[Azukara]

So essentially he did this so he can go out and sell his fanfics without Archie getting in the way.

[MathUser]

Sonic don't need hundreds of friends anyway. It'd be awesome if this meant they had to use only Sega characters such as nack the weasel from now on.

[Trunks]

Facebook

Me:

Augh, I hope the crap with Ken Penders ends quickly and without stirring a single blade of grass. We all know the comic got infinitely better the moment you took over. Best of luck, man.

Ian:

Luck isn't needed. Just patience.

Seems like this case is going to blow over. Let's all chill, but remember how damn silly Ken Penders is.

[NomadTW]

Well that's certainly reassuring to hear. I'd hate to have to see Ian suffer because of Ken's butthurt. He does such a great job writing nowadays.

[Tiranno]

I like my girlfriend's take on the Archie Comics:

*said comic*

Kinda ironic given the thread is about comic ownership, but your girlfriend stole that entire bit from LittleKuriboh.

I hope you understand this was made in 2007...

[Solaris Paradox]

I'd like to say at this time that what I have undertaken was not done with malice or in haste. I am simply looking out for the long-term interests of my family. That said, I knew many fans might be hurt or bewildered by my actions, but once all the circumstances that brought me to this point are known, I'm certain many will agree I had no choice but to protect my interests. In fact, I never expected to find myself in this position, yet here I am.

There will be much misinformation tossed out to confuse and obfuscate the issues at hand. You will not get that from me because I have no intention of being forthcoming with details beyond the obvious.

In the meantime, I will be in San Diego attending Comic-Con while promoting my film THE REPUBLIC as well as the forthcoming BROTHERHOOD OF THE GUARDIANS: LOCKE graphic novel. I will also be selling a special limited edition poster available only at Comic-Con featuring Julie-Su, Lara-Su, Lien-Da and the rest of the clan from the Dark Legion. My attorney Michael Lovitz will also be in attendance, providing a seminar on Copyrights and related matter. Please note that none of my actions infringe on SEGA's or Archie's rights with regards to producing the SONIC and SONIC UNIVERSE series. I also wouldn't be undertaking what I plan if I weren't within my legal rights.

ROFLCOPTER

...Honestly? A bunch of echidnas that look exactly like Knuckles, and you're not infringing SEGA's rights? ...Seriously? Wow. Either copyright law is supremely fucked up, or Penders's understanding of it is.

Maybe I should get into Sonic fan-character artwork. If I work up a following on DeviantArt, I might even be able to springboard it into a gods damned career.

[Overlord]

A couple of quotes loosely on topic from elsewhere, but that I thought were worth noting, seeing as they slag off the current staff in favour of Penders and co:

Ian is too much of a FAN to write this book the way it needs to be written. Consistently writing Sally OOC to fulfill his shipper fantasies, contorting characters like Fiona and Scourge for his shipper fantasies as well, is irresponsible. THEN he steals ideas from Drazen (shamelessly I might add), and a lot of what he's been doing has been riding off Ken and Karl's tidal waves before they left. Y'know what I think? When evaluating Ian, it feels like they were desperate to find a person with the bare minimum qualifications to get hired because the other two writers were leaving. That qualification being a degree in English. Other M was too mature for anything in the comics. It didn't display that he could work with the limitations a G-rated story and make it interesting. It didn't display any actual knowledge or understanding of ARCHIE'S interpretation of the characters. All he did was plop Sonic in a new world with a bunch of new characters that looked and went by the same names as the old characters, mostly absolving himself of the need for consistency.

The best part of all of that, is that it implies Archie is something other than fanwank. Which it isn't.

All he did was plop Sonic in a new world with a bunch of new characters that looked and went by the same names as the old characters, mostly absolving himself of the need for consistency.

In other words, exactly what Archie did when they set the comic up?


That all said, I'll echo what Shad said: Most butthurt case of ORIGINAL FANCHARACTER DO NOT STEAL ever (especially fucking SCOURGE, who is essentially Recolour the Fanhog anyway - (he is an EVIL GREEN SONIC. THAT IS THE ENTIRETY OF HIS CHARACTER BIO)). Sega/Archie will STEAMROLLER this idiot in court.

[Aquaslash]

So wait a sec, this doofus wants to sell a novel featuring Locke, who is listed in the series as KNUCKLES'S FATHER, and things he'll not only get away with it, but it'll sell?


WOW. This is HILARIOUS. As said, I eagerly await the legal butt raping.

[Azukara]

These people are the biggest hypocrites ever.

Consistently writing Sally OOC to fulfill his shipper fantasies, contorting characters like Fiona and Scourge for his shipper fantasies as well, is irresponsible.

You mean like how Sonic and Sally were forced together every other comic, and Sonic and Mina, and Sonic and bla bla bla, and Bunnie and Antione, and Tails and Fiona? Yes, Penders, those weren't shipper fantasies whatsoever.

Other M was too mature for anything in the comics. It didn't display that he could work with the limitations a G-rated story and make it interesting. It didn't display any actual knowledge or understanding of ARCHIE'S interpretation of the characters.

