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

[Shiny Gems]

30 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Like @Ryannumber1gamerstated, even if these documents are released, the damage has already been done. Penders already won the lawsuit and there's no going back on that.  The only thing these documents would change is that if Penders wanted to sue somebody else (like say Paramount), then everyone would know how the case went and they would try to find ways to avoid the same mistakes that Archie made.

About the Paramount thing, is Penders still planning to sue them for giving Knuckles a father?

[Rabbitearsblog]

46 minutes ago, CrystalMaelStorm said:

About the Paramount thing, is Penders still planning to sue them for giving Knuckles a father?

As far as I know, he hasn't really done much about it ever since he made that announcement.

[Shiny Gems]

Just now, Rabbitearsblog said:

As far as I know, he hasn't really done much about it ever since he made that announcement.

No surprise there. Question remains though, is he still going to? I am not sure what to think about that yet.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Just now, CrystalMaelStorm said:

No surprise there. Question remains though, is he still going to? I am not sure what to think about that yet.

It wouldn't be wise of him to do so, especially since Paramount is a pretty big company and they would easily take down Penders in court.

[Shiny Gems]

Just now, Rabbitearsblog said:

It wouldn't be wise of him to do so, especially since Paramount is a pretty big company and they would easily take down Penders in court.

Yeah, you are right. Knowing Penders, though, I can imagine he would be desperate and crazy enough to do that. I could be wrong, though.

[Rabbitearsblog]

5 minutes ago, CrystalMaelStorm said:

Yeah, you are right. Knowing Penders, though, I can imagine he would be desperate and crazy enough to do that. I could be wrong, though.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he did so.  Now that we mentioned it, Penders honestly doesn't have a case here.  Paramount never made a deal with or even worked with Penders. They worked with SEGA and if SEGA didn't say anything about Knuckles not having a father, then they technically didn't' do anything wrong here.  I can see if they named Knuckles' father Locke in the movie, but since that didn't happen and Paramount doesn't work with Penders, then there's really nothing that Penders can do.

[VRiderCh]

[steps through the weeds]

Oh, man, I haven't been here in a while because I still haven't seen Sonic 2 yet. So, uh, what happened here? I didn't expect THIS much activity in a few weeks.

I got to "Penders traced over Spaz's work" and him POSSIBLY (?) wanting to sue Paramount. Is there anything else important, i.e. "hysterical", I should know about?

Edited April 29, 2022 by VRiderCh
Clarification

[Shaddy Zaphod]

We've got screenshots of some of the court records (more coming apparently) that specify that Penders was definitely lying about not having signed a work-for-hire contract, even if there was apparently some other reason they decided to settle out-of-court. It isn't going to change anything about the current comics, but it is some good information on just how much of a clown Penders was in court (and, sadly, how incompetent Archie's legal team must've been).

[VRiderCh]

5 minutes ago, Shaddy Zaphod said:

We've got screenshots of some of the court records (more coming apparently) that specify that Penders was definitely lying about not having signed a work-for-hire contract, even if there was apparently some other reason they decided to settle out-of-court. It isn't going to change anything about the current comics, but it is some good information on just how much of a clown Penders was in court (and, sadly, how incompetent Archie's legal team must've been).

I see. Thanks for the update!

I've honestly stopped hoping for the Archie stuff to come back in some form the moment the comic was canceled. In my opinion, the IDW comic is basically what I've always wanted; a fun comic that's not too far off from the games, and without all the baggage that the Archie comic did.

I won't begrudge anyone who misses those characters, but I'm more angry about how everyone's work was disrupted by one insane man.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Well, Penders didn't cause the Archie cancellation (I mean, he was undoubtedly a factor SEGA considered, but not the direct cause).

 

I think the thing about the old Archie stuff is less what it was, and more the holistic impression it generated. The thing about having your creative team never agree on anything in a series with barely any lore in the 90s was, you ended up with a lot of competing ideas and concepts in the series, and for someone like Flynn to tie all that shit together made Mobius feel dense and surprising and unique. It didn't even matter that the initial ideas actually be good, seeing them used and bounced off each other the way #160 to #247 did created an intensely satisfying experience. The post-reboot world lacked a lot of this, but made up for it by developing cultures across the different Unleashed continents and leaning harder into stuff like the Adventures of Sonic material (I have absolutely nothing to say about AoSth Von Schlemmer, but I fucking love Archie Von Schlemmer) and experimenting with the Freedom Fighters and Egg Bosses. Lots of people were upset that we lost Mina and Scourge and Julie-Su, but had the reboot the chance to spread its wings fully, I think a lot of their roles would have been filled with new characters. There certainly was not a strong contingent of conspiracy theorists claiming Flynn made up all the reasons the reboot happened the way there is now (it was also before comicsgate, which probably had something to do with it).

