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

[King Scoopa Koopa]

2 hours ago, FFWF said:

Hell, he's not even the Donald Trump of the Sonic fandom.

I don't know, I bet a good comparison chart could be drawn.

[Tylinos]

Even if Ken was the one who brought it up, I don't think this is a line of discussion we should probably go down.

[horridus]

Which is why we shall veer away from that and focus instead on this. 

To re-iterate, in the case of Penders, this alone really wouldn't solve anything when it comes him; he has repeatedly made it clear that he desires co-ownership of his creations, something that explicitly goes against Archie's contract with SEGA, as this would make him a secondary copyright holder alongside SEGA, though SEGA only allows Archie to publish so long as they own everything. It is a point of his that never comes up when people point out why Archie would be reluctant to deal with him, and that is without getting into the fact he has a specific list of demands that would basically give him control of certain aspects of the comic (particularly with regards to the future as HE wrote it) despite not working on it. 

I bring this up for the simple fact that whenever the subject comes up of what Archie would have to do to get his copyrights back, he never does bring up any of the terms and conditions he's mentioned in the past, nor the fact that if he were to get his way Archie would wind up losing the license anyway. This is done for the sake of providing a bit of illumination regarding this subject and Penders, as he is not very forthright about the entire story, as with many things. 

There's also a bit of the usual claptrap regarding the Sonic movie not happening and why him being a big part of the Sonic comic 20 years ago somehow gives him pertinent insight into the franchise today, but that is to be expected. 

[Tenko]

Man he's still really stuck on this movie thing. Won't accept its been greenlit, won't accept any of the currently known staff are actually working on it, won't accept that Sony will bankroll it. Most of all he can't seem to accept that it would be based on the games.

He still maintains that the games have no stories that would make a good film, and that the characters lack and personality or defining motivations and traits. Even tho he has previously said he hasn't played any of the games or researched its materials. So you have to wonder how he knows none of it would be any good. Besides the fact Sonic's underlying traits, motivations and personality in the comics all come from his base character in the games.

His remarks on 23 years of reasonably well known, moderatly earning American comics being more of a draw card for a movie studio that has to distribute a film world wide, than 25 years of multi-million dollar, sucessful, world wide known video games is also rather laughable to me. His reasoning that because comic book movies are popular at the moment means they should draw from the comics is also kind of grasping. Seems he will come up with any reason to try justify why they should use the comics as a base. Without taking into account even if they did, they would use the current setup and not his purged material anyway.

[Tylinos]

Most of it's just normal Ken talk, especially the whole it needs to be based on the comics to have a good chance of being greenlit nonsense.  It barely even fazes me anymore.

No, the part that baffled me was how he started out by saying that the movie may not even be happening because they haven't given us a cast list yet...but then less than 24 hours later turned around and mentioned that it took "2 studios & 20 years" to get the Watchmen movie started.  I'd like it if he picked a point and stuck to it.  Instead, he tries and dip his finger in both pots by simultaneously claiming both that the movie needs to be started already or it isn't happening, and that it could take years for it to get off the ground in the first place.  These feel more like points two people arguing would use against each other.

[horridus]

I myself still find it particularly rich how he goes on about how the games don't have enough for a film, when he has gone on record as being proud of the fact that he never played any of them to begin with. It will never cease to amaze me that he feels entitled to make that kind of judgement while simultaneously admitting he has no idea about what he's talking about when it comes to the games to begin with. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

It's simple: he once watched his son play one of the early Genesis games with a TV remote or something and saw no story in his glimpses (supplemental material doesn't count), which means video games have no story at all.

This is a pure, solid fact that has not changed in two and a half decades-- save for that one time they stole all his material and made a game out of it, of course.

[Mad Convoy]

To be fair to Penders, a lot of Sonic games' stories are terrible and would have to changed at the conceptual level to be made good. But he makes a major leap in logic when he implies that Sonic has never had a story good enough for film ever (Sonic 3, Sonic Unleashed, the Storybook series, and a few others would like to speak with Penders regarding that), that Sonic as a franchise could never produce a story directly adapted from the games that's worthwhile, or that a Sonic movie not penned by Penders will never work. Its all about hiring the right people for the job, using the right ideas from the games (even most bad Sonic stories have at least a few good ideas in them), and keeping a good eye on them.

