>Evil variants of protagonists

He claims those characters belongs to him, and has threatened to sue Archie Comics if they use him in the comic.

And as if he hasn't caused enough rage in the fandom, check out this gem: http://i.imgur.com/jKK77hm.png

Someone should've asked him "If you're the savior, how come your run of the comics is referred to as the Dark Ages?"

*if they use them

Yeah...your last sentence there is what kinda drives me bonkers about the whole thing--how he can get away with a design so obviously based upon Sega's designs. Last I heard he's making his Echidnas in the Lara-Su stuff as "aliens", but I didn't hear if he intended to redesign them...but you'd almost think he'd have to because...Sega designs and all...............

I mean, besides the fact that Penders decided to be completely selfish and destroy something fans loved, of course. *lol*

I mean, besides the fact that Penders decided to be completely selfish and destroy something fans loved, of course. *lol*

What I find both infuriating and hillarious is his twitter post where he claims he saved the comics, as seen in that image I posted above in the link.

All I can draw from the whole mess is that now that he's no longer EMPLOYED to write these stories officially...he wants to get PAID for writing "fan-fiction". *laughs* He had talent, he could try to turn it to good things...create something new and original...as he did when working at Archie Comics (the beginning anyways...not later on when he became an jerk towards the community of fans). Instead, he just wants to make money on writing fan-fiction...which is very sad.

Well if anything, Mello was already dead by his first appearance........still sad.


But wow, that's quite a long list. So I guess Knux is once again what he started out as: Last of his kind.

Wait wait wait wait, who's Ken Penders?

Wrote for the Archie Sonic comic for about ten years. Pretty much created Knuckles' whole universe in the comic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Penders

He used to work on Archie Comics' Sonic The Hedgehog comic up till 2006., known for coming up with many characters (and mostly focusing on his echidna OCs). Notorious in the fandom for having petty fights with other writers during his run, where he'd refuse to acknowledge any plot points and elements they'd introduce and instead push his own thing, which made the comic back then convoluted as fuck. At one point the sales were so low, Sega threatened to pull the license from Archie (and considered to force Archie to drop all SatAm and original characters, and focus on game characters only), which is when Ken Penders left, and current writer, Ian Flynn, came on board and managed to save the comic from the wreck it was until that point.

Around 2011., Penders filed a lawsuit against Sega and Bioware because some idiot told him that Sonic Chronicles (Nintendo DS game) stole his echidna characters and Dark Legion concept (which, while similar, was far from true), but his lawsuit was dropped because his claims were bullshit. After this he shifted his focus on Archie Comics after noticing the comic sales have improved in his absence (and wanting a piece of that profit cake himself). He filed a lawsuit against Archie next, demanding either his echidna characters be handed to him, or that he's paid royalties for every time they were used. The only reason he won that case was because Archie's legal team was bunch of incompetent morons-copies of the contracts were lost in a fire, they didn't make backups, and Ken Penders used this as an oportunity and lied, saying he never signed any contract. Archie had to get rid of a load of characters as a result, even some Penders didn't ask for.

Wow, what an ass.

In the end, not only did he claimed he saved the comics (back when he used to run it, which is hillarious because that's when the sales were the lowest), but that Archie never did anything with his characters and never developed them (far from truth, as Ian Flynn, current writer on board improved them MASSIVELY)

And here I've been reading and loving the Archie comics for so long...
Tell you what, this will either create a huge downfall for The Sonic-comic, or it'll be a chance for a new start. Who knows? I'm being naive here, but it could end up better than before. Then again, it could all turn into ****.
Either way, this'll be a critical time for Sonic and the team...

With Ian Flynn on board? The comic has improved greatly-he fixed a TON of shit that Penders has left behind, and now that the soft reboot has happened, he has a clean slate to work with. Who knows, maybe he'll be able to come up with more great characters that will fill in the places of all those characters we knew and loved. Only time will tell.

An optimistic thought. And I guess this explains why there's been a sort of "cleanup" in the story. If you've read the latest comics, you'll know the whole world's been reset by a "Genesis-wave", in practice altering reality... I have a feeling this new world is going to take over in the end, and no matter how much we hate Sally's new "safe" design, this is the new reality.

