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

[Shadowlax]

2 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

Normally, I'd agree, but I honestly think its less that he wanted it to be cut off and more that he was too lazy to fix it or even see it. I mean, I doubt he checked the case too much before he tried to get it into production, and I doubt he'd want to do a lot of editing if he did notice.

On ebay, yes, but hasn't he been hawking these at conventions and stuff? There's a market for anything, and I'd be quite surprised if there wasn't at least one person who actually thinks that the Lara Su Chronicles is good and wants to show it.

At the very least, somebody's eventually going to try to give it to a Sonic fan as a joke present.

this is the sort of thing you buy because its bad or connected to a bad thing, issue is. This is hard to explain and you are hypothetically putting on your phone. So an injoke on your phone.

But why would you buy that when you can look at updates about what ken is doing and achive the same joy

[horridus]

Alrighty, minor bit of insight going on with TLSC. 

Another for the 'Not A Whole Lote But It's Better Than Nothing' pile. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't it be more prudent to actually get the story out and sew in the details of these characters within said story, so that new readers might be able to actually appreciate said details and get into the characters as a result? 

Yeah, I know, rhetorical question, but still. 

 

[MightyRay]

Did anybody see the kuffle that Mr Penders got into with Kurt Busiek? Mr Penders really didn't do a good job debating the guy from what I gathered... I don't know who Mr Busiek is but apparently he's a big deal and knows a lot about comics so I think he might warn folks about sharing insight with Mr Penders...

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Kurt Busiek is a comics writer and is indeed a big deal - I know because he's done some fantastic work on Superman, and that's not even his most important or famous work! I'm pretty new to Twitter and not great at searching, so do you think you could provide a link?

[MightyRay]

I don't have a twitter but I found out through a bloke I follow on tumblr now and used to keep tabs on when I didn't have one. http://robotnik-mun.tumblr.com/post/150199698931/oh-this-is-beautiful-this-is-magical-this-is

Hope this helps Monkey.

[horridus]

Oh sure, sabotage my attempts to recap that entire debacle- I was in the midst of giving an overview complete with links to the tweets when you posted that, saboteur! 

Heh, kidding, kidding.  

In all seriousness though, Kurt Busiek is indeed a big name in the industry. A VERY big name. His work has won him numerous awards, several of them Eisners. His body of work includes a critically acclaimed four year run on the Avengers, penning the Marvels miniseries, creating the idea of and writing the Thunderbolts series, and of course the longrunnning independent superhero series Astro City.  So yeah, in the simplest terms? Busiek's kind of a really, really big deal in the comic book profession, much more so than Penders himself. 

That being said, this exchange does offer a.... fascinating look into how Penders' mind seems to operate. I find it interesting that in this particular line of discussion, Penders defaults to Copyright in it's relationship to the notion of 'credit', and seems to conflate the idea with ownership of a character. Busiek very clearly makes his case throughout the discussion that Kirby was a more influential figure in Spider-Man's creation than most would think (I certainly wasn't aware of the fact), and yet Penders is constantly trying to steer the conversation into the realm of legalese and espousing his particular views rather than actually addressing any of Busiek's points.I find it somewhat fascinating given that Penders has repeatedly espoused a disdain for 'suits', yet he is talking awfully similar to one here.

I should also note that, not for the first time, Penders seems to believe that the individual who should be held most responsible for a character and their popularity is the person explicitly stated as creating them, with anyone else not seeming to matter much despite how much influence they might have had- he once got into a slap fight on Twitter when it was pointed out to him that Frank Miller is a far bigger influence on Daredevil than the original Lee/Kirby run of Daredevil, and holds a similarly dismissive view of subsquent writers for the X-men despite John Byrne and Chris Claremont doing a lot more to make them into the Money Machine they eventually became. It's an interesting view for him maintain given that by his own rationale, he does not deserve similar recognition and credit for a character's popularity given that neither Sonic nor Knuckles are his own creations, yet he has gone on record as stating that he 'gave value' to Knuckles and dismisses the impact of the game franchise to the point of being outright in denial. 

More predictably, but no less astonishing, is that Penders particular style of debate does not seem to change when he's arguing with actual industry pros instead of fans or random critics on the internet. The usual tropes are all there- trying repeatedly to dictate the course of the discussion by changing the subject, putting words into the mouth of the person he's arguing with, trying to change the goal posts in said argument and generally acting in poor faith. It's noteworthy given that one would assume that his tendancy to act this way is due to the fact that he holds himself in higher regards when it comes to this sort of stuff since he is an 'insider', whereas most of the people he argues with are not. And yet, lo and behold, he tries to give Kurt Busiek, a man with much more experiance and held in far higher esteem than him the same kind of runaround as he does everybody else. 