Its rich hearing Penders complain about how the movie will never come out and won't be good because Sonic games can't have good enough stories when he's barely made any progress on the Lara Su Chronicles, his own Sonic-themed project based on a comic book based on the stories of the games.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Mad Convoy
used more clear wording

[Tenko]

He's now moved on to the opinion that games in general don't have stories, that it's the gameplay that defines them and that the stories are unimportant to the medium, unlike comics where it's all about story making them a superior medium to make a film from.

Clearly he hasn't played or seen any RPG's or even a fair few action/adventure games that have amazing stories that would make for brilliant movies.

Also pointed out that Warcraft as an example of a video game based movie made more profit (or came very close) worldwide than the early Marvel outings Iron Man, Thor, Captian America etc, and made more than Watchmen and all the different attempts at Fantastic 4. Does that mean those movies have worse stories or charactization etc than the video game based movie Warcraft? No. No of couse not. But it proves that video game movies can stand their ground against their comic book cousins at the box office if handled better and given more care than they usually are.

[horridus]

28 minutes ago, Mad Convoy said:

Its rich hearing Penders complain about how the movie will never come out and won't be good because Sonic games can't have good enough stories when he's barely made any progress on the Lara Su Chronicles, his own Sonic-themed project based on a comic book based on the stories of the games.

Doubly rich, given that he insists that his Lost Ones film is happening, despite the very obvious quality issues of the trailer and the fact that nobody, and I mean *nobody* remembers it and it never got past it's first issue. Yet he claims that 'people are interested'. 

Triply rich though is him seeming to imply that Sonic has no motivation to do what he does in those tweets of his, seeming to not be able to grasp altruism for it's own sake... all the while coming up with what has to be the most singularly odious take on Sonic's personality, as outlined here. There have been many takes on Sonic out there, and yet out of all of them, Penders seems to miss the mark entirely about what drives him. 

2 minutes ago, Tenko said:

He's now moved on to the opinion that games in general don't have stories, that it's the gameplay that defines them and that the stories are unimportant to the medium, unlike comics where it's all about story making them a superior medium to make a film from.

Clearly he hasn't played or seen any RPG's or even a fair few action/adventure games that have amazing stories that would make for brilliant movies.

Also pointed out that Warcraft as an example of a video game based movie made more profit (or came very close) worldwide than the early Marvel outings Iron Man, Thor, Captian America etc, and made more than Watchmen and all the different attempts at Fantastic 4. Does that mean those movies have worse stories or charactization etc than the video game based movie Warcraft? No. No of couse not. But it proves that video game movies can stand their ground against their comic book cousins at the box office if handled better and given more care than they usually are.

You're not the first to point this out to him. Someone once pointed out that the Pokemon franchise was spawne from games, and he blew that off as well, as well as any mention of the fact that storytelling in gaming had progress beyond 'get to the end of the stage, bonk the enemy, rinse, wash and repeat'. Penders holds a weird kind of nerd snobbery that leads him to believe that comics are an intrinsically superior medium, nevermind the sheer mountains of *garbage* that have appeared in superhero comics over the years- an individual seeing the infamous story of Avengers #200 could easily become convinced that superhero comics should never, ever be made into movies for permitting such a hideous story to be made. The fact that Superhero movies were regarded as unprofitable for a while due to movies like Steel, The Phantom or Batman and Robin doesn't really seem to enter the equation either. 

But you know, at the end of the day? It's not really about the comics themselves or the 23 years of continuity. It's specifically about those portions and ideas penned by him and him alone. He's not talking about Bollers or Flynn when he talks about studios mining the comics- he's talking about himself. Why the idea of a Sonic film being made by somebody other than him using his sources offends him so much, I have no idea, but this magnanimous proclamation of the Archie comic's worth is only because of what *he* worked on. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

In fairness to Penders, he might be right in one small way-- a movie that's purportedly based on a comic might turn more heads, at least at a business level, than a movie based on a game. Mainly because as he said, comic movies are usually big business and video game movies are usually big busts.

