Say, that is a good point you've brought up. All I see it as is something that makes Penders trying to backpedal even funnier. I wish this topic would just die already as it's so agonizing hear about him stalling. I just want him to get pegged by SEGA's attorneys and be done with it.
Here's a little something to brighten up your day: So now he thinks famous actors will be lining up to voice his fancharacters? Wow. EDIT: Oh, and Technically he's right. We are "interested", but for all the wrong reasons.
Art aside, there is SO much wrong with that caption that it makes me jiggle with uproarious and chocolatey delight at the thought that this man makes his living as a writer. I know he's probably using these pictures to pander to those who are already fans of his work, but if he thinks he's going to sell graphic novels that decouple his stories from Knuckles altogether, you'd think there'd be even a basic attempt to add more universal appeal. But we're presented with: "Domestic Mate" - an awkward synonym that attempts to make the world sound more sci-fi and alien; it smacks of the "younglings" from Star Wars III, and screams pretentious. "Lara-su" - word soup to the uninitiated, and probably born as a rip-off of the Kal-el, Jor-el style naming conventions from Superman (not too unlikely, since his Angel Island origin story sounds quite a bit like its lifted from Superman). Sure, George Lucas can get away with stupid baby-talk character names, but it's not the best model to emulate. "Bad-ass Mom" - This one is two-fold. First, it reeks of bad fan fiction where every character is somebody's relative, and also - conveniently - cool in some way. Second, explicitly calling her bad-ass is like the overused and ugly phrase "strong woman" (which tacitly suggests that women are categorically weak; no one says "Bruce Willis, playing a strong man character...) sounds more like it's trying to convince us that the character isn't just, y'know, somebody's mom, but that there will at least be some badasserry involved. Probably with explosions and sassy dialogue. Maybe I'm overanalysing here (maybe?) but as someone who is writing my own Sonic continuity (and also as someone who was at least partially inspired to do so by my brief encounters with the "epic" Penders stories in my youth), I notice these things. Really, this promotional art is failing at its job to promote - it couldn't be more of a turn-off if it was "SHAR-WO WHO FIGHTS WITH A PHOTON MUSKET... AND IS ALSO SONIC'S AWESOME EVIL TWIN!" And this isn't even touching the blghglhglblg art!
Aww, how cute. Ken thinks he knows how to be subtle. Let's see if you can spot the hidden announcement he pointlessly tossed into a topic about his old work. [inlinespoiler]"seven graphic novel series" (I mean the number of graphic novels planned, not that he's planning graphic novels at all, since we already knew that.)[/inlinespoiler]
This sort of thing has been bound to happen with the comics. When you take a fandom like Sonic the Hedgehog and have people who are most likely fans doing writing and art for this "alternate universe" of Sonic the Hedgehog, it was inevitably going to drift toward something like what you see on the internet. Basically, weird fanfiction and weird kids writing it. Ken Penders is taking the role of one of those pre-teen sonic fans, coming up with more and more fancharacters without even trying, who has a strange aura of unwarranted self importance. The fact that he actually had a position in a sect of the Sonic universe only gives his delusion more encouragement. But with Sonic fans, someone had to see this coming...
This is everything I have to say about the significace Ken Penders ever had in the history of my interest in Sonic The Hedgehog: Spoiler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-pK6nHKoM4&list=UUyzCvp0lbw5bGWWC2wlLgpw&index=66&feature=plcp
So, I just found out about something extremely angering about Ken Penders today through the Archie bad-art tumblr. I'm not sure if this is well-known information (I'm assuming it is and I'm just late to the party), but it seems Ken really screwed over Ben Hurst when they were trying to put a new Sonic movie together. http://www.saturdaymorningsonic.com/features/ben_hurst/ Again, probably well-known crap, but I just found this out, and what little graciousness I had towards Pender's plight is gone. I hope they rip him apart in court.
Oh? So he was responsible for... Is that so! I admire his passion and dedication, but if he'd died a lot sooner, that would've been nice. Nothing personal, just a matter of quality assurance.
He can take all his characters for all that I care. One schmuck's fanfiction is as good as any other.
One fan decided to show how his drawings are terrible, but so are his designs; even with them well drawn, it still looks bad.
The Lara-Su one is at least a little bit decent now, as far as visual pleasantness goes. The current Archie-designs of the characters looked fine to me for the most part, still.
I can't stop laughing at Lien-Da's head here. It just looks so huge. And yet it's still much more well drawn than Penders' version.
I think Penders artwork is ugly and extremely unappealing, but hell, what do I know? I'm just a member of the public. (as in, he would probably dismiss what I'm saying flat out)
Emphasis mine. Look at the visual clutter here, all weighted toward the head. Take off the head and you've a very nondescript body, lacking an any particular characteristics to associate with the character her/itself. Penders should just fuck off to a dark corner of deviantART and do memes of these "OCs" and stir up minor drama with anyone that tries to pull him up on his lack of aesthetic and design principles - it's a more fitting activity for somebody of his ability. I would hate to draw this shit, personally.
Oh he did a real number on Ben. I recall Hurst's involvement with the SATAM fandom, and he really REALLY wanted Season 3 to happen. Comics and such were all attempted, the film as I recall was Hurst's last real push to make it happen. Ken got wind and practically sabatoaged the project so he could present his own HORRID propoal (that had a number of characters that existed in Archie only, and certainly would have never reflected Ben Hurst's vision in the slightest). This event and the horrid writting in general during the years before Ian came on board, were the main reason the SATAM fandom hated Archie with a heated passion. Thankfully since then that's all cooled down
@TheKazeblade Yeah, that connection has been made a few times in a few places since this whole brouhaha started. My favorite is the Godfather parody (and I actually *like* Julie-Su. Under Ian's pen, anyway...). He says he's tried to reach a settlement outside of court? I can almost hear the SEGA execs... "I'm going to make him an offer..." In any case, I *still* don't get why they have to have that terrible Borg-ish tech all over. I mean, the cybernetics in the comic were weird, but they made sense. "My fleshy arm is too weak and vulnerable. Let's replace it with a cannon that will make me a worthy opponent in battle." ...or, "My dreads serve no real purpose, so let's replace it with a hunk of tech that will allow me to personally and directly hack into computers and shit." ...or even "My eyesight sucks. Let's replace my eyes with cybernetic ones so I can see even better and in ranges and ways that were impossible with organic eyes." You know. Things that improved their abilities and gave them new ones. This? This is Borg bling. And it's shameful.
