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

[horridus]

14 minutes ago, Ryannumber1Santa said:

Don't pay any heed to it. He's said this so many times, including the success of Sonic determining on Boom, the Archie Reboot and many more.

This is true. We should probably start keeping track of all the times he's said something like this or along these lines just to see how often it *hasn't* happened despite his insistence. Didn't he once say that Sonic Boom would be 'the future of the franchise' or some crap?

29 minutes ago, Afro Thunder said:

And as far as Penders talking about not wanting to be boxed in goes, here's something he should know since he worked on both Sonic and Star Trek comics: When you're given a franchise license for any medium, you're either railroaded, or you're at least expected to stay true to the core structure of it while given certain creative liberties. In the latter case, sometimes the guys working on the license can go too far with the liberites and it can become a big ass trainwreck (example: Fantastic Four 2015).

Something Penders doesn't seem to fully realize is the fact that he got lucky while he was working on the Sonic comics. Aside from the comics using SatAM/AoStH as a base, the Sonic universe had no truly set-in-stone lore until Adventure, so he, along with the other writers involved, had free reign that is virtually unheard of to this day, thanks in large part to the creative team apparently having some really lax editors during that period. Beef with Bollers aside, Ken continued to have a lot of freedom with the comic post-Adventure, only complaining when Archie's leash started getting tighter, and he no longer had the Knuckles comic to fall back on to do his thing. Even during the time he worked with Bollers on the comic, as mentioned many times, they've clashed nonstop over what direction they wanted the comic to go. If Ken couldn't handle being boxed in by a co-writer, he'd spontaneously combust trying to work under the current Archie.

Indeed. Penders seems to have developed a very weird entitlement complex as a result of the free reign he enjoyed during his time at Archie. This mentality of his becomes a lot more amusing when you take into account that, despite not wanting to abide by the rules and mandates set down by the owners of the franchise, he himself has a fairly specific set of rules he wants to be abided when it comes to his own characters. While he claims he'd be 'flexible', it's stil a pretty stringent amount of control he wants exerted for characters who exist in a setting he does not own. To say nothing of his tantrums with regards to people altering the lore he set up or straying from the path he set things down. Evidently the irony is rather lost on him. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, horridus said:

This is true. We should probably start keeping track of all the times he's said something like this or along these lines just to see how often it *hasn't* happened despite his insistence. Didn't he once say that Sonic Boom would be 'the future of the franchise' or some crap?

Indeed. Penders seems to have developed a very weird entitlement complex as a result of the free reign he enjoyed during his time at Archie. This mentality of his becomes a lot more amusing when you take into account that, despite not wanting to abide by the rules and mandates set down by the owners of the franchise, he himself has a fairly specific set of rules he wants to be abided when it comes to his own characters. While he claims he'd be 'flexible', it's stil a pretty stringent amount of control he wants exerted for characters who exist in a setting he does not own. To say nothing of his tantrums with regards to people altering the lore he set up or straying from the path he set things down. Evidently the irony is rather lost on him. 

He did indeed try to claim Boom would be the main franchise, and that the original would die out and IIRC, his reasoning was little more than "Well, Boom is on TV so therefore it'll take over the main franchise".

[Afro Thunder]

Does all that delusional stuff he spits out come with the ten pounds of crack you'd need to get to that point of banality, or is it sold separately? I've seen dudes who had meltdowns and be boneheaded, but Penders must drink 20 gallons of his own Kool-Aid a day to be this delusional.

[horridus]

Mercy me, he is still on the Riverdale thing. 

Yeah, and whose fault is that again? Why is it that they would stop reprinting those books? What individual(s) could be responsible for this turn of events? 

None of this reasoning makes any kind of sense, particularly given that with the new game releases coming in 2017 there's just as much chance of Sonic books getting a boost in sales. Archie finds their partnership with SEGA profitable enough to keep it going regardless of the reboot, fighting to hold on to the lisence even after Penders damaged their relationship with SEGA, I somehow doubt they're going to dump one of their longest running books because Archie suddenly does well.

