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

[Danj86]

2 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

If this is anything like the last times he "left Twitter", we'll still be hearing from his Twitter page.

From what I gather, that's true for a hell of a lot of personalities. Y'know? Claiming they're gonna leave and then...not. It's actually a sign of addiction.

But that's neither here or there. I'm actually more baffled by this threads mere existence and finally decided to check in. What is this threads purpose? Did@Spin Attaxxmake it because he's hyped over this Lara Su Chronicles and is a big fan of Penders? I don't get that vibe from anyone though...

So it this just a topic that exists to dunk on the guy? A morally questionable act in my opinion, but ultimately nothing I care enough to have a firm stance on. Plus I am now only slightly more aware of the actions of Penders so it's understandable that he would have gained infamy in this fandom.

I could read the OP or Page 164 but I figure things can change, plus "I'm a lazy, lazy man, Roger."

But nobody has to justify themselves for me. I was just curious is all.

[Promethean0416]

17 minutes ago, Danj86 said:

From what I gather, that's true for a hell of a lot of personalities. Y'know? Claiming they're gonna leave and then...not. It's actually a sign of addiction.

But that's neither here or there. I'm actually more baffled by this threads mere existence and finally decided to check in. What is this threads purpose? Did@Spin Attaxxmake it because he's hyped over this Lara Su Chronicles and is a big fan of Penders? I don't get that vibe from anyone though...

So it this just a topic that exists to dunk on the guy? A morally questionable act in my opinion, but ultimately nothing I care enough to have a firm stance on. Plus I am now only slightly more aware of the actions of Penders so it's understandable that he would have gained infamy in this fandom.

I could read the OP or Page 164 but I figure things can change, plus "I'm a lazy, lazy man, Roger."

But nobody has to justify themselves for me. I was just curious is all.

It's all good and the main purpose of this thread is to talk about and critique the man's work past and present, as well as any news related to said work and art/commissions.

The main thing to note on that page (164) was to warn everyone not to talk about the man's personal life or his family, is all.

In all honesty, yes, there's been a lot of negativity in connection with the man's "creative decisions" as well as his lack of motivation on releasing any form of work since he left Archie (both his films are unreleased and incomplete and LSC/prequel story has yet to see the light of day aside from the previews already shown).

[Promethean0416]

Hoo boy...

Good luck getting Sega's permission with those, unless the waiting game he's playing applies to those too?

[dwitefry666]

Ok that's got to be impossible, right? 

The Knuckles series? With Sega and Mike Gallagher characters? That's got to be rubbish...

[Promethean0416]

Huh, looks like he's going to be busy this year:

https://kenpenders.com/upcoming-comic-convention-appearances/

Still, it will likely be the usual formula of "sell back issues + promote unreleased product = profit?"

[Rabbitearsblog]

Is he even allowed to sell reprints of older Archie issues?  I thought that Archie had the rights to the issues and SEGA had the rights to the Sonic characters.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

17 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Is he even allowed to sell reprints of older Archie issues?  I thought that Archie had the rights to the issues and SEGA had the rights to the Sonic characters.

Depends on what you mean.

Can he sell back-issues of Archie Sonic? Yes - at that point, he's a glorified eBay reseller.

Can he create licensed new books featuring those stories and issues? Well, hypothetically - if he went through the effort of completely redoing the artwork, completely altering the appearances of every single licensed character, and so on? Then yes - because he does technically own the stories he wrote.

However - can he just make brand new books featuring issues of Sonic the Hedgehog unchanged? Absolutely not, no. Doesn't matter if he owns his stories or not, he cannot use licensed characters and properties such as Sonic the Hedgehog in a unauthorised for profit comic book to my knowledge, and at that point (if I'm not mistaken at least), it could be considered glorified comic piracy. 

Penders likes to pretend the lawsuit somehow gave him some kind of invincibility to copyright law and he can do as he pleases, but his actions simply put him in a deadlock with Archie and SEGA. Sure, Archie and SEGA cannot use his characters and stories anymore in new works, and reprints at the time were shaky and became a mess.

