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

[captobvious42]

On 6/7/2024 at 11:07 PM, Promethean0416 said:

Is it just me, or does the fact he's all but pointing out WHERE it's being delivered sound like he's practically taunting Sega to come after him? Honestly, I don't feel like this is important information to share.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

1 minute ago, captobvious42 said:

Is it just me, or does the fact he's all but pointing out WHERE it's being delivered sound like he's practically taunting Sega to come after him? Honestly, I don't feel like this is important information to share.

Isn't that pretty much how he writes, anyway?

[Guergy]

On 6/9/2024 at 9:46 AM, MetalSkulkBane said:

If anyone needs refreshment on whole mess, new very detailed video

I find the most interesting comment at 27:23, about Penders and Flynn. Basically, mattt points out that Penders puts himself into characters (basing stories on his own experiences), while Flynn disappears (tries to think what characters would do in those moments).

Also, I didn't know (or forgot) that Bollers sided with Ken on the lawsuit. Interesting.

This video had made me a little bit mixed in Penders. One level, I sympathize about wanting to be a good father and hist stance on creators rights. On another hand, I do agree with everyone here that he is arrogant and wrathful. What I got from this is that Penders is a complex and fascinating character who made really bad mistakes that tanked his reputation. 

Edited June 22 by Guergy
Misspeling.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Creators rights in comics are iffy subject.

To put it bluntly if "Creators own their characters" then modern comics couldn't exist. A writer could marry Spider-Man to Dren Blacy, the original character, then leave Marvel and refuse to sell the character. What then? Same mess we had with Penders, except it can happen any time.

Often the writer is not a "true father" to the character. Liefeld created Deadpool, but not what makes him special. Same with Wolverine, and Daredevil I would say it's 50/50 Stan Lee and Frank Miller. This would force creators to create a flood of OCs, hoping one of them will sell. On the other hand, Killing Joke is the most famous Batman story ever, yet doesn't create a single new character, so Alan Moore would get nothing, (safe for reprints).

WITH ALL THAT SAID not everyone understood it at the start. It's clear Archie was incompetent and all leads imply Penders never signed off his characters. He might have a moral right to do what he did, regardless of how bad the consequences were for us. I still dissgre with most of his writting choices and complains... except for Locke's death. I'm with him on this one, even if XYL isn't canon, Flynn shouldn't alter the circumstances this badly.

 

Lastly, yes, Marvel/DC/rest could switch to Image model, where the author owns the entire series. There would be many upsides and downsides and matttt other videos showed. I think the Manga industry would be the healthiest if they stopped literally working themself to death.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

2 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

He might have a moral right to do what he did, regardless of how bad the consequences were for us.

I think he had more of a legal right than a moral right here.

[MetalSkulkBane]

1 hour ago, King Scoopa Koopa said:

I think he had more of a legal right than a moral right here.

Fair point.

I'm sure he would claim it's moral as Archie might have screwed him over (they might have forged his signature), but that's murkier territory.

[Lorekitten]

10 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I still dissgre with most of his writting choices and complains... except for Locke's death. I'm with him on this one, even if XYL isn't canon, Flynn shouldn't alter the circumstances this badly.

I'm of two minds on the whole situation. On the one hand, M25YR clearly had the loophole of Sonic and company going back in time to change the timeline, and Flynn wrote Locke's death better than I've ever seen Ken Penders write literally anything. On the other hand, knowing the personal connection Penders had to that story in particular, it does feel kinda scummy to completely erase its impact on the timeline.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Let's say Flynn was ordered to remove the echidna and Locke. It seems to fit with the "cleaning up" thing they were doing, plus Locke is the most important character Flynn killed, I think it makes sense it might have been editorial decision (editor wanted to just reboot whole thing anyway).

I still disagree with how Flynn wrote Locke. The dude had flaws, tons and tons of flaws, but despite the "microwave the baby" thing, I never questioned whether he loved Knuckles. Locke would never consider killing his son. Or use his mom as leverage.

[Lorekitten]

49 minutes ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

I still disagree with how Flynn wrote Locke. The dude had flaws, tons and tons of flaws, but despite the "microwave the baby" thing, I never questioned whether he loved Knuckles. Locke would never consider killing his son. Or use his mom as leverage.

Entirely understandable. Admittedly I haven't read most of Penders' Knuckles lore (and have read enough of it that I don't care to read the rest), but I'll take your word for it.

[Phoenix]

The microwave the baby thing never really bothered me because, yes, in real life, that's a bad thing. But I guess I was used to comics and manga, where I just accept that no one can recognise Clark Kent, or that Vegeta is now cool even though he blew up a planet full of innocent people. Sometimes there's gaps in logic in these things, and I kinda just deal with them. I could accept that Locke loved Knuckles if that's what the story said.

Edited June 11 by Phoenix

[Promethean0416]

Welp, here it is, the "limited edition" Lara-Su print he is including with the preordered copies of Mobius: 25 Years Later The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, which includes a copy/paste background: 

And the process of its creation:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C8D6L8Woczv/

And yes, I saw the whole process from start to finish, including the instant copy/paste pic popping up in the background.

And finally, he may or may not have gotten those 2000 books by now, but we will see:

 

Edited June 12 by Promethean0416

[Lorekitten]

At this point, only one of two things can reasonably be expected to happen: Sega hits him with a ton of lawsuits, or the project just quietly fizzles out when no one actually wants to buy it.

[ASurgeofLight]

7 minutes ago, Lorekitten said:

At this point, only one of two things can reasonably be expected to happen: Sega hits him with a ton of lawsuits, or the project just quietly fizzles out when no one actually wants to buy it.