On a lighter note: You know what I find funny about all of this? We are, essencially, discussing about a huge fanfiction here. Imagine any other Sonic artist or fan-group getting this much attention! Imagine, say... BBMBBF and company getting this sort of publicity! That'd be nuts wouldn't it? XD
...I imagine if it happened we'd never see him again though. 8|

Yeah, I know-been following the comic till latest issue.

And I'm actually fond of the SatAM cast's redesigns myself-I always felt the old designs felt a bit out of place when put next to Sonic and other game characters.

We are, essencially, discussing about a huge fanfiction here

Pretty much every comic based off some IP is fanfiction when not written by original creators, yeah :P

Well, out of place isn't the same as out of reach. I always liked Sally's design because it was different. Then again, it wasn't the only reason I like Sally. She was always depicted as the headstrong and dedicated leader of the FF; her main concern always rested with the creatures of Mobius. She cared little if she was in charge or not, as long as she could do her utmost to serve and protect... Whether as a mother-figure or a protector, she always stood up for those who needed it.
I'm not the biggest Sally-fan out there, but I certainly like her a lot. She has spirit, individualism and compassion. What isn't to like about her, really? :D

Well yeah, it's always a fanfiction when made by anyone outside the original circle. I'm just saying, it's getting a lot more attention than most...
Eh, y'know what? I don't know what I'm saying actually. XD

wow, that's a a lot of characters

And more than half of them are echidnas.

This guy can take his characters and shove 'em up his ass! he claims that he's the one who saved the Sonic series! Yeah, and May from Pokemon's a virgin! What a douchebag....

So Evil Sonic means... Scourge?
Dark Legion means Finny is gone ???

I think that's why Evil-Sonic became Scourge, but if what I'm hearing is true. Yep

I'll only miss Finny. I just hope Archie has the capacity to make some new, quality characters instead of cranking out a bunch of terribad ones.

Truth be told, the quality of the characters depended upon the writer that was handling them at the moment. That infamous "Sally slaps Sonic" issue? One that made a lot of people hate Sally for being a selfish, psychotic bitch? Karl Bollers, the writer who handled that issue, was aiming exactly at that-he wanted readers to hate Sally because of his own hateboner for her (she was paired with Sonic at the time, which interrupted his plans to pair Sonic with Amy).

Ian Flynn, current writer on board, took a lot of characters previously thought to be badly written, and did quite an amazing work at fleshing them out-too bad that all of that work is for naught now. THANKS PENDERS.

Oh I see. I definitely don't like his tweets... He really is full of himself. :S

As much as some of those characters will be missed, it is kind of their time to go anyway. There's no way most of that would translate well, and most of the echidnas were already killed off a long time ago, it just came down to Knuckles, Julie and Lien Da who might as well have not been an echidna at the point before she disappeared. I noticed she wasn't in the list, is she not a Penders character? o.o I know penders made his own...concept of her, and holy damn she was made quite ugly XP terrible color scheme.

Honestly I'm worried most about the characters they made after Penders left, like Matilda (she's freaking awesome :D) and those new forest freedom fighters.

Everyone after Penders left is fine from what I understand. I liked his stories, but I was never a fan of his artwork.

Not really, the mandate stated that all characters that don't belong to Sega, SatAM or weren't created by Ian Flynn had to be axed. Which leaves us with very small number of characters, not counting SatAM cast.

Well he was long gone after a lot of those new characters were created. I'm pretty sure Matilda and those freedom fighters  sonofx51 was talking about were created well within Ian Flynns run.

Okay, thanks for the clarification :)

Checking some info...you're right, Matilda was introduced during Ian's run. So there might be some hope that we will see her again.

And, yeah. Lien-da too. :(

There's a problem with the link - whatever I clicked them, they leaded to the main page instead of center link you posted. Is there any other ways to get the picture of Lara-Su, etc?

You can try this link.

http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/.....lie-SuRvF2.jpg

The others appear to be working fine though.

