In the past, he's parenthesized Julie-su next to her name, and says that the outfit and name will be used for the character to go undercover in Lara-Su Chronicles. He seems to genuinely believe there's no difference in the two characters.
I wished I knew more about copyright law to see if his statement of Sega using Shade in an encyclopedia is considered fair use. Wouldn't Sega be required to acknowledge that he "owns" the characters somewhere in the encyclopedia? Especially in a product that's being sold?
Ken does NOT own the copyright to Shade the Echidna. No matter what delusions he believes in or how similarly he feels Shade and Julie-Su are, they are NOT one in the same, from a legal standpoint. Hell, there are MORE SIMILAR concepts than those two that are LEGALLY DISTINCT. Ken does not know how the law works. To be fair, neither do I... but at least I don't pretend I own something I don't based on similarity alone.
I'm not saying he owns it, what my point is that he's arguing Sega using Shade in the encyclopedia is fair use. And I'm wondering if he's saying that because he knows he doesn't own her, or if it actually would be considered fair use. (But I don't see how it's fair use and I know his Sega/Bioware lawsuit was thrown out)
Let's be honest: he's arguing it's fair use, because he knows there's no other way he can save face on this situation where it's blatantly obvious he has no control over Shade.
I've posted some screenshots of a conversation I had with him about Shade : https://twitter.com/AdamisFox/status/1465060318451744770?s=20
I respect your tenacity but arguing with Ken Penders is like arguing with a brick wall. Man went to legal court over his beliefs. It's best to just watch him from a safe distance, like you're visiting the zoo.
Oh I know. We had another discussion like that back in August, where I told him I quit working on the French translation of his comic. Then last month he blocked me because I contradicted him.
Well, he is more interesting than his never to be seen Lara-Su Chronicles comicbook. Mostly because what he considers to be the truth, other people view as insane. I even saw theories that he has some kind of mental problems, but he comes of more as an extremely stubborn individual or a megalomaniac.
I wouldn't say mental illness, just personality disorders. He's a boomer dad with serious daddy issues, who inadvertently stumbled backwards into not just working on an incredibly successful series at the height of its popularity, but being given free reign to do whatever weird bullshit ideas his head could excrete after being restricted for a long time. He left after being frustrated that that changed, and I have a strong suspicion that the reason everything since the first lawsuit happened is that he realized he needed that work, and has been trying and failing to recapture better times for himself ever since. Not just because it probably made him quite a bit of money, but also because nothing he did got fan attention like Sonic. I'm willing to bet that his plan for the first suit was that SEGA and Archie would consider him and his characters such important assets that they'd have to rehire him. Everything falling apart for ten years is because he still figured (maybe at the time) that he had the clout to make that release work anyway, but sunken-cost fallacy eventually set in. As it turns out though, he's not very good at the thing people know him best for. But what else is he supposed to do? The man is nearly if-not-already in his sixties, and producing weird, kind of crappy stories is all he seems to know. I do not think any of the stuff he's not releasing is being not-released due to him fearing legal recourse, or trying to string people along so he doesn't have to work. The man just makes bad decisions and needs it to be everyone's problem but his own.
Yes it's unfair to say he has a mental illness. Penders is clearly a guy with lots of ambition, wanting to write HIS own story while other Sonic comic writers stayed fairly close to the source material. And at first, this actually worked out for him. The Sonic comic ended up being the longest running video game comic, and he was holding the reins for much of it. It obviously swelled up his ego. But as Shaddy said, this fell apart. Penders is nothing without Sonic, but admitting that would be psychologically devastating. It'd render the last couple decades of his life meaningless. That's about as long as some of the younger members on this forum have been alive =P
The main theory I've seen is that Ken may have narcissistic personality disorder. Of course none of us are doctors so I don't think we can make claims about Ken's health, but it would explain a lot.
Because, you know, Penders gets inspiration from reality, wants his work to reflect the problems of our times and... it's a good excuse to compare anything with what he does and pump up his ego in public.
Every time anything happens, he says TLSC will comment on it. The 2016 election, January 6th, the 2020 police protests, everything. He can promise anything he wants in a series for which he hasn't even released the first comic. Even if it somehow did release, I guarantee the allegory will be as deep as "the villains in the comic are bad and so are the people that tried to murder politicians", which is the social commentary equivalent of slapping "Spock" on a helmet that was never in the show. It's about as cogent as his last attempt, after all.
