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

[Ryannumber1gamer]

6 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Technically It isn't impossible I guess. I mean several Mickey Mouse Newspaper strips were legally released separate of Disney but had to make no reference to Mickey by name in the cover. Now granted those might have been in the public domain so that could be a whole other kettle of fish.

I feel the need to point it out, because I've seen it brought on Thanks Ken Penders, where it was hypothesised that since Ken owns the stories, legally he could reprint them, but I still don't think that's how it works.

When the whole situation kicked off with Archie, Archie's reprints of older material were notably hit, even stories that were owned by writers like Ian were effected and were forced to undergo edits to remove as much of Penders' concepts as feasibly possible (IE - Enerjak Reborn had to be renamed, Bold New Moebius had to be renamed, certain reprints had to have minor text edits to remove Penders concepts etc). 

By that measure, I can only assume that Archie had to make those changes specifically because while they owned the rights to those stories, Ken owned his concepts/characters. By that measure, it makes no sense that Ken would be allowed to reprint these stories exactly 1:1 because of the copyright hellhole they're trapped in from SEGA alone, let alone other creators if you were to take Gallagher, and Bollers' characters into account.

Idk, it reeks of Ken's usual hypocrisy to me. Everyone else has to tiptoe around him, but he decides to do whatever the fuck he wants regardless if it contradicts so many of his past claims.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Enerjak Reborn had to be renamed

Wait, what did they rename it to? Did they change his name throughout? And to what?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Just now, KingScoopaKoopa said:

Wait, what did they rename it to? Did they change his name throughout? And to what?

Enerjak's name in the reprint itself remained, but Enerjak Reborn was changed to "Evil Reborn":

And yes - it seemed to be an issue with the legal troubles at the time, because there is an earlier version of the cover with the original title:

Luckily, I think that's the only edit. Even things known to receive major edits in the future are unedited here (Albion is still named for example, while infamously in other examples, it was named to things like the echidna city, and things like that).

The Silver Saga and Scourge Lockdown were both hit with massive delays, along with Enerjak Reborn, although they eventually released unedited as well, although the Silver Saga dealt with an alternative timeline where Knuckles remained corrupted and eventually destroyed the future, while Scourge dealt with Scourge, obviously.

Later reprints however had to basically go scorched Earth with Penders' concepts, editing them out entirely and replacing them with other words that hopefully conveyed what they meant (Referring to Albion as the lost echidna city for example). 

[jungle_penguins]

This thread gives me an uncommon sense of being lightheaded, it's like my brain telling me to look away at the pure shenanigans that are being described. Kind of scary but some of it is subsided.

Copyright is weird. Does anyone have a rundown on who owns what? Like what's Evil Sonic's ownership, if that even a thing? That better not be a thing, but wondering for characters like Athair (who is also in Underground?). Do names even matter for copyright given how you can't copyright a name?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

30 minutes ago, jungle_penguins said:

Copyright is weird. Does anyone have a rundown on who owns what? Like what's Evil Sonic's ownership, if that even a thing? That better not be a thing, but wondering for characters like Athair (who is also in Underground?). Do names even matter for copyright given how you can't copyright a name?

1. Penders claims he has ownership of the evil versions of characters, plus Robo-Robotnik.

2. Penders does not own Athair, and when he attempted to get Gallagher (Athair's owner) to agree to usage, he was denied, leading Penders to create a female expy of him.

3. Penders has basically confirmed he's going to steal Ian Flynn's hard work on Scourge. Ian Flynn famously revitalised Penders' crappy anti-universe by redesigning and renaming Evil Sonic as Scourge, and having Scourge realise he should strive for grander aspirations than "just being an evil copy". 

Penders instead has decided to mock Ian for his hard work taking a universally reviled villain, and making him a fan-favourite, and has basically use it as an excuse to say that since Ian took his character instead of making Scourge a new one altogether, Penders is somehow free to use all of Ian/Pat Spaz's work in name, personality, and design. In short, he intends to skirt around the copyright issue by using Evil Sonic as Scourge, even though he had ziltch to do with the creation of the Scourge persona.

[jungle_penguins]

3 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

1. Penders (very idiotically mind you) claims he has ownership of the evil versions of characters, plus Robo-Robotnik. It's dumb as fuck but that's what he claims. 

2. Penders does not own Athair, and when he attempted to get Gallagher (Athair's owner) to agree to usage, he was denied, leading Penders to create a female expy of him.

3. Penders has basically confirmed he's going to be a gigantic scumbag and steal Ian Flynn's hard work. Ian Flynn famously revitalised Penders' shitty anti-universe by redesigning and renaming Evil Sonic as Scourge, and having Scourge realise he should strive for grander aspirations than "just being an evil copy". 

Penders instead has decided to mock Ian for his hard work taking a universally reviled villain, and making him a fan-favourite, and has basically said "Ian's done all of the hard work, so I'm just gonna use it!". In short, he intends to use Evil Sonic as the Scourge persona that Penders didn't even create! 