This reasoning is just desperate. 

[Kintor]

You know, I kind of think that Penders has got this whole Riverdale thing backwards. My greatest concern with Archie at the moment is that if Riverdale fails it might just take the Sonic comics and everything else with it.

I mean, a lot of money has obviously been spent on Riverdale, in a real sense the future of Archie as a company is riding on this show's success. To the extent that Archie is willing to aggressively advertise Riverdale by taking up space on the front covers of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Universe. As such, the failure of Riverdale would represent a huge financial burden to Archie, perhaps even a fatal one. So, it can't be understated that the future of Sonic comics might actually depend on Riverdale's success, because no more Archie leaves us and Sega with a big problem.

That is unless of course Sega decides to just buy Archie outright. Integrating the brand and infrastructure of Archie Comics into a branch of Sega Holdings, like with TMS Entertainment and Atlus. But that’s speculation for another time…

[Tylinos]

Hey, so, remember how back in August Ken didn't understand the concept of paying less people so you'd make more money?  Well, these new tweets make it sound like he finally might have figured that out.  Or, at least, I hope he did.  Good on him if he managed it.

Speaking of that, there's actually a better point Ken could try and make from this: If his unlikely scenario about Riverdale making the comics extremely popular came true, then instead of paying Sega to make Sonic books, Archie could decide to put more resources into making more Archie books instead.  ...Except that would probably just result in them only cancelling the Digest and Universe, instead of ending all three.  And even then, there's the problems of diluting their own market by trading them out for more Archie, and the uncertainty of starting new books over keeping established ones...

Point is, there's just not a whole lot you can get from believing Riverdale's success will kill Sonic.  There's not much logic there, or at least not much that would spell financial success.  Maybe Ken would realize that if he actually understood business.

 

 

BONUS ROUND:

Ken, aren't you the guy who has been arguing for years that print is dead that the smart move is to go digital?

[horridus]

3 hours ago, Tylinos said:

Hey, so, remember how back in August Ken didn't understand the concept of paying less people so you'd make more money?  Well, these new tweets make it sound like he finally might have figured that out.  Or, at least, I hope he did.  Good on him if he managed it.

Speaking of that, there's actually a better point Ken could try and make from this: If his unlikely scenario about Riverdale making the comics extremely popular came true, then instead of paying Sega to make Sonic books, Archie could decide to put more resources into making more Archie books instead.  ...Except that would probably just result in them only cancelling the Digest and Universe, instead of ending all three.  And even then, there's the problems of diluting their own market by trading them out for more Archie, and the uncertainty of starting new books over keeping established ones...

Point is, there's just not a whole lot you can get from believing Riverdale's success will kill Sonic.  There's not much logic there, or at least not much that would spell financial success.  Maybe Ken would realize that if he actually understood business.

 

 

BONUS ROUND:

Ken, aren't you the guy who has been arguing for years that print is dead that the smart move is to go digital?

Ken Penders? Not understanding business despite claiming repeatedly in the past to have business savvy and experiance? Gasp of horror! I did not see that coming!

And yes. Yes he is. Repeatedly. Over and over again. In fact it's the basis for his justification for making his book an App... except when it's not, but who the hell can even know anymore? 

Edit: And the Backpedaling commenses. 

Doesn't really do much to change the context of his original comment or that it stands very counter to all of his 'business oriented' reasons for why Digital Is The Future. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

16 hours ago, Afro Thunder said:

So I'm assuming he's only going to get a reality check when this thing bombs like a nuke and he's hit with his own lawsuit or eats a shoryuken to the jaw? I don't wanna wish violence on nobody, but he has the type of attitude that would make even the most patient person wanna put your lights out.

Every reality check that's been sent to Penders has bounced, unfortunately.