It's all kind of revealing, really. 

[Agie]

I remember reading a post Penders made about how he only takes criticisms from those he considers calid sources.

Fans, people trying to be reasonable, and...well, you don't kiss his ass, you're not a valid source in his eyes.

Apparently, even industry professionals with loads of acclaim, awards, loving fans, sales and even class to their names aren't valid enough if they don't bow down to the great and powerful Penders.

It'd be sad if not for Penders' track record, but no less baffling all the same that he tried to take on an actual professional. Said professional will probably use the knowledge to let people know what scum he is, killing credibility we didn't even realize Penders still had.

[horridus]

14 minutes ago, SurrealBrain said:

I remember reading a post Penders made about how he only takes criticisms from those he considers calid sources.

Fans, people trying to be reasonable, and...well, you don't kiss his ass, you're not a valid source in his eyes.

Apparently, even industry professionals with loads of acclaim, awards, loving fans, sales and even class to their names aren't valid enough if they don't bow down to the great and powerful Penders.

It'd be sad if not for Penders' track record, but no less baffling all the same that he tried to take on an actual professional. Said professional will probably use the knowledge to let people know what scum he is, killing credibility we didn't even realize Penders still had.

If one were being charitble, it might be argued that technically speaking, Penders wasn't being criticized here- Busiek was arguing that Penders statement about Kirby's influence were innacurate given that Kirby evidently DID have a lot to do with certain core ideas of the character. However, that was still contradicting Penders and challenging something he said, so yeah, same difference in the end given how he responds. 

And I sincerely doubt he's going to talk about this to people, at least, not without Penders being brought up first, and at best he's going to recall Penders as a deeply unpleasant individual who he argued with on the internet who has a weird-ass obsession with copyright. While this isn't going to do Penders professional reputation (what little he has) any favors, I just don't see him coming up much in Busiek's conversations given that Busiek has an actual career to attend to... it'd be like bringing up any other jerk he's gotten into an argument with over the internet. Not worth the effort. 

[Agie]

Only too true, only too true. But I'm still willing to bet Penders wouldn't look good in the off-chance he is brought up.

Penders already more or less did the work for him anyways; just because Kurt might not bring it up with coworkers doesn't mean said coworkers (well, the ones who follow him on Twitter, at least) didn't look at it and think to themselves about Penders "wow, what an ass..." Before promptly going back to whatever it was they were doing on the site, of course.

The result remains the same either way; Penders made himself look like an ass in front of a professional. Penders should just stop. It's far too late to do so while he's ahead, though, since he lost all visible scraps of dignity a while ago, and he's losing dignity we didn't see hebstill had anyways.

Guy has no shame, I tell you.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

20 hours ago, horridus said:

In all seriousness though, Kurt Busiek is indeed a big name in the industry. A VERY big name. His work has won him numerous awards, several of them Eisners. His body of work includes a critically acclaimed four year run on the Avengers, penning the Marvels miniseries, creating the idea of and writing the Thunderbolts series, and of course the longrunnning independent superhero series Astro City.  So yeah, in the simplest terms? Busiek's kind of a really, really big deal in the comic book profession, much more so than Penders himself.

Pfft, Eisners. It's not like that's a real award, like an Oscar, or even an Emmy. You know, stuff that Penders chases.

18 hours ago, SurrealBrain said:

Only too true, only too true. But I'm still willing to bet Penders wouldn't look good in the off-chance he is brought up.

Penders already more or less did the work for him anyways; just because Kurt might not bring it up with coworkers doesn't mean said coworkers (well, the ones who follow him on Twitter, at least) didn't look at it and think to themselves about Penders "wow, what an ass..." Before promptly going back to whatever it was they were doing on the site, of course.

The result remains the same either way; Penders made himself look like an ass in front of a professional. Penders should just stop. It's far too late to do so while he's ahead, though, since he lost all visible scraps of dignity a while ago, and he's losing dignity we didn't see hebstill had anyways.

Guy has no shame, I tell you.

Sure he does. He just put it all on eBay, and no one's buying it there, either.

[Big Panda]

On 17 September 2016 at 9:04 AM, SurrealBrain said:

I remember reading a post Penders made about how he only takes criticisms from those he considers calid sources.

Fans, people trying to be reasonable, and...well, you don't kiss his ass, you're not a valid source in his eyes.

And even then it's no guarentee. Remember PaulAgnew?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

"So children, you wanna hear a story about some unfair antics happening at Archie?"

"Well, how about Ken Penders getting top billing on books that contain 0% of his influence!"