Yeah, I'm going to disregard anything about his claims of owning evil™ versions. Sounds like there's not merit to Scourge either, which makes those tweets even more strange.

Actually, thinking about it, there's no way he knew he had ownership of some characters until years after he left Archie. That of course means Archie screwed up massively with the paperwork and legal case, because how else could Athair (can't think of any other pre-reboot-to-outside-of-comic example) appear in Sonic Underground with no issue back then. I guess that never came up in court though.

[horridus]

 

You know... I'm actually not even slightly surprised. I'm only surprised it took him THIS long to announce he was gonna try his hand at creating an Echyd'nya language. The only question that remains is which major fictional language he's gonna plagiarize to make this. My money's on Klingon, but who knows! 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I feel bad for the poor person that puts down "multilingual" on their college application or resume, and places down "Echyd'nya" as their additional language.

[SBR2]

Jesus Christ he is absolutely the kind of person who learned Klingon as a second language isn't he?

[Rabid-Coot]

I do admire his ability to keep finding new busy work to use an excuse for delaying the project.

[horridus]

I realize that he's purposely been dragging his feet, but given just how good he is at giving himself meaningless busywork and excuses to do literally anything at all other than the story itself, I really do have to wonder how true that is. Cause if it's still true? He's doing FAR too good a job of making himself look like an easily distracted dawdler. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

You'd think someone would tell him that translations are normally some of the last things done. Y'know, after the story is finally complete.

Christ, if it takes this long for just Issue 1 how does Penders intend to even finish the comic line in his own life time?????

[The Tenth Doctor]

22 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

You'd think someone would tell him that translations are normally some of the last things done. Y'know, after the story is finally complete.

Christ, if it takes this long for just Issue 1 how does Penders intend to even finish the comic line in his own life time?????

He really doesn't get it. He is still thinking of how to get his story to as many people as he can and not the story he wants to tell. Thinking only of the money he'll get and not how he'll get there. He's ignoring the facts just to live in the fantasy and its pathetic.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

It’s been at least five years since we got the first page of what was supposed to be a regular issue sized prelude to the first book, and in that time, we’ve had what? 5 or 6 additional pages of atrocious art since?

There’s web artists and fan artists who’s pumped out a higher level of quality and quantity of art in such a time. Penders is infamous for wasting time on a bunch of pointless garbage. Not that surprising since he doesn’t really give a crap about comics as an industry and simply sees it as a means to break out into other industries. He’d rather sit and dream up a bunch of nonsense you only do when you’ve actually got a successful product to sell people. 

The phrase counting chickens before they hatch always comes to mind with Penders.

[SBR2]

Ok even putting aside my personal feelings on him this is a ridiculous amount of work for one man. I know he has people doing the translation work for him but it doesn't stop the fact he's writing, drawing, editing, publishing and designing an app all on his own. Most of these things are handled by teams even in the indie circuit.

Hell even TMNT a cultural power house these days was 2 guys working on issues in a basement and even then it took like 4 months for each issue to come out. Indie comic work is tough and the fact he's going it completely alone is an exceedingly bad idea.

Oh and lets not forget this isn't going to be an issue by issue series but a set of OGN's. OGN's can be anywhere from 80-over a 100 pages. And he wants to do 7 of these?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

4 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

The phrase counting chickens before they hatch always comes to mind with Penders.

Penders takes it to the next level: He's counting international fried chicken restaurant franchise locations before the chickens have hatched.

[horridus]

10 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

You'd think someone would tell him that translations are normally some of the last things done. Y'know, after the story is finally complete.

Christ, if it takes this long for just Issue 1 how does Penders intend to even finish the comic line in his own life time?????

This is a recurring theme with Penders, namely that he tends to do things the way a major corporation might, while ignoring the fact that corporations are able to do things like multiple translations upon releasing a product because they have the resources needed to do so for an international release. Penders INSISTS on acting this way despite it being painfully clear to everyone else that this is not the way to proceed.

It ties into how Penders perceives himself, and this project. The rest of the world rightly see's an indy creator working on an indy comic project. Penders however see's himself in terms of being a guy with a big, built-in international fanbase accrued from the decade he spent on Archie, with his work being a sort of unfettered continuation of what he began with Archie. He's going into this with a LOT of assumptions, and none of them are even remotely correct. 

 

[SBR2]

He's in for a very rude awakening when it doesn't even break even. 

Hell I don't even think the people who were going to read it ironically are even going to. I wanted to to see how bad it'll be but it's close to a freaking decade now and there's still nothing. Even the ironic hate read aspect is gone. Literally the only people who will buy this are his hardcore fans and that is sincerely not enough people to justify anything. 

Also there's the fact that if it's anything like Mobius 25 Years Later it'll drag it's heels for all 7 volumes promising that something will eventually happen but it never does. Only this will be worse at least M25YL was 6-8 pages with one 13 pager this will again be at least 80+ pages and honestly I question how long even his most passionate fans will put up with it.

It'd honestly a little sad. This is absolutely destined to fail but he thinks it'll be the next big epic franchise. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

how are you supposed to complete a translation of a thing you haven't written yet?

