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

[StreetSonic2022]

34 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

You know what's funny? Remember the stink he kicked off when he wasn't receiving credit on Archie reprints? Remember how he kicked up so much of a stink that Archie overcorrected and started giving him top billing on reprints that he barely had anything to do with? 

Yet here, on his own unlicensed book of reprints, there's only one name written on it, and it's the big "KEN PENDERS". 

Where's Butler's credit for the artwork that's present within those reprints? Where's Spaziante's credit for the art that's been nicked and traced on the front cover? Where's the credit to the other people who contributed to Mobius 25 Years Later?

That's what I mentioned back in a couple of pages that he was using Butler's artwork to promote this... mess of work. Butler needs to get into this and get his lawyers, so does Spaziante. Penders felt like he don't give a damn, especially using the original stuff from Archie.

[Promethean0416]

52 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

That's what I mentioned back in a couple of pages that he was using Butler's artwork to promote this... mess of work. Butler needs to get into this and get his lawyers, so does Spaziante. Penders felt like he don't give a damn, especially using the original stuff from Archie.

Yeah, especially with this particular panel from his previous "update":

Original:

"Remastered":

I honestly do not understand why he would change that distorted Sonic from the original to that as it was less obvious in the design, though Knox Off still mentions him by name, so...

Also, Rotor is still there, so that's three Sega characters that he is somehow keeping in that one panel alone...

[King Scoopa Koopa]

4 hours ago, Lorekitten said:

At this point, I would be sincerely surprised if Sega doesn't hit him with the full legal hammer for it.

Maybe that's his plan: SEGA eventually drops the legal hammer on him, and then it becomes "Well, I was ready to do it, but the big, bad corporation stopped me. Now my hands are tied."

So he doesn't have to do squat, and can play the victim.

[Lorekitten]

21 minutes ago, King Scoopa Koopa said:

Maybe that's his plan: SEGA eventually drops the legal hammer on him, and then it becomes "Well, I was ready to do it, but the big, bad corporation stopped me. Now my hands are tied."

So he doesn't have to do squat, and can play the victim.

I mean, I sincerely do believe he wants to get this project out in some way, shape, or form, even if he has to resort to copyright fraud to do so. I don't think he wants Sega to banhammer his pet project to death.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

8 hours ago, Lorekitten said:

I mean, I sincerely do believe he wants to get this project out in some way, shape, or form, even if he has to resort to copyright fraud to do so. I don't think he wants Sega to banhammer his pet project to death.

I'm 50/50 between that and "whatever gets him the most attention".

At this point in time, I feel like getting smacked down by SEGA might get him more than if he actually just released the thing.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Holy hell, the back blurb of his book is out, and instead of being what a back blurb is meant to be - which is you describing your story and trying to engage and entice people into reading it, instead Penders focuses it into a retelling of his petty grudge against Archie, and just goes "this is mobius 25 years later collected to intro into my series!".

I am absolutely amazed how Penders fails the basic purpose of a back blurb to instead use it to rant about a grudge from Archie that's like 20 years old now.

[dwitefry666]

That's perculiar. I assumed that Penders was re-doing the lettering out of necessity, because he had to change the characters names, but he hasn't done that. Instead he's just...re-lettered it with the same dialogue. I wonder why. He clearly doesn't care about using other people's work, because that's not his pencils or colouring, so why would he care about using the old lettering? It makes everything look so much less professional, becasue he's clearly just using the scans available online (also someone's work he's nicked) and has equally clearly just used fill or paint brush to colour over the old text. He hasn't tried to match the off-white colour that the scans turn to the paper, nor replicate the 'texture', making  it stick out you-know-whats on a bulldog and making the whole thing looks like a fan translation. Whcih is a point: it takes a good while to go through every speech bubble one by one like that so I wonder why he deeemd that necessary? Weird.  

 

[babsiwuff]

Off topic, but whatever happened to that weirdass fake commission he did?  Did he ever finish it or did he give up when people quit caring?

[Promethean0416]

1 hour ago, babsiwuff said:

Off topic, but whatever happened to that weirdass fake commission he did?  Did he ever finish it or did he give up when people quit caring?

I haven't seen it anywhere on his site, so if it is not on his IG account, then it's likely he gave up on it or it's on one of the usual project hiatuses.

Anyway, an "update" of sorts. Looks like he apparently hit roughly 120 preorders on his book, so if that is true, he's made about 5 grand so far by my math. Wonder how much he had to pay that printing company to make 2000 of those?

https://kenpenders.com/odds-n-ends-2/

Of note, this also has other stuff like show recommendations, political rants, and what not, but I was more focused on the project update itself.

[Rabbitearsblog]

I do wonder how far this will go for him.  Will SEGA and Archie eventually sue him for selling reprints of an older issue or will they just leave this alone?

[Lorekitten]

37 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I do wonder how far this will go for him.  Will SEGA and Archie eventually sue him for selling reprints of an older issue or will they just leave this alone?

I can't possibly see a world where they leave this alone, especially after Penders' lawsuits that killed Sonic Chronicles and the Archie Comics.

[StreetSonic2022]

14 minutes ago, Lorekitten said:

I can't possibly see a world where they leave this alone, especially after Penders' lawsuits that killed Sonic Chronicles and the Archie Comics.

Chronicles was a different story because he didn't even won that case. Remember, SEGA had to go into court with EA as they bought out BioWARE right after Chronicles release. Anyone should know that EA and SEGA had a bad relationship during the Saturn era.  The downside is as SEGA is not using any Chronicles stuff, Penders BELIEVED he had access to it, which is stupid on his end, because if a company doesn't want to use certain access that were involved in legal issues, doesn't mean you, who initiate the legal drama, all of the sudden have free reign to use it.