I'm actually morbidly curious to see how many copies he sales.  The print run for Beginnings is 2000 copies or so right!?  I personally imagine it'll take awhile to sell them all.   

 

 As for his other plans, I don't see how he can reprint his Knuckles & Sonic comics work when he doesn't own the Sonic franchise.  I mean I guess it's possible that SEGA considers Ken a non-issue no matter what he does.

 

I mean I would love to have nice omnibuses of the Archie Sonic comics myself, but I'd rather IDW be allowed to do them.  Given that'll probably never happen though since SEGA doesn't seem to want to even acknowledge the Freedom Fighters these days, I guess it's not impossible for Penders to do collections of the Archie Sonic comics if SEGA genuinely doesn't care what he does one way or another.

[King Scoopa Koopa]

16 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

Fair point.

I'm sure he would claim it's moral as Archie might have screwed him over (they might have forged his signature), but that's murkier territory.

Sure, but he claims lots of stuff.

As for Locke's death? It's not like they couldn't have him come back somehow (lawsuit and all related stuff aside).

And he was the one who was arguing that M25YL was the one and only true future, nothing else matters because the future is already written, and all of that jazz. At least with Ian's death of Locke, that definitely put a pin in the side of it being A possible future, rather than THE undisputed future.

[MetalSkulkBane]

3 hours ago, King Scoopa Koopa said:

And he was the one who was arguing that M25YL was the one and only true future, nothing else matters because the future is already written, and all of that jazz. At least with Ian's death of Locke, that definitely put a pin in the side of it being A possible future, rather than THE undisputed future.

If Locke's death was permanent, then XYL is NOT POSSIBLE future, just separate timeline. If it can be reversed then YXL situation did not change.

Overall always aim to respect previous writers, but Penders demand for XYL was unreasonable. I don't blame anyone for erasing that possibility. I just think Locke's general portrayal was off.

[Lorekitten]

Yeesh... this situation feels messier by the moment, and I'm not sure I even have a solid singular opinion on it.

[captobvious42]

21 hours ago, Lorekitten said:

At this point, only one of two things can reasonably be expected to happen: Sega hits him with a ton of lawsuits, or the project just quietly fizzles out when no one actually wants to buy it.

I want it to fizzle out and be forgotten about in the long run, but the whole "that's what lawyers are for" comment he made wants the hammer to be dropped... hard.

[Lorekitten]

2 hours ago, captobvious42 said:

I want it to fizzle out and be forgotten about in the long run, but the whole "that's what lawyers are for" comment he made wants the hammer to be dropped... hard.

Be careful what you wish for, Kenny. You just might get it.

[Promethean0416]

And so the prelude has begun. We shall see how things go between the offload/customs and SDCC next month:

EDIT: Addendum on further advertising/pandering to select groups:

 

Edited June 14 by Promethean0416

[Lorekitten]

6 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And so the prelude has begun. We shall see how things go between the offload/customs and SDCC next month:

 

The unstoppable force moves ever closer to the immovable object that is copyright law.

[MetalSkulkBane]

So now that this is actually happening are we going to... you know... actually buy his book?

I don't do "hate watching". I haven't seen Rings of Power or Velma. Most superhero movies these day I wait till they go for streaming. I gave Teen Titans Go a fair chance, didn't hate it, but didn't continued either. I'm firm believer in watching Great Movies and not touching their Soulless Sequels.

But you know how it is, Sonic is a bit more important than to me. I'm here for good and the bad. Except, should I take Penders fanfic as "Sonic"?

I feel like I shouldn't for principles sake, and yet I think I'll break.

[Lorekitten]

Personally? Even if I was remotely interested in the subject matter (I'm not), I don't buy bootlegs out of the principle of the thing, even if they're technically the original writer bootlegging his own work because he personally destroyed the franchise spin-off that never belonged to him to begin with.

Heck with that, that gives me even more reason NOT to support this project.

Edited June 14 by Lorekitten

[Promethean0416]

8 hours ago, MetalSkulkBane said:

So now that this is actually happening are we going to... you know... actually buy his book?

I don't do "hate watching". I haven't seen Rings of Power or Velma. Most superhero movies these day I wait till they go for streaming. I gave Teen Titans Go a fair chance, didn't hate it, but didn't continued either. I'm firm believer in watching Great Movies and not touching their Soulless Sequels.

But you know how it is, Sonic is a bit more important than to me. I'm here for good and the bad. Except, should I take Penders fanfic as "Sonic"?

I feel like I shouldn't for principles sake, and yet I think I'll break.

Well, looking at the previews he had shown as well as the TOC, he didn't edit out Future Sonic's name, keeping it as is in the dialogue as well as the SegaSonic design ergo with cape and crown (which I still don't think will differentiate it from the initial design as Sonic has been seen in other attire before and has still been referred to as such).

Future Knuckles is still called Knux in a noted panel, though I don't know if that counts, Rotor is still namedropped, and that's all I can think of at the present time. Still wrestling on whether or not the man did his homework before doing this endeavor, but somehow I doubt it...

EDIT: And we have a reminder of the bad idea (in my opinion) for the prrrromotion:

 

Edited June 15 by Promethean0416

[The Tenth Doctor]

Oh no, why would I buy it? Man deserves no money for this. If it was in my local comic book store I'd rotate other stuff in front of it so no one see's it. I'd advise everyone to do the same.

[Promethean0416]

Came across this while browsing:

Yeah, pretty sure Flynn won't due to the possible legal ramifications surrounding this whole thing. Also, don't know how truthful this is considering his history of embellishment, but I think the other creators would be smarter regarding this shady "project," but that's just me...

EDIT: Seems there is a minor delay in getting the product in:

 

Edited June 15 by Promethean0416