10 hours ago, horridus said:

You ever wonder why nothing from Sonic X or The OVA ever made it into the comics? Evidently this is the reason. Penders even invoked this to justify him ripping off the hat Knuckles wore from the OVA for his ripoff 'K'nox', claiming that it was okay because neither Archie nor SEGA owned it... but not seemingto register that it meant he was still ripping off the company that made the hat. 

I recall Bollers making a tweet like that, but the thing is, even if he was 'okay' with it, so long as he desires the retain the copyright? It's a no go. Archie only publishes stuff under the prerequisite that everything they make is owned by SEGA. Even if a creator was willing to give away their contributions for free, so long as they retain the copyright and thus become a secondary lisence holder on the comic, it just won't work. Incidentally, this is why Penders claims of trying to be 'reasonable' with Archie are full of crap- he pretty much demanded they bend over backwards to accomodate him and risk losing the lisence to print Sonic comics in doing so. They literally cannot do it, no matter what Penders insists. 

Speaking of which, Penders has decided to elaborate more on what any hypothetical 'return' from him would entail.

So evidently despite claiming that he should be the one to do issue 300, he doesn't actually think the people who own the characters and the setting and the franchise should have any input regarding the depiction of their property. Because of course. Also, this entire premise sounds eerily familiar, enough to make me rather happy he'll have nothing to do with Sonic again. Somehow though that last statement doesn't seem really re-assuring when it sounds more like he'd wind up poisoning the bathwater with the baby in it... 

Nah, he'd microwave the baby while it was in the bathwater.

8 hours ago, horridus said:

Frankly I'm at a loss. Personally I'm hoping now that Riverdale will be a success, just so the Sonic comic can keep going well into 2017 and prove him wrong about it on two different fronts (earlier this year he claimed he didn't see it lasting past 2016). 

I think it's his weird media bias showing again- he puts things like television on a far higher pedestal than he does comics (despite screaming about his respect for the medium). He probably thinks that if Riverdale is a hit that Archie would have no reason to focus on Sonic anymore since it would result in comic book Archie and properties getting renewed attention from the public. 

We lose either way, since if Riverdale is a success, at least he was "right" about that. And the last thing I personally want is for him to actually have something he can legitimately trumpet being right about -- his going on about stuff he's wrong about as if he were right is bad enough.

13 hours ago, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

All non-Sega echidnas except Athair, Geoffrey St. John, Hershey, Elias, Queen Alicia Acorn, all of the Wolfpack except Lupe, Saffron, Sonic's parents, Antoine's dad, Hamlin Pig, Feist, Rob'O the Hedge, Frier Buck, anything Cat Country-related, Scourge and anything to do with Moebius (ludicrous, I know), and a bunch more I can't remember at this time.

EDIT: full list- http://archiesonic.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Characters_introduced_by_Ken_Penders

I have to admit, it's impressive to look at how many characters he managed to kill in one fell swoop. Sure, some might say Ian did the deed on some level, but they were dead before they even hit the ground.

Given that recent developments have seen SEGA take a more active stance in things, it really does leave me to wonder if they're just a bird of prey now, circling and waiting for the right time to strike if he does release The Adventures of Knockoff the En'chlada. I mean, I doubt they're obsessing over it, but all the same...

At this point, I'd just be happy if Archie and SEGA could at least freely use elements from Dark Brotherhood.

Hm, I wonder if -- should he make the move and SEGA does move in for the kill -- if there will be any way to preserve the story for posterity.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Well the thing about the Chronicles canon and characters is that SEGA can preeeeetty much do whatever they want. Because if they used them and Ken spoke up, they'd still be fucking SEGA, and they'd already be involved, i.e. he'd get taken down akin to Yamcha from Dragon Ball Z. Penders is not any sort of enemy or force to be reckoned with to them, he's just an annoying fly chewing on a biscuit they haven't thrown out yet, who thinks he's hot shit because they haven't happened to swat him yet.

[Big Panda]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's just Archie who are against using the Chronicles stuff, right? SEGA are actually fine with them doing it?