I don't see it making a huge difference here because it's Sonic, already a proven multimedia commodity, but in most cases, I can imagine a comic movie being treated more favorably by suits.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

How can Penders even get the impression that Sonic games don't have good stories when he's never fucking bothered with them.

This man is fucking ridiculous, but you know what? The further over the point of madness he progresses, the closer he gets to making a major mistake, and ruining everything for himself. Because Sega doesn't care. Archie doesn't care. He's ruining himself and nobody else, and I personally think that's exactly the thing he needs to get his fucking shit together and maybe stop being a total fucking asshole.

He pisses us off, but in the end, the only one losing is him. The comics have built up a new universe without ties to his crap, if SEGA wanted to do anything with the Chronicles characters they could hire better lawyers than him, and my advice is just to be along for the ride and see this trainwreck through until he makes bootleg Sonic and Eggman, declares himself Ultimate Space Jesus, and has a diva freakout in the middle of a convention.

[Tenko]

So apparently now if a movie doesn't do well domestically, aka in the United States, it isn't worth mentioning. That was his response to me regarding bringing up Warcraft as the current #1 grossing video game based movie.

Because it made the majority of its money overseas, it is a failure to him, regardless that it made back 4x it's production costs and hasn't yet released on home media. Even when the Top 100 movies globally all made roughly 70-80% of their income via the overseas markets. It's actually more an exception than a rule when the USA domestic has a even or higher gross rate than the other markets.

Not to mention terrible video game movies, ones that hardly broke even, and in some cases made low percentage gross in the USA domestic market like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat etc all managed to get sequels. So I don't see how Warcraft can be a bad example of a video game movie being a relative success and won't get a sequel due to its bad USA domestic intake according to him.

I'm thanking the heavens that he won't be getting his mitts on the Sonic movie. He doesnt seem to get movies let alone gaming franchises.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

2 hours ago, Tenko said:

I'm thanking the heavens that he won't be getting his mitts on the Sonic movie. He doesnt seem to get movies let alone gaming franchises.

I'm stating the obvious here, but I think he only cares about the fame and glory that comes from being a famous and respected movie director/maker, not the actual work involved to BE respected. Everything to him is just a shortcut to fame.

[Mad Convoy]

10 hours ago, horridus said:

Triply rich though is him seeming to imply that Sonic has no motivation to do what he does in those tweets of his, seeming to not be able to grasp altruism for it's own sake... all the while coming up with what has to be the most singularly odious take on Sonic's personality, as outlined here. There have been many takes on Sonic out there, and yet out of all of them, Penders seems to miss the mark entirely about what drives him. 

I read that link, and one thing in particular that stood out to me was this little gem. (Bolding mine)

Quote

When you stop and think how Sega looks at the character, he’s all ego and attitude. He thinks about number one. He can accept Tails because Tails is the subordinate junior assistant to his main act. 

That's the kind of missing the point I'd expect from somebody who has little familiarity with the franchise. Sonic does have a large ego and lots of attitude, but that's not the only personality trait he has going for him-- and even in the darkest moments of Sonic's flanderization, Sega understood that Sonic is more than just those things. He has a lot of compassion, using his abilities to help the helpless like saving the Flickies from roboticization, or if we look at later Sonic games, being willing to talk to and comfort Merlina after he defeated her when he had every reason in the world to ditch her considering that she just tried to plunge her world into hell. He also hates bullies like Eggman, and most of his jerk antics and bragging are either directed towards wrongdoers or meant as a friendly jab rather than asserting his dominance. 

I'm more familiar with the game continuity, so do correct me if I'm wrong, but last I checked, Sonic took Tails in because he thought Tails needed a friend and wanted to protect the kid from bullies, not because he saw Tails as a useful subordinate. If anything, Sonic wants to empower Tails, not cow him into submission like Penders implies.

