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

[King Scoopa Koopa]

So less a burial in favor of putting his stuff over and more that Penders thinks he can sell ice makers to Eskimos and skunked the whole deal.

[horridus]

So less a burial in favor of putting his stuff over and more that Penders thinks he can sell ice makers to Eskimos and skunked the whole deal.

 

Basically. Did you ever manage to get a glimpse of his 'Proof of Concept' video for a Sonic movie and the power point presentation that went with it? Those alone make it agonizingly clear as to how Penders, without actually trying, could potentially offend SEGA to the point of torpedoing Hursts' proposal and getting the wrong idea about things. 

[baba_944]

Thanks for the description, Nightwing. Yeah, I probably should've gone back.

[Salamander]

From what I've heard in this thread before now, part of how Penders misinterpreted Hurst's intentions for the movie construction was... well, from what's written above, Hurst anticipated this kind of collaborative approach where everyone involved with Sonic could brainstorm jointly and bounce ideas off each other and eventually they'd settle on a unified vision.  And from what I've heard, Penders did something like walk in there and tell Sega's execs that they should just be taking their ideas for the future of Sonic from the comics and from him.  Whatever the exact details were, it sounds like he basically insulted them.

 

On the subject of Sega mandates on the comic, I wonder if the reason they're so severe is partly because Penders screwed everything up so badly for years.  In the minds of Sega, Archie betrayed their trust and now needs major reining in or else they'll just pull exactly the same stupid stuff again.  What with the post-Adventure intercession and the lawsuit, I'm almost surprised that they didn't just cancel the comic entirely - but maybe they got the message that most of this trouble can be laid squarely at one man's door.

 

You know, reading over the past few pages, part of the problem with Penders seems to be that he has no empathy and no understanding of other people's feelings or opinions.  Not only does he think he's always right, it doesn't even occur to him that anyone could disagree.  He can't appreciate that a Holocaust survivor has had a harder life than him, he can't appreciate that Flynn might be a better or more popular storyteller than him, he can't appreciate that Sega and Archie neither need nor want him.  Mistakes?  Someone else's responsibility.  Bad ideas?  Someone else's poor taste.  Collaboration?  Only if he's in charge and has the final say.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

You know, reading over the past few pages, part of the problem with Penders seems to be that he has no empathy and no understanding of other people's feelings or opinions.  Not only does he think he's always right, it doesn't even occur to him that anyone could disagree.  He can't appreciate that a Holocaust survivor has had a harder life than him, he can't appreciate that Flynn might be a better or more popular storyteller than him, he can't appreciate that Sega and Archie neither need nor want him.  Mistakes?  Someone else's responsibility.  Bad ideas?  Someone else's poor taste.  Collaboration?  Only if he's in charge and has the final say.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Found this earlier. Just leaving it here. Hopefully it's obvious why.

http://www.theouthousers.com/index.php/news/131478-dc-using-spurious-logic-to-screw-creators-out-of-royalties-and-credit.html

[biznizz]

The point you make is noted. DC should be ashamed of their current practices. Tho, there's a reason why I've already written off TheOutHousers before this point. A proud widget of "_ Days Since DC Has Done Something Stupid" does not make you look witty or charming in MY book.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

The point you make is noted. DC should be ashamed of their current practices. Tho, there's a reason why I've already written off TheOutHousers before this point. A proud widget of "_ Days Since DC Has Done Something Stupid" does not make you look witty or charming in MY book.

 

Not sure if you're saying that was my point or not, but the part I'd highlight is this:

 

 

For example, Power Girl– “derived” from Superman, because, like Supergirl, she’s a relative of Superman. Which means I can’t claim to be her co-creator because Superman is a pre-existing character. Fair enough, I suppose. The logic here is that Superman is the original creation, so Power Girl is derived from that original creation, so in effect, Power Girl is an extension of Superman, which means, by this tortured logic, that Power Girl was more or less created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

 

Uh, no.