[Afro Thunder]

Since we're on the discussion of ownership for characters again, let's think about a hypothetical situation for a moment. In the very likely case that Ken Penders gets his wig split by lawyers the moment the book goes for sale and SEGA gains all rights to the IP and its characters, what would they do? Would they gradually allow Archie to integrate them back into the comic? (My head hurts just thinking about how they would do that without causing multiple continuity snarls, but eh) Would they keep them exclusively for the games? The Boom cartoon? Or would they be more likely throw up a permanent embargo and say that Penders' characters are totally off limits to any and all Sonic media?

[Big Panda]

Just treat them as if they were new characters and rework them so they fit into the new canon.

[horridus]

24 minutes ago, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but it's just Archie who are against using the Chronicles stuff, right? SEGA are actually fine with them doing it?

I'd heard something like that. Not sure how true it is given SEGA's insistence on Knuckles being the last of his kind, but if so, it wouldn't change that one of Penders' positions is that the Nocturnus infringe upon his Dark Legion and so, they got ample reason to not use them even if SEGA'd be fine, along with the TWilight Cage and anything connected to it. 

5 minutes ago, Afro Thunder said:

Since we're on the discussion of ownership for characters again, let's think about a hypothetical situation for a moment. In the very likely case that Ken Penders gets his wig split by lawyers the moment the book goes for sale and SEGA gains all rights to the IP and its characters, what would they do? Would they gradually allow Archie to integrate them back into the comic? (My head hurts just thinking about how they would do that without causing multiple continuity snarls, but eh) Would they keep them exclusively for the games? The Boom cartoon? Or would they be more likely throw up a permanent embargo and say that Penders' characters are totally off limits to any and all Sonic media?

I'd think that at best, they'd just be retooled to better fit into the post-Reboot continuity and world and then re-introduced over time. 

[Big Panda]

1 minute ago, horridus said:

I'd heard something like that. Not sure how true it is given SEGA's insistence on Knuckles being the last of his kind, but if so, it wouldn't change that one of Penders' positions is that the Nocturnus infringe upon his Dark Legion and so, they got ample reason to not use them even if SEGA'd be fine, along with the TWilight Cage and anything connected to it. 

And yet he's gladly using characters that clearly infringe on SEGA's characters.

[horridus]

4 hours ago, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

And yet he's gladly using characters that clearly infringe on SEGA's characters.

Yep, having done as little as possible to differentiate them or the setting from the source that spawned them. Even better are his intended 'stand-ins' for the characters he cannot use- "Kintobor", "The Princess of Acorn", "Blue Spined Erinacinae"... all of which still takes place on a planet called Mobius. 

[QuantumEdge]

14 hours ago, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

And yet he's gladly using characters that clearly infringe on SEGA's characters.

Well, yeah.  I'm not sure if he believes it consciously or not, but it seems Ken thinks a different set of rules apply to him.  I mean, how else can you explain his expies, the strange belief bridges could be rebuilt and he could write #300 and warp his opinions whenever the situation suits him?  The fact is he's not even bothering to play it safe either because he's grown way too cocky after his legal battles, therefore thinking any possible lawsuit won't be that much of a challenge to him, or he's generally just not aware almost all of the time.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

I wish the stuff he's supposed to be trying to make now was anywhere near as original and creative as his interpretation of reality.

[Afro Thunder]

7 hours ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I wish the stuff he's supposed to be trying to make now was anywhere near as original and creative as his interpretation of reality.

For all we know, he probably lives in his own Matrix where he's Neo: He's the One, and right about everything. He's honestly better off cutting his losses and just doing something fresh instead of trying to reheat the old Sonic comic continuity. Even if the lore totally sucks, it won't have the stigma of trying to be a knock-off Sonic comic. But I wouldn't be surprised if he was bold enough to try and copyright some Fleetway stuff too, just to try and lure in as many Sonic fans as possible to read it.