IDW is great. It's easily the most tightly-written and polished Sonic series, with great art and storylines and character arcs that hit really well. But it IS lacking this. I don't know if it's just SEGA's mandates or Flynn, Stanley and co. wanting to focus more on individual character storylines, but the world of IDW Sonic is rather shallow. There are a few locations, but the people in them are all roughly the same mix of Islander background characters and the towns themselves are mostly contemporary-fantasy like in the games. I do wish we still had Sally, Antoine, Nicole and Bunnie (Rotor and Dulcy are okay but they were never my favorites), but I would trade having recognizable faces for a deeper world any day (provided they still have engaging stories to tell in that world). It's not just that they can't use old comic and cartoon stuff, but it seems like even the old weird stuff from the games isn't really showing up. Post-reboot Archie dug up a Gizoid, Witchcart, the Battle Kukkus (okay, well, pre-reboot did that but still), and even (a knockoff of) the Black Arms. The game-only world of Sonic can still be interesting and diverse given the right framing, but it sucks that we're only saddled with stuff from roughly the past decade.

[Mangoaxe5]

Went dumpster diving on the Wayback Machine, and I found this on Penders site from around 2007.

Sounds like Penders had no problem with Archie reprinting his work way back than.

[Leebo4]

1 hour ago, Vampfox said:

Went dumpster diving on the Wayback Machine, and I found this on Penders site from around 2007.

Sounds like Penders had no problem with Archie reprinting his work way back than.

I don’t think he ever did, just wanted royalties for it and use off his characters if he legally owned them

[Mangoaxe5]

42 minutes ago, Leebo4 said:

I don’t think he ever did, just wanted royalties for it and use off his characters if he legally owned them

That's my point. He doesn't mention royalties there. 

[Leebo4]

9 hours ago, Vampfox said:

That's my point. He doesn't mention royalties there. 

This could have been from before he wondered if he could actually own his creations

[Razule]

Once upon a time, he wasn't insane.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

The archive is up:

 

[Mangoaxe5]

2 hours ago, Demon Slayer Ultima said:

The archive is up:

 

Interesting read so far. I wonder why Archie decided to settle with Penders in the end. I personally still think that the case should have gone to trial.

[Leebo4]

2 hours ago, Vampfox said:

Interesting read so far. I wonder why Archie decided to settle with Penders in the end. I personally still think that the case should have gone to trial.

When a case went so badly you had to fire your entire legal team and you did a bad job keeping all officials documents and copies; it would have been no wonder if those in charge just wanted it to end as quickly as possible.

[Mangoaxe5]

I'll never forgive Archie for fucking up. I lost my waifu over this copyright shit.

I'll never forgive Penders either. He should have left things alone.

Penders characters are derivative work. I'm pretty sure that you can't copyright derivative characters.

[Leebo4]

8 hours ago, Vampfox said:

I'll never forgive Archie for fucking up. I lost my waifu over this copyright shit.

I'll never forgive Penders either. He should have left things alone.

Penders characters are derivative work. I'm pretty sure that you can't copyright derivative characters.

Would depend on what is meant by derivative work. Scourge should count such as characters like Medievil Spawn and elseworlds versions of Superman and Batman but you can’t really claim that cartoonish anthropomorphic animal characters are derivative of sonic

 

but there are the echidnas and the loss of contracts that claim Shea’s ownership of these new characters

[CertifiedNobody]

18 hours ago, Vampfox said:

I'll never forgive Archie for fucking up. I lost my waifu over this copyright shit.

I'll never forgive Penders either. He should have left things alone.

Penders characters are derivative work. I'm pretty sure that you can't copyright derivative characters.

Who is your waifu?

[Mangoaxe5]

13 minutes ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Who is your waifu?

Fiona Fox.

 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

On 5/4/2022 at 5:11 PM, Vampfox said:

That's my point. He doesn't mention royalties there. 

People tend to forget that back then, Penders was all for keeping his characters in the comic. It was just on the condition that he be paid heavy royalties. Something SEGA wasn't exactly gung-ho for.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

14 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

People tend to forget that back then, Penders was all for keeping his characters in the comic. It was just on the condition that he be paid heavy royalties. Something SEGA wasn't exactly gung-ho for.

No, Penders didn't just want royalties, he wanted to be able to use Knuckles, he wanted a measure of control over Locke and others, he wanted M25YL to be the canon future of the series and he wanted to approve each and every issue involving any of his characters.

Royalties would be one thing and pretty reasonable. The rest absolutely would not.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 minute ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

No, Penders didn't just want royalties, he wanted to be able to use Knuckles, he wanted a measure of control over Locke and others, he wanted M25YL to be the canon future of the series and he wanted to approve each and every issue involving any of his characters.

Royalties would be one thing and pretty reasonable. The rest absolutely would not.

Oh. Nevermind. Guess he really was always THAT insane.