Sorry, wrong link. Try this.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb.....39/Lara-Su.PNG

http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/.....lie-SuRvF2.jpg

http://kenpenders.com/albion_ll/Lien-DaFA1.jpg

http://kenpenders.com/albion_ll/DimitriFR1.jpg

Appeared to be same - just redirected to main page. Oddly.

But at least the first one is still workable. That design reminded me of PSI girl from X-Men in old comic, the cloth, the eyeglass and the hair!

I find myself relieved that I don't see Fiona Fox listed here

He actually created Fiona Fox, but apparently hasn't claimed ownership of her.

And maybe Scourge and Fiona can appear.

actually I believe Fiona predates him via the Fiona-bot from Tails adventures, either way so long as Archie has the rights to her I'm happy. They've already lost too many good characters to Penders bullshit to lose their best villain.

He created the flesh and blood one, apparently he could've had dibs on her.

perhaps, thinking Archie can use technicality that they technically created her by proxy first so character design is still theirs

but we still have that robot version!

That... list. Good god! It's basically my childhood this bastard is taking away.

Fuck.

Hope he's happy cause damn. I know I won't support his stuff. This is just horrible.

Yeah, it's quite a HUGE chunk of history. At this point, all that shit in the Sonic Encyclopedia I bought is worthless. XD

The links to the characters design's don't work.

I'll re-up them again, but they're working fine for me.

Its not for me idk why

Wow. Many of these characters were swept under the rug after the fallout and many others have died(Bye, Hershey. Bye. Locke). I will be kind of sad to see certain characters go, but others can be swapped out with other characters and concepts in Sega's stable. The Dark Brotherhood might open up new doors to using echidna characters just as well as some concepts from Sonic Adventure. Hell, a takeoff of concepts created by using the template of Dr. Finetivus would probably be the next step in Knuckles' stories.

I really, really don't think Penders' machinations will bear much fruit in the long run. The current book i indeed a bit poorer for the lack of its older material, but as a long-time DC and Marvel fan, I think I can deal with a retcon or two to the status quo if newer, fresher material is just as good as updates to the status of characters I knew in my youth.

The Dark Brotherhood might open up new doors to using echidna characters


Actually, that might not happen. See my reply here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:39263204

Nevermind the link, I fucked up. Here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:39263204

Let's be honest, at least half the 'cast' in the Sonic universe is uninteresting and totally unnecessary anyway. >_>

Used to be until they were handled by Ian Flynn, current writer on board. He did some really interesting work with many characters, which makes the whole Penders ordeal all the more frustrating.

Good bye King Elias Julie-su and Wolf pack... They broken the peace...

This is why I never like to read his comics.

I'll be honest, I don't really care much for most of the list, with it being mostly his Echidna characters he kinda forced down our throats, but I am rather feeling the sting at the loss of the Anti-Crew.

And to be honest, his artworks really isn't that great

While I honestly don't care for the Sonic comics 'cuz it's hard enough keeping track of the loads of characters in the games, I do think Ken Penders is a colossal douche and frivolous lawsuits over characters that couldn't really be used in anything other than the comics will only hurt the comic book community.

I know, they're his characters (though I do think claiming rights to alternate versions of characters not owned by him is pushing it a little), but they're also Sonic comic characters. There's not really much else you could do with them. Why not just make up some new characters inste-OH RIGHT MONEY.

... I know none of these characters! :D

You'd have to be a Sonic nut. Like myself. :P

they're all gone... sonic has no parents anymore.... knuckles has no one... good god...... I think I might need a beer...

Woah woah wait. What happened? Ive only recently stopped getting comics. Whats all this about a lawsuit and ownership?

Ken Penders wrote for the Archie Sonic The Hedgehog comic book for ten years or so. Then shit went down. LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Penders

Basically sounds like a talented artist and writer was ripped off by the big man.

I dunno if that was the case here. According to what's in the info, he basically went out and copyrighted a bunch of intellectual properties that didn't even belong to Archie itself but Sega. Copyright itself is a very weird thing though.

Don't we know it. Funny how Candy Crush actually tried to copyright the word "Candy"

Oh God...I can't believe it even got consideration for that.