[Rabbitearsblog]

7 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

Chronicles was a different story because he didn't even won that case. Remember, SEGA had to go into court with EA as they bought out BioWARE right after Chronicles release. Anyone should know that EA and SEGA had a bad relationship during the Saturn era.  The downside is as SEGA is not using any Chronicles stuff, Penders BELIEVED he had access to it, which is stupid on his end, because if a company doesn't want to use certain access that were involved in legal issues, doesn't mean you, who initiate the legal drama, all of the sudden have free reign to use it.

Especially if SEGA or the court never said that he is allowed to use these characters in the first place.

[Lorekitten]

16 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

Chronicles was a different story because he didn't even won that case. Remember, SEGA had to go into court with EA as they bought out BioWARE right after Chronicles release. Anyone should know that EA and SEGA had a bad relationship during the Saturn era.  The downside is as SEGA is not using any Chronicles stuff, Penders BELIEVED he had access to it, which is stupid on his end, because if a company doesn't want to use certain access that were involved in legal issues, doesn't mean you, who initiate the legal drama, all of the sudden have free reign to use it.

Yeah... this is unfortunately typical behavior from him, and I can't imagine that whatever happens next will be kind to him.

[horridus]

14 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

I haven't seen it anywhere on his site, so if it is not on his IG account, then it's likely he gave up on it or it's on one of the usual project hiatuses.

Anyway, an "update" of sorts. Looks like he apparently hit roughly 120 preorders on his book, so if that is true, he's made about 5 grand so far by my math. Wonder how much he had to pay that printing company to make 2000 of those?

https://kenpenders.com/odds-n-ends-2/

Of note, this also has other stuff like show recommendations, political rants, and what not, but I was more focused on the project update itself.

I can't say, though I can guess- this website's price for a 95 page black and white hardcover book is listed as starting at $11.97 per copy.

https://lightning-press.com/book-printing/price-and-cost-example/

I don't know what Penders' specifications would add to that, but if this is typical? Then at a minimum it would have cost him $23,940. At present sales figure, his gains wouldn't be enough to recoup his losses, and again, that's going by a minimal price line. Though I should re-iterate I'm not an expert in independent publishing, so, for all I know maybe he got it done cheaper.

[Leebo4]

I have my copy preordered and I am curious as to how it will turn out and plus as a novelty for my sonic comic collection. I mainly have volumes of the archive collections as well as the select collections but I am planning on having it next to my copy of the seasons of chase tpb.

[Lorekitten]

Even if I had any sort of interest in a M25YR compilation, I still wouldn't give this guy money for it because what he is doing is scummy to the extreme and I do not wish to support it in any way, shape, or form.

However, if I'm perfectly honest, I don't expect the project to last long enough to actually ship, because I cannot possibly imagine that Sega will let it stick around that long without hitting him with the banhammer. Especially if they've been reading his blog.

[Leebo4]

Well the thanks Ken penders blog pointed out that he is kind of being careful in advertising it with the cover and blurb

[Promethean0416]

An update of sorts with more uncanny valley artwork:

https://kenpenders.com/burning-the-midnight-oil/

Okay...is the book he is working on right now going to consist of mostly flashbacks (ergo, reworked art) from 25YL? I think this is what, the third remade image from that story I have seen so far? And yes, I am ashamed that I remember this panel.

And he better be careful with those so-called "positive reactions/feedback", as a certain company may take notice if he gets too much attention there...

Edited February 2 by Promethean0416

[horridus]

3 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

An update of sorts with more uncanny valley artwork:

https://kenpenders.com/burning-the-midnight-oil/

Okay...is the book he is working on right now going to consist of mostly flashbacks (ergo, reworked art) from 25YL? I think this is what, the third remade image from that story I have seen so far? And yes, I am ashamed that I remember this panel.

And he better be careful with those so-called "positive reactions/feedback", as a certain company may take notice if he gets too much attention there...

I can't tell what I love more- Julie's horrific botox lips, or the fact that Lara now more than ever looks like Knuckles in a wig.

I tend to take any mention of 'positive reception' with a grain of salt. Penders is precisely the kind of guy who willfully interprets basic politeness as an endorsement, and his past insistence that very specific, very positive-towards-him things have Totally Happened In Real Life Guys ("Comic retailers say my output is as good or even better than Archie's!") causes me to doubt his assertions even more.

And that's without getting into those fans of his who basically eat whatever garbage he puts out there.

Edited February 2 by horridus

[Zaysho]

I regret clicking that link.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

20 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

I regret clicking that link.

It's okay, I think this thread is all about regret.

[Promethean0416]

And we have a comment from the man on the panel shown in the most recent update:

Quote

The panel is an adaptation of the panel Steven Butler illustrated in SONIC issue 133, and the clothing depicted is what Steven came up with, not what I would have chosen. That said, I remained faithful to the original version as the scene is part of a flashback. As faithful as I wanted to remain to certain events from M25YL, there were a couple of instances I had to make a change because what may have worked then doesn’t work now.

Judging from what he put his title character in, I honestly do not want to know what his original intentions were having those two wear besides those nightgowns...

EDIT: And I found the original panel that he supposedly redone, definitely different than what he is presenting now. Gonna put it in a spoiler tag just to be on the safe side:

Spoiler

 

Edited February 2 by Promethean0416
Adding.

[Stasis]

This is abysmal.
 

i feel sorry for the people who have purchased this seriously and not for a laugh. 

[horridus]

3 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And we have a comment from the man on the panel shown in the most recent update:

Judging from what he put his title character in, I honestly do not want to know what his original intentions were having those two wear besides those nightgowns...

Given how anal Penders is about having his 'vision' followed, I sincerely doubt the nightgowns were wholesale an invention of Butler's. This reeks of the guy seeing the criticism sent his way over that sequence and trying to pass the buck.