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

[biznizz]

So. He based it off on a trial huh. I'm not sure what is was about, (And I don't wanna know), but it must've been bad. 

 

I might as well briefly cover it for anyone young enough, or from a different country, to have never heard of it.

 

O.J. Simpson was a famous American Football player & budding actor who was beloved by the country. He was estranged/divorced from his wife Nicole Brown-Simpson, who was at the time living with a friend, Ron Goldman. One night, someone (largely believed to have been O.J. himself) broke into the house they were staying and murdered them in cold blood. One of the major pieces of evidence found was a pair of bloody gloves.

 

When police suspicion fell upon Simpson, he and a fellow player led police on an infamous highway chase in a white Ford Bronco, until Simpson then gave himself up.

 

What followed was a media circus which stirred up racial barriers across the U.S., since Simpson was African-American and there was evidence of some racism amongst one or more of the white officers (which led to claims that Whitey was attempting to frame a black man) investigating at the time. Simpson was defended by a dream team of lawyers, famously led by Jonnie Cochran (who was used in South Park as the "Chewbacca Defense guy") who's most quotable piece of defense for Simpson was that the gloves found at the scene were too small for Simpson to comfortably wear. As the quote/meme was said, "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit!".

 

Simpson managed to beat the murder rap, but lost a civil suit against Goldman's family.

 

This is a great simplification of the facts, but I believe most of the major details were ones I did cover.

 

And Ken Penders... wanted to use this horrible incident as material for a comic about Sonic the Hedgehog where he is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Sally as part of Endgame, what was widely believed at the time to be the finale of the Sonic comic at issue 50 (or so claimed Kenders in the past; he's a notorious liar & flip-flopper so it's hard to tell). What is bolded above is referenced in that sketch cover.

 

THIS. FOR AN ALL-AGES, CHILDREN'S TITLE (AT THE TIME, NOW I THINK IT'S ABOUT 12+).

 

Any normal person can see just what the hell is wrong with that whole idea.

Edited March 29, 2015 by biznizz

[QuantumEdge]

OK, seriously, I am seriously considering Penders lost his mind long ago.  No one and I mean NO one with even the merest iota of sense would parody an infamous and tragic event like that in a children's comic starring Sonic The Freaking Hedgehog!  What was he sniffing when he stewed up that abomination?  It's so bad a concept, it makes me forget how awful the art is for that cover.  Biznizz summed up everything beautifully with the magnitude of wrongdoing in that one, single idea.  Makes me appreciate how Endgame turned out in the end, despite its poor quality.  Thank god it remained only an idea and never became a printed story...

[Your Vest Friend]

Okay, so one bad thing is that we would have characters that would reference the OJ Simpson Trial amongst the other parodies like Robin Hood and Sailor Moon, which isn't fitting at all.

 

But I'm also concerned about the fact that Penders basically ignored what Gallagher established about Mobian sea life for the sake of this parody. Add that to the pile of stuff he'd already disregarded from him.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

OK, seriously, I am seriously considering Penders lost his mind long ago.  No one and I mean NO one with even the merest iota of sense would parody an infamous and tragic event like that in a children's comic starring Sonic The Freaking Hedgehog!  What was he sniffing when he stewed up that abomination?

 

I think it stems from a twisted desire to be taken seriously and seen as a highly relevant individual to the current times. However due to his overall ineptitude, this is pretty much guaranteed to fail.

 

When you look at the way Penders has acted throughout the years as well as the things he's done during his tenure in comics, there is set of behaviors that remain pretty consistent:

 

1) He doesn't see comics as anything except a stepping stone towards "mature" media such as television and film, and is insistent on calling his comics "graphic novels".

 

2) His tendency to try to insert things that are/were popular such as Star Trek/Star Wars and various other bits of pop culture.

 

3) His tendency to stuff relevant at the time events or major historical events like the OJ Simpson case and the Holocaust.

 

4) His tendency to glorify anything he does regardless of actual quality.

 

5) His complete unwillingness to collaborate with others in a way that isn't basically shunting their work aside, or stealing their work as his own.