[antyep]

3 hours ago, Afro Thunder said:

For all we know, he probably lives in his own Matrix where he's Neo: He's the One, and right about everything. He's honestly better off cutting his losses and just doing something fresh instead of trying to reheat the old Sonic comic continuity. Even if the lore totally sucks, it won't have the stigma of trying to be a knock-off Sonic comic. But I wouldn't be surprised if he was bold enough to try and copyright some Fleetway stuff too, just to try and lure in as many Sonic fans as possible to read it.

Considering how badly Lost Ones bombed (though he will greatly deny that), it's no wonder why he's leeching off his old success and not using original material. He knows the LSC will bomb as well unless he gets rights to the Sega characters just to be used as lure and bait.

[Afro Thunder]

1 hour ago, antyep said:

Considering how badly Lost Ones bombed (though he will greatly deny that), it's no wonder why he's leeching off his old success and not using original material. He knows the LSC will bomb as well unless he gets rights to the Sega characters just to be used as lure and bait.

Uber-rotten six month old bait that not even a trout will eat. Like I said a few posts before: If Penders really wanted to do his old stories without trying to wreck Flynn's run, he could've proposed an Elseworlds-esque series where he could do whatever the hell he wants without it affecting the mainline comic. He gets to wreck shop in his own little bubble of the Sonic multiverse, and he stays far away from the major comic books. Everyone wins.

But of course, that's only in a perfect world, as Penders is all "My stories are canon or GTFO" with Archie. But bombing or not, he's better off changing the whole thing into something original. Even Frank Miller changed the characters in Holy Terror when he couldn't use the Batman license.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

On 12/23/2016 at 0:34 PM, Ernest-Panda-Baring-Gifts said:

And yet he's gladly using characters that clearly infringe on SEGA's characters.

But you see, he can do that because he's the one who brought value to those characters. SEGA's never done anything to do that themselves, after all, and that means he's free and clear to do what he wants.

[horridus]

On 12/24/2016 at 3:10 PM, Afro Thunder said:

But of course, that's only in a perfect world, as Penders is all "My stories are canon or GTFO" with Archie. But bombing or not, he's better off changing the whole thing into something original. Even Frank Miller changed the characters in Holy Terror when he couldn't use the Batman license.

You're not the first to make this observation, whether on this thread or elsewhere in the fandom- many people have brought it up either when discussing it among themselves or even directly to Penders on is twitter or his forum. Penders abjectly, utterly and completely refuses to truly divorce himself from his time on Sonic, and no matter what he claims, it's painfully obvious that he doesn't really want to move on. He's even speculated about how he should have the right to reprint Knuckles comics in order to tie into the Lara-Su Chronicles. 

It's because despite everything he claims, he knows he has literally nothing else to his name. His only major original work, the Lost Ones, was a miserable failure despite his denial. He knows that he has no real ability to get people interested in his work on his own. He needs that Sonic connection, because it's the only thing that can even remotely hook people into his work or generate interest. 

[Afro Thunder]

1 hour ago, horridus said:

You're not the first to make this observation, whether on this thread or elsewhere in the fandom- many people have brought it up either when discussing it among themselves or even directly to Penders on is twitter or his forum. Penders abjectly, utterly and completely refuses to truly divorce himself from his time on Sonic, and no matter what he claims, it's painfully obvious that he doesn't really want to move on. He's even speculated about how he should have the right to reprint Knuckles comics in order to tie into the Lara-Su Chronicles. 

It's because despite everything he claims, he knows he has literally nothing else to his name. His only major original work, the Lost Ones, was a miserable failure despite his denial. He knows that he has no real ability to get people interested in his work on his own. He needs that Sonic connection, because it's the only thing that can even remotely hook people into his work or generate interest. 

It's like watching someone who can't get over their ex and would do anything to get them back no matter what, almost like Robin Thicke. But honestly, I've said all I could say about his writing and other questionable decisions. Even if he wanted to keep the anthropomorphic animals thing, he still could've spun the characters he had into unique designs. But guy honestly should've purged his social media long before now. He may have did himself no favours with the lawsuit, but he's not helping his case going back and forth with the people he's supposed to be selling his comic to. Does he have a running bet to see how many people can he piss off and still make decent sales of the book? It just boggles my mind.

