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

Ah okay, thanks, yeah I knew who he was but I didn't know what the buzz was about him because I've heard about it the "rob thing" at a few other spots too and couldn't figure it out. Was he cut mid-story or was he announced to be in the story before it was printed?

 

This:


Got Replaced with this:


And everybody threw a shitfit about it which led to us learning about the lawsuit mandates which are throwing characters into a void for them to never return.

Btw, guys, what happened to this page? wasn't supposed to be in the first part of the current arc of universe? don't remember seeing it:

 

Before it was printed. They replaced him and his wife with pretty obvious stand-ins and just explained Rob was off in hiding at the moment, but it at least didn't even hurt the story any.

Wow, that's a silly and panicky way to put it, especially since the Rob thing happened before the settlement part even happened. No, what happened was that (and some things later on) made people realize that what was going on was Archie's lawyers were saying "Hey, for the time being let's be careful about what we put in the comic. You know, just in case."

That was from Sonic #212, when Mighty and Ray left on their journey.

 

THANK YOU, what the hell is up with everyone saying that they'll never appear again? Just because they maybe gone right now, DOESN'T mean we'll never see them again, hell if that was the case then we might have never gotten any reprints ever again, which it isn't. and if you think people saying that here is bad, DON'T go to bumbleking's Sonic Forum where it is 10x Worse there last time I checked. Now that's finally said, let's just wait and see what happens next.

 

The current arc (Albion) did get fucked the hell up in the process though.

I loved the first part. And then it went to shit. Probably would have been my favorite arc too.

 

Don't get me wrong; Ken Penders is a jackass, but it makes sense why a guy like him would go and try to seal away all of his work. As a comic book artist, he makes VERY LITTLE MONEY especially when you consider the fate of his media. Even from the start of his career writing Sonic comics, comic books were a niche market at $2 per book. Nobody that I knew of in school even as far back as 1999 read comics because of the relative ease of obtaining free entertainment coupled with the fact that for the cost of 10 comic books that you can read in less than 2 hours, you could get a Game Boy Color game that would entertain you for hours during recess and lunch. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe vs 10 volumes of any comic- it's hard to beat spending your money on the best handheld game of 1999. I love the comics, we all love the comics, but I would be shocked if even for his level of fame and notoriety that he ever made more than $100k in a year. His entire well-being is stake in the Sonic comics, so this was a rational decision on his part even if it is morally and legally unjustified.

Nonetheless, I'm just grateful that he doesn't have a claim to the comics being that he was under contract to use another entity's intellectual property to write a comic book on behalf of said entity. Just imagine how stupid it would be for Michael Bay to claim property rights on Transformers, take away 95-97% of the money involved, and you have the sad story of a dying man.

 

So, something has happened. Basically, court records apparently show that Ken's attorneys have moven to dismiss the case entirely because Ken refuses to agree to one of the points of the pre-settlement agreement, namely one forbidding characters used by him to look like Sonic characters. In other words, since Ken himself is picking one point of the agreement to not agree to, he's saying this is grounds for dismissal. He basically could have taken any point of his choosing into dispute and called for dismissal on that, trying to take control of the case and win everything instead of giving anything up in the settlement. Because that's clearly not abuse of the system at all.

 

So what does this mean basically and how does this effect the "killed" off characters?

 

I say, bring in Sega. The comics said they have to copyright, not him.

 

Well, if the case got dismissed, that would basically mean Ken gets everything. Which would be far worse than the current situation.

But since I'm not one for doom and gloom, and my last post kind of looked like that, I'll crosspost something I noted over at Bumbleking already:

As stupid as it is that a single point is being essentially held at ransom, everyone's ignoring that Archie's legal team probably isn't stupid enough to have looked at this situation for two months and said "Let's still not budge on a point which might get the entire case tossed."

It's far more likely that the team would have begrudgingly relented on that one point to keep the settlement going, rather than knowingly lose the whole thing by choice by not budging. And if Ken's legal team still said no or tried to dismiss even after the point was changed (The Judge said he wants briefs on the situation by next week), they could easily point out to the judge what was blatantly being done.

In other words, unless Archie's legal team is exceptionally stupid, the case probably isn't getting dismissed.

 

well if Penders does win, he may have to face Sega next

 

Say Penders does win this case and now has an unchallenged copyright claim on his side. How much does this benefit him in the legal world against the parent company that invented the designs of these characters in the first place? Like that image that's floating around that has Shade and Tikal comparisons and how stupid this whole situation sounds?

 

[quotename='BobR']Plainly put, Archie is worried about consumer confusion generated between the two comics if they look too much alike, as any company would be when another company brings out a competing product that looks like theirs. And more so if that product appears to be superior to their own. *grins*[/quote]
ahahahaha



Thanks, Bob. I needed a good laugh today.

 

So, this is Penders last stand to win all the marbles but twisting the system outright in a big gamble? Seriously, the guy is THIS petty! I mean we can FINALLY end this farce of a case right now but he wants to make one more shot at getting it all? I know the term of go big or go home but this is rediculous! Why can't he just cut his losses in the settlement (whatever they are) and go home? Is it THAT important so that he can make his Fantasy/Sci-Fi waifu comic bullshit!?! And anyone with EYES can see that they look like Sonic Characters, THEY ALL look like that because that's what they were based around! Or has Penders apparently forgotten that, seriously at this point I'm guessing the guy is on drugs.

 

I'm a little (a lot) late to the party, but with rumours of Ken actually winning this thing (which, people are speculating that he has?) what happens to the Sonic Archie Comics?
Do we just lose the characters that Ken created?
If so, that's fine with me. I've had enough of Recolour #619 the Echidna.
Otherwise, I'm curious as to what this actually means in relation to our monthly comic...

 

So if all the crappy fanfiction characters have to go, will that mean that I might actually have a reason to read the damn thing? For shame.

 

Hah, dude, if Ken Penders does make a competing comic, who is going to publish it? At best it will wind up being done by one of the various indie publishers out there and most of his sales will be from the internet and conventions, methinks.