 

6) A complete inability to meaningfully learn from his mistakes.

 

These behaviors are all interconnected in some form: Point 1 highlights his  lack of genuine care or respect for the medium of comic books, but because he badly wants to be relevant, he naturally tries to turn it into a means to benefit only himself, via Point 2 and 3. However due to Point 4, he cannot use Point 2 or 3 in a tasteful or well written manner, which causes the quality of his work to plummet. Naturally since comics (and a lot of major media for that matter) are collaborative efforts, so his fellow writers, inkers, letter...ers and whatnot try to salvage his mess, but due to Point 5, this only makes things much worse and causes him to become even more defensive than he already was (and burn a shitload of bridges), leading to Point 6, which of course ends up connecting back to every other Point as well.

[Delta Starfire]

Seriously, Ken...?

 

I shouldn't really be surprised by that cover, but I am. El Grande Pendejo keeps finding new and creative ways to demonstrate what a colossal tool he is, and evidently always has been. It would seem that any good material he produced at Archie -- and I maintain that he did produce some good material, or we wouldn't be so broken up about him stealing so many beloved characters and forcing over twenty years of continuity to be scrapped -- but it would seem that the good stuff he brought to the book was accidental. 

 

So, Drago, a white wolf responsible for framing Sonic, was originally going to be called "Whitey"...? When you realise that, you realise that the name change is fairly superfluous (and possibly an editorial decision?); he's still a white wolf framing a character who, at the time, was voiced predominantly by a black man. This is still a back-handed reference to the OJ Simpson trial, because this cover demonstrates that that's where Penders got the idea from. 

 

Does this man even engage his brain before he puts pen to paper... or fingers to keyboard...? 

[Celestia]

Hasn't it been established he doesn't read what the other writers make? Maybe he didn't know.

I think he's said as much, or people assumed that, but frankly it's just as believable that he was paying attention to what the other writer(s) were doing but just didn't care.

[Gabz Girl]

Thanks for the brief overview of the OJ Simpson trial bizznizz. I'd heard of the guy before and the controversy surrounding this trial but didn't know any of the other details like lawyers and stuff. Still, it's so weird to see this "parodied" in a Sonic comic of all things.

[goku262002]

Awesome recap of the OJ Simpson trial, that should get things clear for the younger people on just why this is was a fucking stupid idea for Penders to do at the time (even if it didn't go through it was even stupid to think it and then draw it)
 

This makes me somewhat relieved that I never read the pre-reboot comics.

 

Why.

Don't bother, its just a long winding road that leads to nowhere in the end and getting attached to characters that get wiped out with no resolutions.

I really wish I never read pre-reboot stuff too esp. now that Shard is never coming back.

[horridus]

More from the Pendejo.

 

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/582172548072243200

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/582173448627081216

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/582209490570772481

 

There was a bunch of other posts about him waxing nostalgic over that damn trial, but this gets to the meat of it; excuses and justifications for his actions and no ability to conceive of what others could see wrong in what he did. As usual.

[Salamander]

I stand in horrified awe at this latest bizarre revelation from Penders's history.  The OJ Simpson trial?  Really?  He thought that was suitable material for a parody in a children's comic book?

 

...I'm honestly kind of disappointed it didn't go through, you know.  Not because I approve, but because I think it would have drawn negative attention to Penders that would have been ultimately beneficial to the comic as a whole.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Endgame is a must-read?

Many consider End-Game to be an absolutely dreadful piece of work in the Sonic series that's riddled with plot holes, idiotic moments, and so much more, the only reason most people read it is so they can look at the piece of shit in its full horror.

The best finale to Sonic & Eggman's battles was Issue 200. The way it should have been done. Sonic vs Eggman, Eggman in a mech, both exchanging taunts to one another, and Them both looking back at past events, only for us to get a brilliant payoff that managed to make it that Eggman would be out of commission for a while but not killing him off...unlike a certain other writer.