Penders is in the exact same spot. He cannot reprint his past works without extensive work and alteration to remove any and all traces of licensed characters because Sonic and co are licensed and owned by SEGA, and Penders does not have the rights to do it.

And ironically, for all his bluster - it shows his utterly inane and quite frankly - stupidity when it comes to these kinds of licenses. He thinks 'money fixes all', and it's never the case when there's multiple rights holders on a product.

The biggest example I could give you is the 1966 Batman series - which lingered in copyright hell for decades because it's rights were split up between three different companies - Greenway, the production company, FOX - the second production company, and obviously - Warner Bros/DC who owns Batman. It took multiple decades for Greenway to get bought out, and eventually sold off to FOX, which made it a much simpler matter of FOX licensing the series to WB in the end for release.

And that was a scenario where WB and FOX had no particular reason to dislike each other - SEGA will never - not in their right minds - ever work with Ken Penders again, both between how much the Sonic fandom doesn't like him, and how much of a untrustworthy business partner he is. I would be surprised if he hasn't been blacklisted years ago.

A big reason Penders can get away with most of this so far is like it or not - nothing has actually materialised as a fully-formed project. He claims it's going to be sold, he claims it's going to be made - but it hasn't on either account, so SEGA have no reason to actively shut anything down until a for profit work finally drops that is using licensed characters without their authorised permission, especially when IDW presumably has the exclusive license to the characters for use in comics - SEGA not shutting it down would be a risk to whatever contract they hold with IDW, meaning they would have a vested interest in shutting it down. 

However, given this would be as simple as just going and taking rips of old comic issues, and printing them onto a book - this would be the one that has the highest chance of coming to fruition, and I would not be remotely shocked if IDW or SEGA send him a big fast cease and desist if/when it finally materialises. 

[King Scoopa Koopa]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet (yes, it's quite relevant to the topic).

[Promethean0416]

Interesting take there! And yeah, sad that Chronicles will never continue or be referenced again despite that lawsuit being thrown out three times, effectively putting it in limbo (despite a certain someone's claim).

Anyway, he's been posting updates on his site more frequently, now here's a new one on some light reading on his side of the story of "Sonic Armageddon":

https://kenpenders.com/sonic-armageddon-or-what-a-long-strange-journey-its-been/

After everything that has been said, he still can't stop bringing up Ben Hurst. Hopefully this is the last time...

And seems he is fast tracking his move out of Twitter a month back from his original move from September:

So...re-mark the calendars again, I suppose?

[Rabbitearsblog]

11 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Interesting take there! And yeah, sad that Chronicles will never continue or be referenced again despite that lawsuit being thrown out three times, effectively putting it in limbo (despite a certain someone's claim).

Anyway, he's been posting updates on his site more frequently, now here's a new one on some light reading on his side of the story of "Sonic Armageddon":

https://kenpenders.com/sonic-armageddon-or-what-a-long-strange-journey-its-been/

After everything that has been said, he still can't stop bringing up Ben Hurst. Hopefully this is the last time...

And seems he is fast tracking his move out of Twitter a month back from his original move from September:

So...re-mark the calendars again, I suppose?

So, he's not leaving Twitter anytime soon?

[Promethean0416]

3 hours ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

So, he's not leaving Twitter anytime soon?

He originally said September 30th, now it appears to be August (that is, if he actually follows up this time, so we'll see).

[Rabbitearsblog]

1 hour ago, Promethean0416 said:

He originally said September 30th, now it appears to be August (that is, if he actually follows up this time, so we'll see).

Interesting.

[Promethean0416]

Looks like he is back advertising that "commission" yet again:

https://kenpenders.com/work-in-progress/

Doesn't look like he made much, if any, progress since his last update, and he needs to work on figuring out how to provide better "guidance" to up-and-coming artists (if any are remotely interested in his methods).

Anyway, I think this was discussed before, but seems like his jabbing at Sega will continue until the end:

 

[PinkFloydMania]

SEGA does play nice with others, Ken. Go ask Christian Whitehead, Simon Thomley, Tyson Hesse, Tee Lopes, Falk... the list could go on and on at this point. What a prick lol

[Rabid-Coot]

Easier to blame someone else instead of admiting you're just not that good.

