Island, where he had full creative control showed up what he could really do with this universe when he wasn't being commanded by the publishers.

Penders' mistakes mostly go at his feet because he had been given free reign. Bollers did not get such a luxury. The most weird shit he can be accused of in his own terms was the alien stuff towards #125 and that's about it.

[babsiwuff]

11 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

Oh please, I heard rumors that he was having hissy fits back then during the Archie SA1 tie-in because it messed up his "grand storyline". It was that we got the Mysterious Cat Country plot existence. He doesn't care for the SEGA/Sonic Team lore (in which he should had care!, because, hello, who is the actual creator of Knuckles in the first place?!) But yeah, it was also the reason why he and Justin Gabrie (I'm not letting Karl Bollers off the hook either) didn't do a proper Sonic Adventure 2 adaption because Knuckles was in his Chaos Knuckles schtick that was basically near/past Shadow's power level (before Shadow even came into exist!). Meanwhile, Tails had that Turbo Tails BS with the cloning (and also had a battle with Chaos Knuckles). Sonic had to deal with the melodrama with Sally and love triangle with Mina. Not to mention Eggman's latest schemes and boring storylines (why there was even a Guardians of the Galaxy tribute to begin with?!) Also, Amy had off-screen training with her cousin after dealing with Knuckles in Avalon to become Chaos Knuckles with Bunnie and Antoine involved with the latter's father. (Honestly, I did not read the dork/dark age of Archie, I did not even know the comics was still running after receiving issue 13 as a child until I got Sonic Shuffle and saw the advertisement on the manual).

But following from horridus' post, in short I agree: good ideas and concepts but badly executed to the point it became so bloated and hardly any resolution. Also, Penders want to his way or the highway with Knuckles by ignoring information that was even provided by SEGA because in his mindset, Knuckles is an actual COMIC BOOK character, screw the actual term, LICENSED video-game character. (I can go on and on about Penders' run, I can write long paragraphs about his writing and terrible execution.)

BTW, I like the idea of Julie-Su being Tikal's descendant. That would've made her 10x more interesting as a character.

Ken is a moron.  But I mean, we knew that.  But STILL.  He could have worked in the Knuckles Clan without disrupting whatever his overall arc was.  I mean, the clan IS the namesake of Knuckles himself.  It would make sense that they were an entirely separate thing that no one ever heard of.  

3 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm actually going to go to bat for Karl Bollers. Karl was the main writer of the main series, as Penders had opted to focus solely on the Knuckles side stuff that would be going on in the back-up stories, and while Penders was free to do whatever bullshit he wanted with little oversight, Bollers was the one stuck dealing with the mandates coming in from Archie.

It's easy to blame Bollers for shit that happened in the Dork Age, but as documented via Thanks Ken Penders, quite a lot of that was pushed onto him by Archie's oversight, aiming to try make the book more in-line with their usual brand of comics, and pushing in melodrama. A lot of the love triangle nonsense and high school shit from his run was stuff he was just told to do, and he made the best of a bad situation. Meanwhile, other arcs like Return to Angel Island, where he had full creative control showed up what he could really do with this universe when he wasn't being commanded by the publishers.

Penders' mistakes mostly go at his feet because he had been given free reign. Bollers did not get such a luxury. The most weird shit he can be accused of in his own terms was the alien stuff towards #125 and that's about it.

That reminds me of something Ken said.  He says Bollers stories are valid to the Lara Su comics he's obsessed about, but that Ian's weren't.  Why  I thought Karl Bollers went against Ken as well.