[horridus]

The Final Fight between Robotnik and Sonic in that was in fact pretty bitching, but that was ultimately due to the art... the whole story is just a plothole ridden mess that shouldn't have gotten past the first issue, especially considering the fact that the frame-up plot had been used several times already. 

 

In fact, in response to it, a parody comic called 'Endlame' had even been made. Endgame's success speak more of the strength of the franchise than it does about Penders himself.

[biznizz]

Endgame plotholes I can think of off the top of my head, Go!

 

1. If it has been proven that Robotnik can mentally hypnotise people or create life-like robot duplicate infiltrators (Terminators), then why does everyone automatically assume that it was Sonic who did the deed. Maybe if this was the first time this has happened, but by this point it's like the fifth amongst that entire group (Tails with Fiona-bot, Geoffrey with Sally-bot, Sonic thinking he's friends with Robotnik, Robotnik controlling all the walruses, etc)

 

2. Why is it that despite having any of the above, Robotnik makes it so that Hershey is the one to kill Sally, by making Drago force her to wear a Sonic mask which makes every person look like Snively? This is akin to being fully capable of completing a job, but handing it off to two others who could completely ruin it in a number of reasons.

 

3. Hershey managed to not see ANYONE ELSE, not even a mirror to blow the mask's abilities. That seems... implausible.

 

4. Hershey agreeing to wear the stupid thing itself. She wanted to make everyone think that Sonic had killed someone, even Snively, in cold blood, when he has in the past shown he finds murder, even of his enemies, to be abhorrant?

 

5. Hershey thinking Snively would be climbing up the Egg Dome in the first place. She seriously, SERIOUSLY never questioned just WHY Robotnik's number two would be trying to sneak into his own base in this way?!

 

6. Everyone has such an unbroken trust of Drago, they're willing to give him the authority to follow (fake) King Max's now incoherant orders, as opposed to someone who's actually a member of his court, like Antoine. This is despite them all meeting mere days before. Guess Lupe brings about that much trust & faith.

 

7. It sounds like an old Family Guy joke: Sonic is accused of murder, yet he nor the prosecution never bring in "The Dragon Who Never Lies". A blatant asspull, Dulcy's truth detecting abilities ala Wonder Woman's lasso were never alluded to before or since, not even the FIRST time Sonic was on trial or when the Chaotix thought the FF's tried to attack them for Mogul (and that one was actually written by Penders like months before!!)

 

8. If Robotnik's plan was for Sonic to spend the rest of his life rotting in a prison where he can't escape, then why the hell did Robotnik's own SWATbots shoot down the plane he was on? If that plot detail just HAD to happen, then what was wrong with a lightning strike clipping the plane? Too much of a deus ex machina? Well, at least it wouldn't break internal story logic.

 

9. The fact that the comic shamelessly got away with a "The Fugitive" plotline and was called original. Because this is supposed to be super ceral that you even took the famous waterfall escape nearly shot for shot.

 

10. Drago sold out Knothole shortly before or during the Death Egg Saga, as King Max was replaced with a bot. We can clearly see that Robotnik shows up to gloat and enslave everyone. If his ultimate plan was to just use the Ultimate Annhilator on Knothole, then why even bother replacing the King or kill Sally; just fire the U.A. at them when it's ready so they're caught unawares. Or hell, cut out Drago and even if he didn't know where Knothole was, just use the U.A. to completely decimate the Great Forest period, scortched earth-style.

 

11. In the cusp of his victory, Robotnik shows up to gloat that King Max was secretly replaced by Dr. Quack with a robot. As he says, "Sonic might have betrayed you, but King Max did not. He is really one of my robots!!" Why bother to lie about Sonic at THIS point, if he wanted to kick them while they were all down, why not gloat that they basically sent their friend to die in prison for killng another of their friends when he was innocent all along?

 

12. Snively's ultimate betrayal was to sabotage the U.A. after it's test fire to destroy Knothole, then blow up in Robotnik's face. In addition, it would only permanently destroy Robotnik and no one or nothing else. Sonic and the FF's are entirely superfluous to the death/defeat of their greatest enemy.