Actually, I think he was the big man himself for a while, or something close, he was the writer for the Knuckles the Echidna series until it was cancelled for tanking sales. He was also a larger part of the writing staff for the main comic and it's sales started going down (Almost to the point that SEGA was thinking of pulling Archies license on Sonic, supposedly) until Ian Flynn became the writer. This kinda seems like a bit of a pattern.

I'm not saying he's a bad guy or completely bad at his job. He has positives (He does make some interesting characters and storylines) and negatives (His characters seem a bit too human for most anthropomorhic fans, making them look off, and his storylines can sometimes become convoluted and hard to follow as he doesn't seem to pace things as well as he could), the problem seems to mostly be he let's his own ego block him from seeing his own negatives and it makes him act like a douche. This leads to him doing things like saying he saved the comic series when, in reality, the sales and interest seemed to pick up more when Flynn too his place.

Again, not saying he's an awful person or awful at what he does, but some folks just kinda fail to see their own problems.

I'd still like to know why he thinks people will care about his precious characters, when they no longer have anything to do with the Sonic comic.

The Sonic Fandom be a strange mistress. O_O

Because the characters themselves were awesome. And you know who made them? He did. Why would you even think that someone should be allowed to take all the rights of someone elses design? They may no longer be part of the comic, but that dosnt mean they no long belong to him.

Actually, when it comes to industry, whenever you create something when hired/contracted by a company, it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the company, unless contract states otherwise. The only reason Ken was able to win the Archie Comics dispute is because their legal team were morons and didn't make backups of the contracts they lost in a fire, and Ken himself lied that he never signed any kind of contract.

Okay, this is actually rather old news by now...

Yeah, but I never knew the extent of characters he claimed ownership of or that he actually settled the case.

Lupe needs to make a grand reappearance. Alas, it's doubtful, though, because of the fact that the only Wolfpack members they'd be able to use would be the ones that were actually in the SatAM series.... and I don't think any of them had officially-given names, other than Lupe herself (from the episodes, at least).

Given the soft reboot recently following the Sonic/Mega Man crossover, it kinda does open the door for her reappearing, with a different Wolfpack of new characters (I think, I have some catching up to do)

Yeah, it has to be Lien-Da AND the redesign looks like shit on her. GG Ken.

I'm completely unfamiliar with any Sonic Universe lore! xD


...that being said, the five links to Pender's new works? They look like shitty Deviantart fanfiction drawings. How in the hell is he going to get hired by any respectable comic publisher with art of that quality?

Well, he's been in the industry for quite some time now.

I can tell!

That doesn't necessarily translate to skill, though...


Just look at Rob Liefeld. x3

It's not like he's a bad artist. He just doesn't do Sonic too well. LOL
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyqe.....FB21r2tdnt.png

Oh yeah! It looks like you're right... that isn't too bad-looking. :D

But the difference is that, Liefield has average (anatomy distilled) art but is a nice guy. Whereas Penders has average (misplaced, misguided??)art and is a selfish, shitty guy. Why do you think people still talk about Liefield and he still goes to conventions to this day and while the chances of Penders being hired by a company again are slim to none, and Slim just left town.

wow...that's pretty much half the universe there, including some characters that were active in the storylines...major dick move Ken...

While I'm not a huge Sonic fan (I like the series, just don't follow it closely), the whole copyright fiasco going on/that went on with it is some real food for thought about copyright issues as a whole.

Like how fucking easy it seems to be to pull the "copyright infringement/theft/stealing/whatever" card when someone gets buttmad, lets their ego take full control of their brain, and/or is looking to make a quick buck. :\

I've never met the guy. I'm sure he's nice enough in person, but he's one of those people who posts a lot of stuff on twiiter or what have you that he probably should have thought more clearly about first. So it pretty much makes him seem like an ass.

Are we really losing all of these characters? Because I heard that penders said that archie could use his characters but they decided not to.

I heard it's mostly out of caution that there not using his characters. Remember, Sega gave them reign but they still have to okay things with them. This whole debacle cannot have made them happy. If they wanted to, Sega could have pulled the entire comic over this. I also heard, the stipulations he gave them on for using his characters was something Archie had no intentions of following.

i may not follow the comics but his guy just seems like the comic book devil.

Well, he murdered Sonic's parents. Great.