I'm really curious about this actually. The stuff Penders did for Archie was... not amazing, but it certainly wasn't unredeemable. Years later, we have shit like this. What happened ?
I'm willing to guess that back then he had a team to help him, so maybe he did pencils but he didn't color. He also had some form of guidelines at least. This he's doing all on his own at a stupidly slow pace. What else does he do these days? This can't be all of it.
Oh that's nothing, if you go back further, when he sometimes shows old inks he's done prior to decent internet (for lazy copying and stuff) and Archie. when he was doing human characters, it's wasn't that bad at all. His slow pace legitimately astounds me. The original release was meant to be 2012 i think, if he has actually started then and did just one page every 2 weeks for 7 years he'd have 180+ pages to show. Heck i've been making my own webcomic and i just polished off page 235 after just over 3 years, so i have no idea what he's doing.
You know, folks, I can't tell you how many times I've tried to post about Ken Penders and my fingers just freeze up because how did he spell his new term for echidnas again!? I know there are a couple of Ys in there, and maybe an apostrophe or two, but in what order!? Obviously, if I could have a copy of THE STORM by my side this wouldn't be an issue, but delays are to be expected in light of certain creative dilemmas: So how are we supposed to keep things straight in the meantime? Fortunately, there is a way: I'm just kidding, of course; this was a limited edition $25 item from Comic Con that I can only assume was snatched off the market along with those Royal Secret Service Strategic Acorn Ops patches. We'll just have to wait until he finishes that Thunderhawk redesign. And filming THE REPUBLIC. And... what's that? Oh. Well, maybe he'll release more shirts.
Happy Birthday Ken Penders! In looking through his Twitter, it seems to me that there is some nice stuff in there as well: This piece, done in an afternoon, looks much better to me than the official LSC stuff. The art for that should, I think, be better than it is.
God that puppy sketch looks more professional than the five whatever years' worth of Lara Su stuff he's ever done (and a good chunk of his Archie-era drawings too I bet). That's honestly the absolute best thing I've ever seen him draw, and I seriously mean it as a complement. It's things like this that seriously makes me think he's just playing the long con with the LSC/Archie stuff, and that he's not actually serious with those properties.
My guess is that with the dog sketch, he had a photo to go off of. With his other art, he's probably drawing it all straight outta his head... poorly.
If all he needed was a photo to go off of, then his black astronaut character, AKA Anthony Mackie, AKA Antho-ni the M'ckie (hat-tip to ICEknight) should look better than he does. Then again, the original photo didn't have knee jets. And his backgrounds don't look great either, although those aren't traces, they're just plain stock art.
I've finally figured out the two reasons why THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES are taking so long. 1. He doesn't have the time to complete it. 2. He doesn't know how to complete it. Coming soon, THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES... app. And if you think that his art pieces are any good... you're right. TLSC would be so much better if he just used this simple line art style throughout, not only because it is far more appealing in comparison but also because the time saved in not dodging and burning everything might allow him to avoid the comedy described in that first tweet of his quoted in this post. Seriously, look at this again: Or, in other words: I'm starting to think we'll see THE REPUBLIC put up on his YouTube channel uploaded for free on his website, once he gets a website again in theaters everywhere before we see THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES in bookstores near us.
I'm genuinely truly expecting him to at some point start intentionally pushing himself as the tragic auteur who never finished his masterpiece before health or age impeded his abilities and try to get a fan-continuation for his own unreleased comic started. Though come to think of it, I don't actually know how old he is. I've been looking through a lot of the older issues (as well as reading others' perspectives on them) and I had forgotten just what a fucking creep the guy could come off as, both in the stories he wrote and the way he talked (and still talks) about their content after the fact.
Not having time is the silliest excuse, does he actually have another job he's doing? I knocked out 240 pages of my webcomic in the last 3 years around a minimum wage full time job and general procrastination (videogames & anime) ='D
Penders talks about Sally losing her virginity to his OC Donutsteel Goes on an unsolicited rant defending LBGT relationships following this. What could he be implying? Edit: And more importantly, why hasn't the internet illustrated this monstrosity?
his anatomy is better even, in that Robotnik piece. how on earth does he manage to fluctuate so wildly in quality??
Its not even that good is the thing. It just looks amazing next to the Lara-Su monstrosities. Still, if you learn the tricks to draw Archiebotnik 100000 times, you are bound to make him look pretty decent. I think it is a combination of being the type of artist who relies on a few learned tricks to draw and just having bad taste. Its also worth throwing out the nofun "benefit of the doubt" option that he actually started to listen to criticism at some point and put in a serious effort to improve recently. I think there is evidence in that pic to suggest otherwise, but it is a thought worth mentioning. Maybe its just me but I always thought that cover art looked like something done on a low budget, and now that I know it is Penders it makes more sense.
As low budget as that is I'll at least give him props for that art because it's 1000x better than all those Sonic DVDs that just use weird yet incorrect stock art with some low budget effects in the background
Oh no it's a very low bar. And besides that cover everything he's shown lately has been well below that bar.