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

Ken has stated on more than one occasion that he's met with Scott Shaw! and talked about this with him. I would not be surprised if he has also spoken with some of his other Archie collaborators regarding reprinting their work (to some degree). I have some doubts if he's spoken to everyone; I think he made some comment that he would put aside money for royalties to anyone who he couldn't get in contact with. I suppose he assumes anyone who worked on this material would be ok with reprints and royalties, though I wouldn't be surprised if there's one person out there who might want more than what he's offering. Who knows.

I will say, that if he goes through with his planned Shadow collection, it'll bite him in the behind. His intention of reprinting work written by Ian will not end well. Ian would not sign off on it, based on the fact he is still working with Sega. It'll cause problems, and might kill some of Ken's plans.

As for the recoloring...once again, I'm sorry, but no. This looks so bad. I was hoping the pages would be more authentic because of Scott's involvement, but clearly that's not the case. I've said it before, but I would be far more into a more authentic collection, something that is trying to replicate the original colors (or as close an approximation as possible) using modern printing techniques, but no one involved seems interested in the slightest to even try. It removes the work from the time and place it was created. Not to mention that some of the line art has been lightened. The original pages, everything has that dark outline. Here, some of it has been removed. Why, to make it look "modern?" To make it match...Sonic of the now? I don't know.

I'd be slightly annoyed but accept if all they did was change Robotnik's eye color. This is just. Pointless.

 

Yes, you're right, I want it more like the top one. I will say that the TPB reprint in the second image isn't terrible. It's way closer to the original look of the book. It's when Archie decided to continue reprinting the early comics that they really went south with the digital coloring. They started adding gradients to everything, which I was never a fan of. They resisted doing that with the reprint of the miniseries, probably because they wanted to test the market and see if anyone would be interested in buying Sonic collections. Sales for "The Beginning" must have been good enough to prompt the Archives line, and they must have thought doing the gradients would make the comics appeal to the modern market. But that early art does not support that kind of coloring.

To be fair, Sonic Firsts was printed before Knuckles #29. Which means that Ken went out of his way to canonize Sally's coloring in issue 0 (and the subsequent "pink Sally") after Archie tried to handwave it away. I remember some pushback by fans when they altered the art in Sonic Firsts (as much pushback as one could see back in 1997) but it must have been substantial enough that Archie decided to revert those changes when reprinting the miniseries.

Ken was saying that if he were offered the opportunity to come back and write Sonic, he would pick up where he left off and ignore what anyone else had done. I don't think he ever said he would try to bury Ian's work wholesale. Ken does not strike me as someone who would advocate not letting comics not exist in collected formats, or digital back issues just because it wasn't a successful run, or that he wasn't a fan of it. But he is someone who would ignore it/retcon it in future work. Which, I mean. That's how comics work. Plenty of writers and artists throw out what the previous creative team did so they can tell their own story. You can argue the merits of such an approach, but that's a bit out of scope for what this thread is about.

Either way, he's not seeking to reprint those stories to incorporate it into his own narrative (aside from perhaps a casual "there is a multiverse out there" statement, which was already baked in to his version of Sonic). The scant few new pages in The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings makes it clear he's not interested in it, just like he wasn't interested in writing about King Shadow when it was suggested to him before leaving the book for good.

Ken has already reprinted Archie Sonic comics, and as far as we can tell, no legal action was taken. He has said no future reprints would include the Archie logo (which was left in the single cover reprinted in the book), so he may have gotten a letter about that in the mail, but that's speculation on my part. Any legal action on these reprints is not going to happen from Sega for anything up to issue 159. Individual creators might object to their work being reprinted, but at the same time, I don't think any of Ken's contemporaries are interested in stopping him from doing this. I think they want royalties for their work. It would only come to legal action if they were unhappy with how he is reprinting their work. Hearing that Scott is somehow happy with the recoloring, it makes me doubt the other writers and artists would object. But you never know.

The only way Sega would get involved is if they have claim to Ian's work on Archie, starting with issue 160. I am not privy to any behind-the-scenes, but I would not be surprised that after what happened with Ken, Ian signed something to make perfectly clear any and all work he did for Archie belonged to Archie/Sega. Things such as Ken's characters being used pre-reboot would prevent any wholesale reprinting campaign (not to mention Sega probably doesn't want to try to reprint them for the same reasons they're not interested in reprinting Sonic the Comic), but the script to Ian's two-part finale of Mobius: 25 Years Later would be theirs if Sega owns those rights. That would cause a legal dispute. Ken can testify to his hearts content that he owns Future Knuckles, but he did not write Ian's stories. That would be like if Paramount decided to publish a Star Trek fanfic they found on the Internet without contacting the creator. They own the concepts and characters, but they do not own the text. They would get sued if they did that. Ken is opening a door with the Ian era, if he goes through with it. Which he might decide not to. Or he could double down.