[Zaysho]

On 12/24/2016 at 4:10 PM, Afro Thunder said:

If Penders really wanted to do his old stories without trying to wreck Flynn's run, he could've proposed an Elseworlds-esque series where he could do whatever the hell he wants without it affecting the mainline comic. He gets to wreck shop in his own little bubble of the Sonic multiverse, and he stays far away from the major comic books. Everyone wins.

Weeellll, not necessarily. Going back to when he left the book, he wasn't really in a position where he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to anymore. By that point, SEGA was actually paying attention to the comic again and then-editor Mike Pellerito was trying to give more focus to game elements and characters (though not shunting the comic-originals). So, say had he successfully pitched this and gotten it into production around that time (during Pellerito's tenure as editor and the beginning of Flynn's run), it's highly unlikely he'd have free rein without someone above him requesting changes--something, from what I've gathered watching this whole thing, Pen didn't like (which is why he quit in the first place).

[horridus]

1 hour ago, Afro Thunder said:

It's like watching someone who can't get over their ex and would do anything to get them back no matter what, almost like Robin Thicke. But honestly, I've said all I could say about his writing and other questionable decisions. Even if he wanted to keep the anthropomorphic animals thing, he still could've spun the characters he had into unique designs. But guy honestly should've purged his social media long before now. He may have did himself no favours with the lawsuit, but he's not helping his case going back and forth with the people he's supposed to be selling his comic to. Does he have a running bet to see how many people can he piss off and still make decent sales of the book? It just boggles my mind.

His desire to keep them as anthropomorphic animals is more to the detriment of his product than anything given that he has consistently insisted that this is a 'hard science fiction' story- which involves an alien world that just happens to be named after a human word, populated by creatures that look like humanoid animals, who are named for the latin taxonomical terms used to describe those animals (Except, evidently, the Echyd'nya). In a hard science fiction story. 

(For those of you not in the know, 'Hard Science Fiction' is science fiction that puts the 'Science' in Science Fiction, being based upon more real world science and the applications thereof in the work. Such works tend to be marked by things like no FTL travel, aliens being incredibly alien compared to humans if they are there at all, and generally taking a more grounded approach to speculating about the future and such. 'Soft' science fiction by contrast is stuff like Star Wars or Star Trek. Neither is better or worse than the other, but Hard Science Fiction is generally considered more of the 'thinking man's' science fiction. In giving his work this label he has implicitly raised the bar... and so far has demonstrated an incredibly limited understanding of the genre he claims his work will be.) 

Frankly, even the stuff that didn't start in the comics isn't exactly confidence filling. 

Page one and we already have three pop cultural references, and evidently a plot point about a malevolent AI called 'Skyweb'. The signs, they are not good. 

As for his behavior... that's really the most baffling aspect of all of this. His twitter is a train wreck, and his forum isn't much better- it's filled with him making preposterous statements that paint him in a bad light, along with him highlighting how unreasonable his expectations are, to say nothing of the repeated instances of him distorting facts to suit his own ends, as well as highlighting his refusal to actually meet criticism in an adult manner and simply avoiding details in conversation rather than openly addressing points that damage his own arguments. That whole place is a treasure trove of painting Penders in a really, really bad light, yet he lets it stand all the same. 

Some theorize that he never really intends to finish this work and is just milking it for attention, though if that's the case then he's awfully dedicated to the illusion given that he's repeatedly said stuff like 'failure is not an option'. The more likely explanation is that for all his talk, Penders doesn't really understand just how crucial online PR really is in this day and age and doesn't really 'get' that by acting like this he just makes any potential investors or buyers reluctant to look any further... as if his awful, awful work didn't do enough of that already. 

Guy is a conundrum, to say the least.