7 hours ago, Tenko said:

So apparently now if a movie doesn't do well domestically, aka in the United States, it isn't worth mentioning. That was his response to me regarding bringing up Warcraft as the current #1 grossing video game based movie.

Because it made the majority of its money overseas, it is a failure to him, regardless that it made back 4x it's production costs and hasn't yet released on home media. Even when the Top 100 movies globally all made roughly 70-80% of their income via the overseas markets. It's actually more an exception than a rule when the USA domestic has a even or higher gross rate than the other markets.

This is an unfortunately common misconception in the movie industry, as movie companies really do tend to gauge the success of a film based on how well it did in its home country. This is steadily losing ground as companies are starting to focus more on worldwide cumulative sales for, well, stuff like the example you gave. Plus, the popularity of the misconception doesn't make it any more right.

5 hours ago, SenEDtor Missile said:

I'm stating the obvious here, but I think he only cares about the fame and glory that comes from being a famous and respected movie director/maker, not the actual work involved to BE respected. Everything to him is just a shortcut to fame.

I think you've got it. Though you neglected to mention money, something else he wants to get lots of in a quick and easy way.

[horridus]

Yeah, you look at Penders various statements over the years and his weird focus on franchising and merchandise tie-ins before he actually has a product to release, he starts to come off more and more as a man who wants to create the next Chia Pet- an effortless fad that he can cash in on and whose residuals he can live off of forever. It's an incredibly cynical mindset for any kind of individual involved in cretive efforts to have, yet it is nakedly apparrent that this is precisely what Penders wants from his work.

[Tylinos]

Yes, it's called "making as much money as possible".  While Archie isn't exactly super-competent at it, they at least understand the basics.   When they have to choose between putting production costs and labor into making a reprint collection where they only need to share profits with Sega, and one where they have to split profits multiple ways, they're usually smart enough to choose the former.  It's basic capitalism.

They aren't making "zero revenue" if they prioritize new continuity reprints over old continuity ones.  They're making MORE revenue.  These aren't things that take zero effort to make.  Remember, they actually didn't have the resources to devote to even new continuity reprint collections until recently.  They have to pick and choose what they invest their time and money into.

You'd think that someone who talks about understanding business as much as Ken does would realize that.

[horridus]

This is a man whose 'business savvy' leads him to focus on releasing numerous tie-in products long before he has finished the work that is meant to tie into them, and constantly, constantly makes a spectacle of himself on twitter. In one of my courses at college the subject of business conduct came up, and one of the first rules was that you never, ever engage in that kind of behavior on social media- it makes you look unprofessional and makes people unwilling to engage with your business.

In fact, basic common sense would seem to give most the ability to grasp both of these points even without any prior business experiance, and yet somehow, they are ideas BOTH beyond Penders' reach. 

[Tylinos]

I'm completely and utterly unsurprised that when Tenko tweeted that point to Ken a bit ago, Ken completely changed the subject to "So basically you have no problem screwing over Ian, Tracy and the rest?"  That wasn't even remotely the point, Ken, and you know it.  It is a blatantly loaded question, though.

No one is advocating Archie not paying royalties to people.  The only thing that was said there was pointing out the reason WHY Archie would choose to reprint new stuff over old stuff.  That doesn't make it something morally right, or something I (or presumably Tenko) even support.

Shooting the messenger with a loaded question.  Amazing.

(Also, Tenko, if you really are going to keep up this argument with him, just point out that explaining Archie's reasoning doesn't mean you support them doing it.  That's really all you need to do.)

[horridus]

I find it laughable that he's suddenly acting like he's a champion of Ian Flynn, given the crap he's said about him and his work in the past, including all but accusing him of plagiarizing unused ideas... because evidently, Bunnie and Antoine marrying was just such a uniquely Ken Penders idea that of course anybody taking the logical step of a long term couple getting married would HAVE to pilfering HIS precious ideas. To say nothing of the fact that he's made it more than clear that if he had his way, Flynn's entire run would be erased so that he could return to where he left off. 