 

This was the tortured logic National Periodical Publications tried to use back in the 1940s when Siegel and Shuster sued National for the rights to Superboy. National (the company that preceded DC) argued that Superman was the original creation, which Siegel and Shuster sold to National, and that Superboy was just a “derivative” creation. A court-appointed legal referee found that Superboy was in fact a unique creation and that National was guilty of copyright infringement. Sadly for Siegel and Shuster (and for creators everywhere), legal expenses forced the creators to sell National the rights to Superboy in a consent decree that obscured this fundamental finding. But the finding is pretty clear:

 

Characters “derived” from other characters are legally unique, and DC’s claim that “derivation” deprives creators of any equity participation rights in those characters is nothing more than an immoral, unethical, deceitful and despicable money grab.

 

 

The parts in bold are what I think might be particularly relevant to a conversation about The Lara-Su Chronicles and Penders' creations, such as Evil Sonic or the Praetorian.

[Salamander]

I don't really have a problem with Penders owning and getting royalties for his characters so much as him using them independently.  It seems atypical of the present copyright system to allow anyone to create a slightly altered Superman and have free commercial use of them.  Sega not being able to just take and use Penders's *sigh* "Praetorian" design, sure, that's reasonable - but Penders going away and using it himself is surely exactly the same thing, isn't it, since it's related to someone else's property?  I think this is where the consumer confusion element comes in; it's widely acknowledged that any fancharacters you create are your property, no matter how derivative, but that's never been the same thing as being able to make money from them.

[Zaysho]

Not sure if you're saying that was my point or not, but the part I'd highlight is this:

 

 

 

The parts in bold are what I think might be particularly relevant to a conversation about The Lara-Su Chronicles and Penders' creations, such as Evil Sonic or the Praetorian.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Evil Sonic/Scourge is probably toeing the line, but the problem with Praetorian is that he is literally Knuckles. It's not a derivative so much as an out and out rip-off. It was always accepted as a future version of Knuckles as he was featured in the book, not a separate character.

How would Superboy being the younger version of Superman differ from Praetorian being the older version of Knuckles, though?

In the Superboy case, there is even less visual distinction between the two versions.

[horridus]

Not sure if you're saying that was my point or not, but the part I'd highlight is this:

 

 

 

The parts in bold are what I think might be particularly relevant to a conversation about The Lara-Su Chronicles and Penders' creations, such as Evil Sonic or the Praetorian.

 

I'm not entirely certain this really applies to Penders, at least the bits about Superboy. Siegel and Shuster were the creators of Superman to begin with. Penders was never the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, and his character of Evil Sonic never got the kind of play, exposure or fame as Superboy did, being literally little more than Sonic with sunglasses, a leather jacket and a bad attitude, without even the difference in height and build shared between Superman and Superboy. The more unique incarnation of the character (Scourge), who possesses a more unique design, personality and an actual backstory was the result of work done by Ian Flynn, and Penders not only had nothing to do with that but utterly refuses to acknowledge the character as anything but Evil Sonic. If while working for Disney I were to slap a pair of sunglasses on Mickey Mouse and claim it was his evil twin, should I have any kind of right to use and profit from that when my creation amounts to someone else's character with sunglasses, and is literally that? 

 

Further, Penders lawsuit wasn't simply about royalties. If it had been about being given what was owed him then maybe, just maybe, he might have come out of this with his reputation intact. Penders however wanted to micromanage how his characters were depicted while at the same time trying to dictate the eventual 'canon' future of a comic book that he would no longer be working on. All this while having accused Flynn in the past of stealing his ideas and claiming he'd ignore everything and simply pick up where he left off if he had ever been re-hired. And yet at the same time, the Nocturnus are a ripoff of his ideas despite far more effort being made to distinguish them from the Dark Legion, and despite having been made while under the impression that SEGA owned the concept anyway? Something others might accept as an honest mistake, Penders blew up into a borderline conspiracy to defraud him, despite knowing so little about how video game profits work that he sought money AFTER the game had gone out of print.