So what about Sonic running through about 10,000 soap opera-esque relationships, super huge Echidna tribes talking of war and power and drama, A SUPER HUGE STORY ON ROBOTNIK'S DEATH AND REBIRTH VIA MACHINE BUT THEN TURNED BACK HUMAN AND A SPACETIME WARP WHICH CHANGED EVERYBODY'S EYE COLORS, bigtime government talk across the Acorn family, a story about how Sonic dies from an over-the-top alien invasion but isn't dead and traverses across time and space to come back and make out with Sally only for her to get mad at him for what he does, and a crappy story about how the Mobians and Mobius came to be.

How are any of those things not too mature for a "G-rated" comic book, and even CLOSE to what the original writers at Archie or the SatAM show even intended?

All he did was plop Sonic in a new world with a bunch of new characters that looked and went by the same names as the old characters, mostly absolving himself of the need for consistency.

Agreeing with OL, you mean like what SatAM was in the first place?

tl;dr - Ken Penders is pretty stupid, wants to make money off his really bad fanfics; his "fanbase" is just as stupid.

This post has been edited by Azukara: 08 July 2010 - 03:28 PM

[Mr. Pictures]

...Honestly? A bunch of echidnas that look exactly like Knuckles, and you're not infringing SEGA's rights? ...Seriously? Wow. Either copyright law is supremely fucked up, or Penders's understanding of it is.

This is what's most interesting to me. How far do you have to cross the line, appearance-wise, to say the character belongs to you? (Or doesn't?)

his "fanbase" is just as stupid.

A lot of them seem to have gone into hiding, but if I checked several popular Archie Sonic message boards a few years ago, there would have been topics by them rampant with praise of Ken's characters. It was actually pretty astounding how anyone could be such a fan of a Knuckles or Sonic recolor with some added accessories. If you dared to question their taste and argued it with strong evidence, they would eventually admit the design of the character wasn't what mattered to some of them, it was the character's depth and personality. I still found that a really flimsy reason to enjoy his characters so much, they weren't a far stray from the standard archetypes seen in all kinds of entertainment media. It was probably the lack of personality in these characters which gave the fans so much freedom to envision their own ideals for them. They began to formulate such strong values for these characters, they would whine to no end if another writer stepped and did something they found disagreeable, which was as protective as they could get. After a little more thought, the part about not caring for the character's design made sense to me, most of them were fanfic writers who couldn't draw, but wanted to be in Ken's position as a writer for the comic. They may have been fans of Ian's work too, but when they found out he was writing for the comic instead of them, the tables turned.

I agree with the comic being fan wankery, it's been written like fanfiction for most of its printing.

This post has been edited by Mr. Pictures: 08 July 2010 - 04:45 PM

[True Dude]

Considering I hate everything Ian has done since he took over the comic, I want to see Ken win this.

Though what he'll do with the characters I can't imagine...

[Jay T.]

Apologies for being way off topic with this, but this is something I need to ask you guys.

I have never read any Sonic comic because if I remember, they don't sell them here, due to being a rather small area, or something...anyway, I'm 100% sure there's scans of the comics and such around here, but I need to know, which is better to read? Archie or Fleetway? I kind of want to read Fleetway due to the evil Super Sonic, but I dunno. Which is better?

[LordOfSquad]

Apologies for being way off topic with this, but this is something I need to ask you guys.

I have never read any Sonic comic because if I remember, they don't sell them here, due to being a rather small area, or something...anyway, I'm 100% sure there's scans of the comics and such around here, but I need to know, which is better to read? Archie or Fleetway? I kind of want to read Fleetway due to the evil Super Sonic, but I dunno. Which is better?

Read them both, you don't have to pick one.

[BlazeHedgehog]

All he did was plop Sonic in a new world with a bunch of new characters that looked and went by the same names as the old characters, mostly absolving himself of the need for consistency.

In other words, exactly what Archie did when they set the comic up?

This makes me angry. How on earth can anybody be so completely oblivious to bullshit? My understanding is that he basically didn't have any other option to because the disaster Ken and Karl left behind was such a tangled, jumbled up clusterfuck that it wasn't really worth straightening everything out individually. It was easier just to say "And now the castle explodes and everybody is captured and Dr. Eggman pretty much wins, at least for now."

Thus overriding any previous dangling plot threads with a blanket answer of "Well, they got captured. Probably died."

Seriously, I don't nerd rage about many things - or at least I try not to - but the fact that anybody could be rooting for this guy makes me want to punch somebody in the throat. He stagnated for years, wrote himself in to a corner more times than I can remember, stretched out story arcs so long even he forgot that they existed, and probably would have killed this comic book if it wasn't for the license attached to it. He certainly doesn't seem to be doing very well outside of Sonic if he has to resort to squelching Archie for more cash on the basis of "copyright infringement".

And somehow, this man developed his own meager, demented fanbase that still post about Sonic comics on his forum to this day even though he hasn't touched the characters in almost five years.

Getting fired is what he deserved. Even he admitted that he overstayed his welcome. But apparently he didn't overstay it enough if he's come back asking for a handout.

Ken Penders can eat a dick.

[Quarterman]

Apologies for being way off topic with this, but this is something I need to ask you guys.

I have never read any Sonic comic because if I remember, they don't sell them here, due to being a rather small area, or something...anyway, I'm 100% sure there's scans of the comics and such around here, but I need to know, which is better to read? Archie or Fleetway? I kind of want to read Fleetway due to the evil Super Sonic, but I dunno. Which is better?

Opinions on that matter are sharply divided. I prefer the Archie series, but that's strictly my opinion. Like LordofSquad said, you gotta make your own opinion on it.