 

[QuantumEdge]

6 minutes ago, horridus said:

I find it laughable that he's suddenly acting like he's a champion of Ian Flynn, given the crap he's said about him and his work in the past, including all but accusing him of plagiarizing unused ideas... because evidently, Bunnie and Antoine marrying was just such a uniquely Ken Penders idea that of course anybody taking the logical step of a long term couple getting married would HAVE to pilfering HIS precious ideas. To say nothing of the fact that he's made it more than clear that if he had his way, Flynn's entire run would be erased so that he could return to where he left off. 

 

It's that kind of selfish agenda to use others in order to lift himself that does him no favours in turning around popular opinion of him.  Being that two faced is all kinds of unfair to Ian, Tracy and everyone else.  I mean how do you expect to sell something like hot cakes, when your PR is that deplorable?  Mind you, considering his business "savvy", it's not too surprising to me that he makes zero effort in getting fans to understand his actions.

[horridus]

I am looking over the full bredth of this exchange, and man... I really don't have words. This guy is screaming and raving about companies being thieves, when he himself *is* a thief. He stole the name of his series from a fan and defender of his, and then refused to talk to the guy despite finding OODLES of time to make an ass of himself on twitter. He uses images nicked from the internet to fill the gaps in his own art skills without any kind of credit or permission. He stole a panel of a character he doesn't own to use in his damn comic, without crediting the colorist whose work he stole in the process of doing so- not that he cares, given that colorists 'don't count' as far as he is concerned. He says he moved on happily, when the fact of the matter was he *quit* because his job became more demanding than he was used to, and to this day is STILL trying to ride the coattails of the franchise. 

Stuff like this reminds me of why, even knowing Archie's shoddy history and treatment of it's employees, I can never support him or his actions. Given the chance to get away with similar actions he all too cheerfully indulges them, all the while screaming about how he's the hero of the story. It's nauseating. 

[Tylinos]

Changing the subject a bit, but re-reading Paul's old post there just answered a question that was brought up in this thread a week or so ago.

Quote

I felt further justified in during 2008 when BobR revealed on the old message board that you intended to conclude the story with Lara-Su being completely erased from existence.

That seems to be the original M25YL cliffhanger Ken recently said he planned to restore.

[horridus]

1 minute ago, Tylinos said:

Changing the subject a bit, but re-reading Paul's old post there just answered a question that was brought up in this thread a week or so ago.

 

 

That seems to be the original M25YL cliffhanger Ken recently mentioned that he planned to restore.

How nice to know that the pointless story that took up way too much page spaces was going to originally have an equally pointless ending that rendered the whole thing a waste of time IN-universe, just as it was out of universe. 

And then THAT ending will be rendered invalid as we segue into The Lara-Su Chronicles proper. 

[RobotnikHolmes]

1 hour ago, horridus said:

I am looking over the full bredth of this exchange, and man... I really don't have words. This guy is screaming and raving about companies being thieves, when he himself *is* a thief. He stole the name of his series from a fan and defender of his, and then refused to talk to the guy despite finding OODLES of time to make an ass of himself on twitter. He uses images nicked from the internet to fill the gaps in his own art skills without any kind of credit or permission. He stole a panel of a character he doesn't own to use in his damn comic, without crediting the colorist whose work he stole in the process of doing so- not that he cares, given that colorists 'don't count' as far as he is concerned. He says he moved on happily, when the fact of the matter was he *quit* because his job became more demanding than he was used to, and to this day is STILL trying to ride the coattails of the franchise. 

Stuff like this reminds me of why, even knowing Archie's shoddy history and treatment of it's employees, I can never support him or his actions. Given the chance to get away with similar actions he all too cheerfully indulges them, all the while screaming about how he's the hero of the story. It's nauseating. 

Holy crap, thats the first time I'e read that post. How Ken Penders acts (or lack if acting) towards his fans is just horrendous.