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

When's the last time we even heard from Michael Gallagher? I know Dave Manak still crops up around conventions and stuff and I assume they're still friends, but I don't know about him making any public appearances. The official Marvel site credits him on some recent stuff, though I think it's mostly omnibuses containing old Guardians of the Galaxy stuff he did in the 90s. The most recent original work he's credited for is 2010 Secret Invasion (hey, Spaziante's on this one too!) but again, I don't know what he did for it.

Anyway, I doubt DiC has anything to do with Penders not using Gallagher's stuff. Underground was created at a time when the contracts everyone definitely signed probably still existed, so they almost certainly didn't need to ask. Hell, for all we know, Gallagher may not even know they did use his work, it's not like these people were religiously following other parts of the series. If there's any reason he's not working with Penders, it's either that Ken is a toxic asshole that it's best to keep at arm's length, or Mike is retired and didn't give his new contact info to people he worked with 20 years ago, so maybe Ken can't even reach him.

 

Dave Manak, Justin Gabrie and Karl Bollers all worked on it too. A real Archie Sonic family reunion for sure. And according to Marvel Database, he wrote quite a few What If? stories for Marvel in the late 2000s and early 2010s. This would've been right after the release of Archie Sonic #185, the last issue that he worked on.

I mean, Archie has time and time again proven themselves to be more incompetent than we could ever possibly imagine, so I'm starting to believe that those contracts never existed in the first place.

This is also one possibility, but I do believe that information about this would've reached him sooner or later. I don't know if either Gallagher or Manak were still regularly associating with their DiC contacts by the time Underground was airing, but a lot of Underground development material must've been sent to Archie back when Sonic Super Special #10 was in development.

 

I don't really keep up with Sonic stuff. But I've found myself the maintainer of Sega Retro's lawsuit pages, and that includes Penders v. Sega and Archie v. Penders.

if he talks lawsuits again someone @ me in this thread plz

 

I think we might get your lawsuit sooner than you think, as he's actually putting a Sega character on the cover of his newest book, even though that is supposedly the one thing he isn't allowed to do.


And I get that he's calling this a prototype cover, but I still can't get over how "Graphic design is my passion" it looks.

 

It's just begging to be a meme format with that top and bottom Impact caption.

 

thanks I hate it

(I mean, at least it doesn't have that godawful airbrush coloring his other modern stuff has had but...)

 

Does he not know how to apply outlines to text? Yeesh... It's not awful without it but definitely a bit wonky to read, mostly on the bottom half.

 

I... don't hate it?

Maybe because it's just not actively revolting like his Lara-Su art. The text is hilarious, the fire at the bottom looks bad, the way he draws Knuckles is weird, but it doesn't make me want to pour bleach into my eyeballs, which is probably the first time a piece of Ken's art hasn't done that in a few years.

If he does go through with this reprint - hell, if he's even allowed to - I would be interested if it wasn't for the fact that the reprint quality in Beginnings just... wasn't good. Which sucks given that these reprints are possibly going to be the only legal way to read the Archie comics that doesn't involve tracking down old out-of-print books, based on how things are going.

 

You have no idea how much pain this is causing to my heart.

Though if they'll be anything like Beginnings with poor handling of page dimensions and random shots of the Floating Island being replaced with his hideous logo, you might as well just read pirated scans instead. And if Penders' cover guy is truly using AI to get rid of the logos, then I won't touch them with a ten foot pole.

 

Are they just using the in-game backgrounds from Angel Island Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with a smooth filter? What, is he planning to pay SEGA for use of the assets?

 

I'm pretty sure his plan is something like, posting them, in public, so later on, if SEGA didn't take action, he'll say "but I posted all about it, they knew it and did nothing so I can legally sell this".

Expect more sprites used in the backgrounds.

 

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if he just flat out uses Knuckles in his comics instead of 'K'nox'. Man seems delusional enough to try.

 

So he wants chaos.

 

Seems like he's playing chicken with SEGA. If they don't act, he considers it fair game, and if they do act, 10 to 1 he tries to dredge up Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood during said suit to try and force some form of settlement regarding it.

 

Why not? That looks like a massive improvement over the original's dull colors to me. It almost makes me want to check that version.

Not that I'd buy it of course, because Penders (and also because I don't like Archie Sonic to begin with).

 

Aside from the blatant use of sprite and SEGA assets (my god, that palmtree is curving but the sprite-overlay they've done is straight, the artist in me cries... the more I look the worse it gets...), people want the original work preserved, not painted over.

It's like if someone painted over Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers: while the new picture might look better, the point is to preserve the works of those that came before.

 

The original is already preserved and accessible. We don't need Penders' reprints for that.

 

We don't need Penders's reprints at all.

 

I surprisingly don't mind some of the redrawing/recoloring here. Making it fit more towards the games probably erupts some anger in the diehard Archie fan, but I can't say I hate it. Not to say I love it either; the background work being smudged sprites is super sloppy.

Either way, still very amused/excited for him to keep playing chicken with this. Let him keep going. Let's see what happens.