 

And then there's the fact that, as has been mentioned, he wants to use his creations independent of the comics and SEGA while trying to claim a canon connection between his work now and his work then; the characters he plans on using are meant to be the same as the ones who appeared in the comic, and that alone would be dicey even if it wasn't for the presence of the Praetorian. Who is Future Knuckles. There's no way around it, the character is a future version of Knuckles developed for the comic, a future version of a character he never created. He hasn't redesigned his characters significantly enough that they no longer resemble Echidna as devised by SEGA, and even goes so far as to call them 'echyd'nya'. He simply refuses to let go, even though it'd be in his best interest to do exactly that.

 

Penders is a unique and twisted chapter in creator's rights. I've never heard of any creator who has demanded the kind of things he has and who, after having achieved their stated goals, continued to try and make money off their work while claiming a connection to a brand and its works while not being published UNDER that brand. All the while insulting his former employers, demeaning his former colleagues, and borderline claiming himself as the lord god and savior of a franchise that, by all objective accounts, he was never truly interested in working for. 

[biznizz]

Copyrighting a character at various ages seems iffy, such as the Superboy thing. I understand that was a desperation tactic by Siegel & Shuster's part to get some of the Big S's royalties.

If someone tried to copyright a character for a new, independant franchise such as James Bond, Age 12, that wouldn't fly with the Fleming Estate/EON/whoever, right?

[Zaysho]

How would Superboy being the younger version of Superman differ from Praetorian being the older version of Knuckles, though?

In the Superboy case, there is even less visual distinction between the two versions.

I will admit that I'm not familiar enough with the legal ins and outs of DC Comics' history. I'll also admit that I thought Superboy was a separate character due to my exposure to him being the Young Justice TV series, in which is he is treated as a wholly different character despite being a clone of Superman. If we're going with the version in which he is a younger Superman, I can see why Siegel and Shuster sued over that version of the character, given that 1) Siegel pitched the character twice to DC (or National, at the time) and was turned down both times, 2) National ended up using the concept anyway without notifying Siegel, 3) they created Superman and Superboy at the time seemed more like rebranding of their character, and they pursued legal action because of the first two points. While I do think it's a little iffy to copyright characters at different ages, honestly it sounds silly if it's the same character, but I suppose this is where trademarks come in to protect works that are derivative of larger concepts?

In the case of Knuckles/Praetorian, I don't think it works quite the same way because Penders did not create Knuckles, and he does not own him. He might have developed the concept of future Knuckles, and the details that led Knuckles to become who he was in the future Mobius timeline, but he is not a different character because of that. It was always accepted as SEGA's character. Praetorian is a wholesale rip-off of Knuckles, and given that Penders intends on picking up from where he left off, I can make the guess that whenever Praetorian appears, he will be a continuation of what was accepted as being Knuckles.

 

Evil Sonic, like I said before, is toeing the line, though I fall in the camp of "how the hell can Penders even lay claim to that?" Penders might have created/introduced him, but is it enough when his design was simply Sonic in shades and a leather jacket, and was based entirely on a character that Penders did not create nor own? Regardless, I do have to begrudgingly accept that Scourge, much like future Knuckles, is still Evil Sonic even if the details and retooling of his character into Scourge were under another writer's pen, and simply due to the fact that he is connected to Penders, that's why Archie no longer wants to use the character.

[Verb & Noun]

I actually started to write out a big reply in regard to this something came up so I ended up closing the reply.

 

I'm trying to remember all of what I said, but the biggest point of it is I actually see how/agree that Pendejo's characters are 'original' and belong to him (for the majority- Evil-Sonic I believe is derivative because his character aspects are heavily dependent on the existing character of Sonic).

