THE KEN PENDERS CHRONICLES: PendersCON Alert level 5- something actually made it to sale

For comparison here is what the original Spaz art looked like without the Archie stuff in the top left corner:


You can see Penders' alterations more clearly.

I have to say, the original smoke cloud looked much less tacky.

 

For those unaware why Ken is doing this, he recently tweeted he kept the Archie logo for "historical purposes" in Beginnings but would be removing them in subsequent reprints.

In other words, someone from Archie called him and told him he was not allowed to use the Archie logo in his shit.

 

I suspect that if anything has been redwrawn here by hand, it's after using a Magic Eraser type tool to auto fill what "would" be there. Even the line art where the graffiti would have been has the exact same cracks formed on the final cover, but it doesn't look like there was any effort to maintain the original ones at all in the edit. That'd be the main reason the whole corner where the Archie logo also looks entirely different.

 

Penders using AI to edit someone else's art and then releasing it commercially? That would be a new low even for him, but hardly surprising.

Also, the detailing on the pipe at the bottom suggests that he did have access to the original, logo-free lineart, but chose not to use it for anything aside from that one detail. I'm willing to bet that he's not confident enough that his artistic skills can replicate the original coloring and shading, so he opted to butcher all the hardest parts with AI "art" instead.

 

Penders is not using AI.

He's using someone from the community to edit all the Knuckles comics for the omnibus. That means editing art, upscaling scans to fit the new layout, redrawing some bits...

He's already used that person to edit all of M25YL (then Ken massacred some of their work afterwards), removing some details, redrawing stuff... and paid them with a copy of the book, promising some cash if they stay on board and if it becomes a success.

 

So they're not getting paid.

 

Heh, I was promised royalties for my translation work. Never happend either.

 

Huh, screwing over others. The more things change, the more they stay the same...

 

Okay, here's what was going on.



So I was correct about the artist using the original lineart to fill in the pipe. However, that still doesn't explain what's going on with the skyline, the texturing of the clouds/smog or the cracks on the wall looking completely wrong where the "SPINBALL" graffiti used to be.

 

So how much is Spaz getting for his artwork, anyway?

 

Who said Spaz was getting paid

 

Does anyone know if Butler got paid for Beginnings?

 

Oh I know that. I should have said "It will never happen", as he's screwed up some people recently.

 

I kind of feel like trying to redesign the Penders designs. Mostly since dear god those current designs, but also to irritate Penders by implying I, a terrible artist myself, can do a better job.

 

Unrelated to the current topic, but as someone who's currently scouring through the Wayback Machine's captures of Ken's old forums in order to get information for a Wiki page I'm editing, man does it drive me insane how Ken answers to extremely simple and polite questions with completely unrelated whining about how nobody ever appreciated his genius.

Somebody from the Archie Sonic wiki asked him twice if the "Cyborg Zone" seen in issue #19 is the same dimension as the alternate future zone seen in issue #22, as both of them are described as the home dimension of Robo-Robotnik (Dr. Eggman, the main Robotnik from issue #75 onwards), yet other details don't match up. For instance, Sonic and Sally are cyborgs in the former dimension, yet they're completely organic with completely organic children in the latter.

So what Penders does is go on a wild-ass tangent about how mad Sega got at him whenever he wrote stories set in the future and how Bollers never used his characters in a way that he approved of, without ever answering the question.

Is this man unable to do literally anything without victimizing himself?

 

From what I can see, he's a narcissist with generational trauma that he's looking to pass onto his kids. So I'm gonna say no, he can't.

I'm almost certain he thinks he's Jack Kirby 2.0.

 

Anyways, here's new details on the first Knuckles omnibus.


I love how he's including the 2 page sneak peek of the Knuckles' Chaotix special from issue #30, even though it was left out of Sonic Archives Volume 8 for quite literally being retconned by the special itself.

Also, the fact that Athair wasn't mentioned in TLSC: Beginnings and likely won't appear in this omnibus makes me think that Gallagher doesn't want anything to do with this.

 

Wasn't Athair in Sonic Underground as well? I wonder if that might be playing a part...

It'd be hilarious if Penders can't use an echidna.

 

Yup, to this day he is the only Archie Sonic character to appear outside of printed media.

Now, I do not know if the writers of Underground asked Gallagher for permission to use the character, or if they just assumed that he was owned by Sega and therefore didn't feel the need to ask him.

Whatever the case may be, he clearly did not mind that Athair appeared in Underground, so if he's truly not willing to let Penders use the character, then he'd be making an exception for Penders and Penders alone. I wonder what that would mean for this supposed "Mobian Line" series of Archie Sonic omnibuses that Penders is planning?