Oh yes guys, everything has officially hit bullshit levels now. I was looking through Archie's Comic app, and looked through the digital exclusives, all of which had Penders on top billing, including the Modern Digital Exclusive.

For those who don't know, it contains these stories:

I Am (#171)

Sonic Rush Parts 1 & 2 (#160-161)

Sonic Riders Parts 1 & 2 (#163-164)

Sonic Rush Adventure (#180)

Sonic Chronicles/Invaders from Beyond (#191) 

Sonic Unleashed! (#193)

Sonic and the Black Knight (#197)

Sonic Colours (#219)

Sonic Generations (#230)

Sonic 4 Episode 1 (SSS #3)

I checked all of these credits, and Penders was not mentioned once throughout any of them. That's right, despite having done literally nothing in these stories, he's gotten the top billing over them all.

[Zaysho]

What in the actual fuck, Archie?

Before I even finished reading Ryan's post I already knew exactly what stories these were and who wrote them. All of these are Ian Flynn stories except for the Sonic Rush adaptation, which was written and penciled by Tania del Rio. ...is it really because of the Chronicles tie-in and the Nocturnus's connection to the Dark Legion? Because I checked a couple of the earlier stories, they don't feature his characters specifically, and from "Sonic Rush Advenure" onward, they don't explicitly take place within the comic continuity anyway. I can only hope Penders, who claims to care about creators' rights so badly, would say something against it if it gets brought to his attention, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is just idiotic.

[horridus]

Whelp, seems the subject of him getting top billing has actually managed to reach him, starting with this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/graystripe2000/status/777562408642613252

Subsequently, here is Penders response- 

There you go, straight from the horse's mouth. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

For those needing proof. Here it is directly from Comixlogy.

[Tylinos]

Oh, it looks like Ken has some more to say on the crediting thing.

...And he's turning it around as an off-handed insult toward Ian that he'll probably insist isn't an insult if someone questions it.

Ken, the reason no one's asking why Ian got credited for releases he wasn't involved with is because we questioned that years ago, back when it was first happening.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

And Archie's already fixed that issue:

[horridus]

15 minutes ago, Tylinos said:

Oh, it looks like Ken has some more to say on the crediting thing.

...And he's turning it around as an off-handed insult toward Ian that he'll probably insist isn't an insult if someone questions it.

Ken, the reason no one's asking why Ian got credited for releases he wasn't involved with is because we questioned that years ago, back when it was first happening.

Of course. God forbid he ever go through anything like this without being an ignorant ass about it at some level. Almost was in the clear there, buuuuut nope. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

OK, I was honestly willing to barely tolerate them giving Penders top billing when he did have some role, even when it was pretty unfair, due to understanding they were being paranoid and all that (or maybe it was part of the settlement for all I know, I obviously have no way of knowing), but giving him top billing when he did absolutely nothing? That's, by all accounts, maddening. Not to mention stupid.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

And when even he apparently disagrees with it publicly...

[BlueSky]

It really seems like Mr. Penders doesn't need to get his facts straight when telling his opinions but god forbid any mere unprofessionals making such mistakes.  Perhaps that comes with "authority" and superiority", or something. But it's funny, like if the credit thing hasn't been a topic for some time (> year) it never happened to him, maybe he's just a bit lazy gathering facts and all...

[horridus]

A minor league update.

If these come out within the next two weeks I will be stunned. But really, I do so look forward to seeing what variation of sleeveless tunic he has reserved for those two. 

[BlueSky]

10 hours ago, horridus said:

A minor league update.

If these come out within the next two weeks I will be stunned. But really, I do so look forward to seeing what variation of sleeveless tunic he has reserved for those two. 

Oh for the love of... I just don't want to see poor Elias in this mess as well. Well, I wouldn't like to see pretty much anybody, but especially not the non-echidna characters (such as Elias, Hershey or St. Jerk) since they tend to look even more alien (if possible) than the already alien-looking echidnas (especially Remington). I just don't have the same ideals about fitting artwork than Mr. Penders here. Maybe it's just because I'm no professional and not from even the same continent...  If somehow there ends up to be a version without artwork, I might get interested in of it enough to consider, but now... just please don't give me nightmares, it won't do you any good.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Don't worry, "not far off" probably means six years to him.

[BlueSky]

23 hours ago, Shaddy the guy said:

Don't worry, "not far off" probably means six years to him.

Well, that may be a bit of a relief, or just makes anticipation even worse. Still, by that time the artwork could get more into the swing of things if you know what I mean. Like I'd understand the epicality of professional artwork when I see it...

Or maybe I'm in luck and won't even remember the whole "announcement" anymore when the said stuff sees daylight...