 

I'm not talking about 'literally Knuckles with a beard', I'm talking about the character concepts themselves- the skeletal structures of the characters, not the paintjob applied on top.

 

Pendejo gave less than a shit about the established lore of the book he was writing for so a lot of his stuff really far divorced from anything from the original lore. Nothing in Sonic has ever had a cabal of secret voyeuristic NSA grandpas before he put them in. So in a lot of the cases, those characters are 'original' and his- and I don't have a problem with that.

 

The only thing that makes them Sonic like in any regard IS that paint on top, and that's what irritates me the most more often than not (other than just his nasty fucking attitude, behavior, and tactics).

 

When people were getting pissed off about Pendejo using SEGA!style echidnas, Penders tried trotting out 'Howard the Duck' as an argument for why his stuff is fine. For those who aren't aware of the story of what happened with Howard the Duck, Howard is a property owned by Marvel. Back in the day, Howard looked very similar in art style to Disney's Donald Duck (and their other duck characters like Scrooge, etc). Disney got upset, believing this was leading to things like brand confusion (as Disney did produce their own duck comics), and threatened to sue Marvel over infringement because Howard's design was too close to Donald/their ducks.

 

Rather than be sued, Marvel decided to go into talks with them, and Disney basically redesigned Howard 'for' them (making him in many people's opinions 'hideous', but whatever). The point was that by just changing various stylistic points, Howard no longer looked like Donald.

 

Pendejo has been trying to pull the same thing by tweaking the design of the echidna characters, which is why they have pug faces and bizarre anatomy now. He also tried to claim that no one had a 'copywrite on echidnas', so his characters could be echidnas if he wanted them to be.

 

But then comes the problem. Echidnas look absolutely nothing like how they're shown in SEGA Sonic. SEGA are basically the only people in the world who draw echidnas like that because the real animal looks nothing like that. So when Pendejo drew his echidnas like theirs, it's really obvious infringement on their stuff.

 

Which is why they're not echidnas and why they're aliens now. He's literally changed his argument from "no one owns echidnas" to "well they're not echidnas anyway so it doesn't matter".

 

He's a slippery fucking weasel.

 

 

 

In the case of Knuckles/Praetorian, I don't think it works quite the same way because Penders did not create Knuckles, and he does not own him. He might have developed the concept of future Knuckles, and the details that led Knuckles to become who he was in the future Mobius timeline, but he is not a different character because of that. It was always accepted as SEGA's character. Praetorian is a wholesale rip-off of Knuckles, and given that Penders intends on picking up from where he left off, I can make the guess that whenever Praetorian appears, he will be a continuation of what was accepted as being Knuckles.

 

The thing is, Pendejo talks out both sides of his mouth when he says that Future!Knuckles is a unique character while Scourge is not.

 

He claims that because Evil-Sonic was shown transitioning into Scourge that it means that it is the same character. Fine.

 

But Future!Knuckles is literally said to be Knuckles. And considering his insistence that his future be 'the' future, that means it is THE Knuckles, not any over version of. Which puts him in the same boat as Evil-Sonic. If Scourge can't be a original character, neither can Future!Knuckles.

 

Having cake and trying to eat it too.

[Tenko]

Not to mention his double standards, Scourge/Evil Sonic and Praetorian, as well as Robo-Robotnik are all "unique" and are apparently different enough from the characters they were based on to be considered his property.

Yet the Nocturnus are not unique enough and have too many similarities to his Dark Legion and should therefore be considered his property as its heavy infringement on his characters.....

I realize Sega doesn't want to go through the rigmarole of the courts again and seems to be happy leaving things as they are. But how does his argument against the Nocturnus belonging to Sega work in his favour while not also invalidating his claims at the same time, that's always baffled me. If he "won" his argument then Sega should be well within their right to continue to use the Nocturnus. If his argument failed in court then he should have lost the rights to his Sega derivative characters. Yet somehow...incompetent lawyers perhaps? He gets away with having his cake and eating it too...and people wonder why a vast majority have no faith in the justice system.