[Promethean0416]

Oh look, a new banner. Looks generic as ever:

https://kenpenders.com/look-for-my-new-display-banner/

Anybody going to Comic-Con?

[horridus]

8 hours ago, PinkFloydMania said:

SEGA does play nice with others, Ken. Go ask Christian Whitehead, Simon Thomley, Tyson Hesse, Tee Lopes, Falk... the list could go on and on at this point. What a prick lol

It's particularly hilarious coming from when you remember that he himself only plays well with others when they subordinate themselves to him and his inane writing, and spat venom towards writers like Bollers and Flynn for daring to contradict his 'vision'. The man's all take and no give.

[The Tenth Doctor]

We ready for another "Everyone loved the app at the convention, its super popular!" session? Seriously, the fact no one talks about it online EVER is just pathetic.

[Promethean0416]

3 hours ago, horridus said:

It's particularly hilarious coming from when you remember that he himself only plays well with others when they subordinate themselves to him and his inane writing, and spat venom towards writers like Bollers and Flynn for daring to contradict his 'vision'. The man's all take and no give.

Pretty much, yes. It is pretty known that he is no team player when it comes to telling a story, though the only thing he loves to give plenty of is bile and venom towards others, especially against the Sonic movies (2 especially), hence another example:

 

 

44 minutes ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

We ready for another "Everyone loved the app at the convention, its super popular!" session? Seriously, the fact no one talks about it online EVER is just pathetic.

Hence the old con formula he loves to use: sell back issues + promote unreleased product = profit?

[Rabid-Coot]

So Sonic Armageddon - blow up the planet. TLSC - blow up the planet.

20 years trying to do one plot point.

[horridus]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

Pretty much, yes. It is pretty known that he is no team player when it comes to telling a story, though the only thing he loves to give plenty of is bile and venom towards others, especially against the Sonic movies (2 especially), hence another example:

Hence the old con formula he loves to use: sell back issues + promote unreleased product = profit?

It astonishes me that Penders really, truly cannot seem to grasp the idea that the movies are their own continuity, much like oh, the COMICS he worked on. I honestly take this as the biggest bit of evidence that if he didn't purposefully stab Hurst in the back, he unwittingly sabotaged him by letting slip his utterly insane idea that a movie would serve as the foundation for the entire Sonic franchise, purely because he's too wrapped up in himself to even begin comprehending how it sounds to other people.

And to be blunt, Penders absolutely does not care about any portion of the Sonic franchise outside of his own corner to make any real effort to reconcile the myriad interpretations and origins out there. What little he did reveal made it abundantly clear he was just going to rehash Satam/Archie, and nothing more. It's all just self-serving, disingenuous bunk, as always.

2 hours ago, Rabid-Coot said:

So Sonic Armageddon - blow up the planet. TLSC - blow up the planet.

20 years trying to do one plot point.

Yep. Oh, and on top of that, it all cycles back to the Knuckles series yet again, with Lara-Su doing as her father before her did and fighting a resurgent Dark Legion led by Lien-Da... because the ultimate moral framework of Penders' work is that you will become your parents, forever and always and no matter what.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

3 hours ago, horridus said:

It astonishes me that Penders really, truly cannot seem to grasp the idea that the movies are their own continuity, much like oh, the COMICS he worked on.

This, from the man who "invented the multiverse," no less.

[Promethean0416]

Kinda mixed on this:

Pretty sure the comics were meant to advertise the brand/games, though yeah, I do agree that there wasn't much in terms of story in the original Genesis games until Sonic Adventure happened and most of the games after. Of course, the other thing was the comics were continuing off of the SatAM TV series universe to a degree, so yeah, hence why he "came up" with the multiverse concept, The Fugitive, Superman, etc., etc., etc., for the Archie Sonic series.

EDIT: Another piece of possible evidence that he may finally leave Twitter:

 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

2 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

EDIT: Another piece of possible evidence that he may finally leave Twitter:

He forgot, "For real! I really mean it this time, you guys! Ohh, just you wait and see!"

[Leebo4]

Sonic Armageddon was to be an origin story? I figured it would have been basically a dark continuation of sorts of satam