The fact that he hasn't even released issue 1 is appalling. That isn't to say I want to see this shit be released, but even Rob Liefeld works faster than this.
See, this is the one thing I'll actually defend him on, since it's (supposedly) a 100+ page story rather than a traditional short comic, so it taking a while is a bit understandable. (Though that doesn't excuse his constant need to post release dates that he never meets.) But yeah, this page is...not great. He's certainly done far worse, and I'll grant him that the upper right panel blends in with the photo decently well, but that's as good as it gets here. Like Overlord said, if you take away that tear in the middle panel, it just looks like she's emotionlessly staring into the distance with her misaligned eyes. The bottom middle shot is just a copy job of the upper right, and the bottom left looks pasted onto the picture like a sticker. Plus, there's a smudge sitting there in the right-hand margin that Ken forgot to clean up. It's the opening page of his story, and there's a grand total of four original drawings on it. Two panels are left pointlessly blank. Just...why?
Don't defend him because it's meant to be 100+ pages, I started a webcomic in late July 2016 and I'm now on 131pages, AND I have a full time job, AND I play videogames, AND took month long breaks to play them, AND I'm a procrastinating POS. If he actually started from when he first announced this to be coming out (2012), if he had only done one page every 2 weeks for 6 years he'd have in excess of 150 pages by now.
The comparison I use is Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo. Like Penders, Sakai both writes and draws his comic. Unlike Penders, Sakai actually has work ethic and certainly does more than 100 pages in however many years Penders has been working on this thing. Penders is just a lazy bastard who thinks he can tread on (non-existent) good will.
To add to that list: Dave Sims (Cerebus) Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Trillium) Will Eisner (The Spirit, Contract with God) Frank Miller (Sin City, Ronin) Angus Oblong (you should know this already) Jhonen Vasquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee, Invader Zim) Daniel Clowes (Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron) Jeff Smith (Bones) In the time that Penders has wasted being a troll on twitter, others have achieved fame, glory, and (at the very least) released something. Guess that's something both Penders and Noah "Spoonyone" Antwiler have in common.
I still think this guy isn't anywhere near remotely serious with making this comic, and this is just an elaborate troll on his part; just to thumb his nose at Archie/Sega for "winning" the rights to his characters back. If he was, he would have had at least just one issue of his comic released by this point. The pace he's going, he seems to be be churning out one complete page every one or two years ever since he started this whole charade. It's absolutely ridiculous. The only other reason I can think of is that his work ethic and priorities are being heavily skewed by a hilariously massive ego, which TBH doesn't seem entirely out of the question. Or maybe it's some magical combination of both. I just don't even know with this guy.
I think he is serious, but that his work priorities are incredibly skewed. The ego he's showed these last several years (Christ, have we really been talking about this for almost eight years?) suggests that he does want to be the biggest, most popular comic writer around, and a troll attempt doesn't really facilitate that.
What else has he been doing to get by all this time any way? I mean I'm assuming no publisher will get anywhere near him after the Archie stuff, and he hasn't published anything.
Other than making an ass of himself on Twitter and his forum, and going to the occasional con, I haven't a fucking clue.
This is an old video he did for "The Republic", and has apparently done a new version he'll show "soon"
I was out visiting tag sales yesterday and found one with a box of old early '90s sci-fi comics. Picked up two X-Files issues and a Star Trek TNG issue featuring a story by Ken and his autograph on the cover. I couldn't stop laughing. There's a few wtf face shots just like Lara-Su, showing that he's always been an odd artist; the low-quality newspaper print of back then, with limited color palettes and the like, just made him blend in with everyone else a bit better. Now that technology's evolved, he's just stayed still and sticks out even more.