 

13. Snively's sabotage made it so that Knothole was never in danger, and would somehow only be made into a '3 hours in the future' mini-Zone. Why would he spare anyone there? He hates them all nearly as much as he hated Robotnik, yet chose to not have them out of the last of his five hairs.

 

14. Dr. Quack discovered Snively screwing around with the U.A. and chose to stay silent, hoping for the best. Whut. Keep in mind that Quack had no idea just what TYPE of sabotage Snively was doing, or it's effects. He gambled the lives of everyone in Knothole in that Snively would be too stupid to kill them all, yet never once got called out for it. Thank deus ex machina things turned out the way the did then...

 

15. In the Director's Cut, Robotnik tests out the effects of the U.A. on an Overlander, in shock that 'Julian is actually the dreaded Robotnik!!' Again, whut. ...None of the Overlanders knew that war criminal turned traitor Julian Kintobor was actually Dr. Robotnik? The most hammy and public dictator the world had ever seen? How can this be possible? Like... at all? Robotnik has never made any attempt to hide his face, and yet Julian is so infamous amongst his people, Spaz Anime Hair Test Subject recognized him on sight.

 

Feel free to contribute.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Even more annoying was that through one or two pages, that Hershey plothole, as idiotic as it is might have been explainable. For example, Drago could lie to Hershey, saying Max gave him orders to tell her to wear the Sonic costume in order to lure swatbots away from the real Sonic. 

[Your Vest Friend]

Hey, anybody want to watch Game Grumps?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErH1fX8l0Jk?t=5m45s

 

The lawsuit stuff is permeating further and further.

[biznizz]

Wow, didn't think Ross, being Australian 'n all, grew up with the American Sonic books. ...Or that he got into them after he moved, either way.

 

Glad to see he seems a bit incredulous at Kenders' stupidity, but I'm more surprised that Arin actually knew how to pronounce that stupid f*cking name.

[Your Vest Friend]

I know how to pronounce that name, it's a perfectly legitimate surname.

[biznizz]

Sorry, before I saw that episode, I had no idea that Oglivie was actually a real name (and neither did Ross apparently).

 

But as the supposed "real name of Sonic", it's incredibly stupid. For a guy who decried the book's early comedy, I have no idea why Kenders decided to not only make the Maurice middle name "canon" for his serious work, but felt that Sonic's name couldn't just be Sonic.

 

No offense to anyone who has Oglivie as a real first or surname, I'm speaking in the context for the character, singular.

[Delta Starfire]

I love how Penders falls back on appealing to sales figures whenever anyone is critical of his work on the book. He never takes any other factors into consideration. Let's assume for a moment that he's right and Endgame has the best sales figures on the book before or since. That doesn't necessarily make it the best story on the book before or since. Indeed, its critical reception is lacklustre at best. And this is not unprecedented; how many terrible movies are there that have done tremendously well at the box office, despite being panned by critics and forgotten years later? How many good movies were box office flops and only received the critical acclaim they deserve many years later as cult classics? The quality of a story should never be judged by its economic success. 

 

Moreover, let's also remember that this was 1997. This story was closer to Sonic's beginnings than it is to the present day. Sonic was still relatively new then and still very popular -- much more so than today. Sonic was a household name in a way he just isn't today and people back then wanted Sonic stories and, with the cartoons over and Sonic Adventure in development, the comic was pretty much it. Moreover, comics generally get a surge in readership towards milestone issues featuring some major event, which Endgame promised. So, there are reasons other than the quality of the story to account for its sales figures.

 

But then, we are talking about Penders, aren't we? And the man does seem to be convinced that he was somehow the greatest Sonic writer ever, so trying to convince him that sales figures -- the only thing on his side in this argument -- don't necessarily mean what he wants them to mean is probably an exercise in futility.

[biznizz]

Kenders is like the old man who says that "back in his day, you could live for a week on 50 bucks" while ignoring a few little things like INFLATION and ECONOMICS.

How much did the book cost back in '97? Less than it does now, that's for sure.

And let's not forget the other reasons that Bethany listed.