[Disonoid 3000]

Maybe SEGA just didn't bother? It seems very unlikely they had any other plans for the Nocturnus, maybe they just thought "Let him have 'em"?

[Verb & Noun]

At that point I believe they had already written Chronicles off as a failed game- it was well past the point where the game was generating any profit anyway, it was basically out of print.

[therealfalconpawnch77]

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/593592316863975424

Seems that Ken's been busy making a new Data File (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CDzdEQDUkAAEMTy.jpg:large). Will update once I read.

EDIT 1: THE PREATORIAN'S NAME IS F###### K'NOX! IS HE EVEN TRYING?!?!

EDIT 2: He's still measuring his characters in Marks and Stone. Metric or US Customary I don't care which just use one of those two!

EDIT 3: Echyd'nyaplis... I can't even begin to describe the stupidity.

EDIT 4: Apparently Kragok is not dead.

EDIT 5: Luger is also not dead.

EDIT 6: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! WHY IS JANELLE NOT DEAD?! THAT WAS THE ENTIRE DRIVING POINT BEHIND WHY SABRE AND ATHAIR DIDN'T GET ALONG!

EDIT 7 (FINAL EDIT): So apparently not only is Lara super smart, and a master combatant, but he's also explaining how all the futures are the same with spacial distortions, WHICH WOULD MAKE THEM ALTERNATE REALITIES!!

[Dejimon11]

Are you honest to God kidding me? Really? How the hell is he not getting sued by SEGA again? 

[Tenko]

Almost 25 lines worth of text about known family members and relations...what is this the bible?

[Verb & Noun]

Why is that art so fucking hideous goddamn why does this keep happening.

 

He apparently hasn't discovered the symmetry ruler in Clip Studio despite using the program.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

 

The Praetorian's name is K'Nox.

 

The Praetorian's name is K'Nox

 

The Praetorian's name is 

THE PRAETORIAN'S NAME IS K'NOX

The Praetorian's name is

The Praetorian

THE PRAEOTRIAN

AHAHHAHAHAHHAHA

HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

 

I just

I can't

 

 

 

...

 

He mentions the Sonic the Hedgehog issue in which she first appeared.

 

...Okey dokey.

 

 

 

By the way, he has no idea just how off-putting this Data File would be to newcomers to the series. Seriously, a HUUGGE chunk of text, 99% of it boring, and literally the only description of her character itself is that apparently she's a Mary Sue.

 

Oh, and I just realized that Lara-Su is wearing a loincloth.

No, seriously. Look.

 

 

Oh my gosh

Seriously

The Mobius equivalent of AD is apparently LSD

LSD.

 

 

...It honestly seems like his coloring skills have improved, however.

Um.

That's good right.

 

Are you honest to God kidding me? Really? How the hell is he not getting sued by SEGA again? 

 

Because they don't care. And they shouldn't.

 

I'm betting KennyBoy will never actually release the book.

[Verb & Noun]

WHY IS SHE FUCKING PERFECT

 

Edit-

"high intellect"

I"M GONNA TOSS MY GUARDIANSHIP FOR A DAAAAAAAAARE

 

Edit 2:

She's so ugly

Like just

 

Horribly artistically unappealing

 

Edit 3:

I'm sorry this is just like stream of conciousness reacting just goddamn why. This is why I keep watching his shit and paying attention to what he does because it's like someone pulling a fucking harlequin fetus out of a hat and going "TADAH"

 

Edit 4:

Also a friend pointed this out but I called it with him blaming the inconsistencies with things on time ripples/anomolies

[horridus]

Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. I can't... I can't even form a coherant enough thought to RAGE properly. "K'Nox"?! Was fucking K'NUX too on the nose?! Dear sweet jesus this is just... somebody hold me. I think I'm having an aneurysm. That backstory. That section about her family, her abilities, this is just... this is *horrendous*.