[Adamis]

Last week, he asked me to review the translation for the app's menu, a translation I've worked on in 2016.

Nothing much changed. But from what I can tell, based on the menu text alone, the app isn't as groundbreaking as he claims. Swipe left for the previous page, swipe right for the next. Animated panels or not. Voice-overs. Zooms...

[Ryannumber1gamer]

9 hours ago, Adamis said:

Last week, he asked me to review the translation for the app's menu, a translation I've worked on in 2016.

Nothing much changed. But from what I can tell, based on the menu text alone, the app isn't as groundbreaking as he claims. Swipe left for the previous page, swipe right for the next. Animated panels or not. Voice-overs. Zooms...

It's nice to know Penders' ground-breaking app has all of the magnificent features of motion comics from 2009, and comic/book apps have had for well over a decade.

[horridus]

19 hours ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

how are you supposed to complete a translation of a thing you haven't written yet?

Well, he does have a script. Maybe he has bits and pieces of THAT translated ahead of time before doing the proper work? I dunno. I'd hate to think even Penders would do things THAT ass-backwards, but you never really know with him... 

13 hours ago, Adamis said:

Last week, he asked me to review the translation for the app's menu, a translation I've worked on in 2016.

Nothing much changed. But from what I can tell, based on the menu text alone, the app isn't as groundbreaking as he claims. Swipe left for the previous page, swipe right for the next. Animated panels or not. Voice-overs. Zooms...

You mean that the App ISN'T the 8th Wonder of the World that Penders promised since first announcing it? I am shocked. Flabbergasted. Aghast. Utterly and totally bewildered, I tell you. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

20 minutes ago, horridus said:

You mean that the App ISN'T the 8th Wonder of the World that Penders promised since first announcing it? I am shocked. Flabbergasted. Aghast. Utterly and totally bewildered, I tell you. 

I do have to admit part of me wonders if Penders simply severely overhyped and overpromised what this revolutionary app would be, or if he was simply that far out of the loop, he thought these were actually big features that would draw people.

Not to mention the fact that really - a key part of software design is knowing what your audience wants. You don't add superficial shit that costs more time and money to develop if they're features someone doesn't want.

And frankly - just why do you think the other big name publishers don't have these features? DC, Marvel, IDW, hell, even Archie. They've been at this game for ages, they had comic apps for ages, why would they not implement these features that have been around for ages? IDW offers a few motion comics, but that's about it.

The answer - frankly - is simple. Speaking personally as someone who reads a lot of comics, both physical and digital, all I want when reading comics is good scans of the comic in question, a guided view through the comic (IE - taking you through the correct order of panels, or allow the user to exit the guided view to see the whole page as if you were reading a comic proper), the ability to zoom in on the comic, and that's about it.

I want to go through a comic at my own pace, admire the art, having a fairly simple structure to work through. It's simple, you don't need to think about a bunch of dumb decisions like if I want animations, or voice acting, or whatever else he intends to throw in for the hell of it. There's no UX decisions being made, Penders is just adding superficial stuff to say "I did something new!" when there's a reason everyone else didn't do it. 

And even more ridiculous is the fact that the features I could commend him on adding aren't there for the right reasons and defeat the purpose of being there. Voice-Acting isn't a bad idea, per say - but it's not good in the manner he wants to use it in. Using voice acting to perhaps give accessibility options to blind people for example is an alright idea, but you can't treat it like a movie or show - it needs to be something like an audio book where the person there is doing everything to set the stage for the visually-impaired. If you're just spouting off the dialogue with no context or world-building, it'll fall apart and simply be a waste. 

And frankly, the end all of it IMO is just the fact that these features just aren't important. Maybe consider them later down the line, but not now when you don't have a product. You do not just put an app through a software development cycle without actually ensuring that your product is going to sell on it. It's a staggering lack of market research from what I see here. Any other comic publisher who puts out an app has an established line of comics they know will sell.

There's a reason that you don't see every indie creator pumping out a comic reading app for their single line comics, and instead take it to Comixlogy. It gives them a safety net, allows them to sell their comic digitally, and has minimal risk without wasting a ton of cash. If TL-SC falls flat on it's face, Penders will have effectively sent time, money, and effort on development work, and voice-acting for zero return. 

[Adamis]

On 3/2/2021 at 12:41 AM, horridus said:

Well, he does have a script. Maybe he has bits and pieces of THAT translated ahead of time before doing the proper work? I dunno. I'd hate to think even Penders would do things THAT ass-backwards, but you never really know with him... 

He has a script. What I translated is based on the text and speech bubbles places on very rough sketched pages.

But the last time I did that was in 2017-2018. I've seen no new comic material since, apart for a couple finished pages he asked me to review.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

On 3/1/2021 at 2:18 AM, Adamis said:

Nothing much changed. But from what I can tell, based on the menu text alone, the app isn't as groundbreaking as he claims. Swipe left for the previous page, swipe right for the next. Animated panels or not. Voice-overs. Zooms...

Voice-overs? Are those in it yet? Can I try out to be generic echidna #7?