Kenders needs to accept that is Sonic is still struggling for relevence, then there's no way that Lara-Su perched atop her thrown of ex-Sonic OC's will even be a blip. And that's even if he DIDN'T pull all the crap he did and gut a long running book for his own self interest.

[Verb & Noun]

This is both on and off the topic of that cover. Notice how Dylan is specified as being there, as well as Geoffrey?

 

I saw these sets of images from the comics recently and it kind of put the nail into some thoughts I've been having rereading the comics and thinking about what Pendejo did.

 

 

We all know that he focused on the official characters as little as possible, but Geoffrey, the substitute freedom fighters, and Dr. Quack in the main StH series was him trying to force his own characters into 'main character' status. Characters like Geoffrey and Dr. Quack were given more prevalence than characters like Antoine in his stories.

 

In fact, Geoffrey is the best example of this. Looking at the old comics, Geoffrey showed up constantly and more often than Antoine, Bunnie, or Rotor. Why? Because Pendejo was making him one of the main FF/one of the main characters. Rather than work with the team he was given, he decided to amend it. Likewise, the Substitute Freedom Fighters were obviously intended to be a lot more important than they turned out to be.

 

It would be like someone taking the main X-Men team that everyone knew of (Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Beast) but then adding in.. well, lets say a hypothetical character named Particle, and making most of the stories revolve around that character whenever they appeared ("Hey, where's Poochie?"). Of course I'm aware that such things do happen in comics sometimes, but it's just so blatant in the Archie Sonic case. Honestly it reminds me a bit of the Brazilian Mega Man comic where the writer tried to kill off the game cast to make the comic about their own, original character that had nothing to do with Mega Man, bu that's a story for another day.

 

But anyway, see the second image with Knuckles. This is the reason why Pendejo preferred the Knuckles comics. Because he was successfully able to make Knuckle's mother's new husband just as important as any of the official characters. And that his characters outnumbered and greatly 'out-importanted' any of Knux's supportive characters, which was always a huge part of his goal.

 

I could also make some commentary about how Pendejo made as many family members for characters as he could, but honestly it also boils down to "he had to make his stuff important"- though in Elias's case it's the most offensive, since he's intended to be an out and out replacement. You know, like a Brazilian Mega Man comic.

 

TLDR edition: Pendejo wasn't interested in writing 'supporting' cast, he was interested in making his own cast.

[DarkLight]

Gotta love how Knuckles's pose is way bigger than Sonic's by comparison.

 

Real subtle there, Penders.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

This is both on and off the topic of that cover. Notice how Dylan is specified as being there, as well as Geoffrey?

 

I saw these sets of images from the comics recently and it kind of put the nail into some thoughts I've been having rereading the comics and thinking about what Pendejo did.

 

 

 

[Verb & Noun]

He didn't draw it. There's a lot of problems with the picture but he didn't draw it.

 

You can tell he didn't because Tails doesn't have a comb over.

[horridus]

But then, we are talking about Penders, aren't we? And the man does seem to be convinced that he was somehow the greatest Sonic writer ever, so trying to convince him that sales figures -- the only thing on his side in this argument -- don't necessarily mean what he wants them to mean is probably an exercise in futility.

 

There was once a time when he could admit that one reason that stuff was selling so well was because, for a moment, the comic was the only game in town. That was then though, and this is now. Now Penders seems all but convinced that he was indeed the 'savior' of the comic and that his work was something so iconic, well known and popular that it lives on even now and that somehow, the fact HE made all that will be enough to draw people to LSC. He talks about how 'newer' fans even seek out Endgame, but from what I've witnessed, younger fans either don't know or only know because of horror stories told by fans who were around for it. 

 

And yeah, his reliance on the idea of sales meaning quality is pretty ludicrous. Rob Liefeld use to bring in top dollar at Image Comics. NOTHING he made had any kind of objective quality to it. But then again, logical fallacies are Penders best friend; he likes to appeal to larger problems constantly as a way to take attention off of his own actions. He's very fortunate that no one has yet to really put him on the spot in real life and that his main means of conveying his nonsense is a medium that limits what people can say to him.