Whatever happened to Ken Penders?

Whatever happened to Ken Penders?

last I saw he was peddling his Donut Steels and failing spectacularly.

Of course, he doesn't seem to care that he's failing. He seems happy just to have stolen them from Sega and Archie right when they were actually becoming interesting.

Something about this novel staring alien Enchiladas that will sell millions.

I am going to laugh my ass off when he finally tries to publish this thing and gets his pants sued off by SEGA. Karma's a bitch, Penders.

bump for Echidna goodness

That's the thing- Sega's not ever going to bother suing him. Penders is ironically going to be saved by his own lack of sucess. Sega wouldn't bother with an actual lawsuit against him unless his Lara-Su crap ends up becoming big and making a lot of money, and we all know it's never going to be a success even if he does actually get around to publishing it.

They will sue his ass if he makes ANY money. Not only would he blatantly stealing from their IP, not suing him would basically allow other creators free reign to do the same thing. Plus, I'm sure those dudes hold a grudge. Penders was a pretty major disruption to their successful comic line.

He popped up at a Sonic con a few weeks back. Spoke to the audience of 15 about what it takes to be a great writer. Had his other usual lies and no progress on his projects as well.

They won't, because they've realized that suing is only good if they make large amounts of money, otherwise it's not worth the legal costs or the media circus. The reason Sega was upset with this lawsuit wasn't because it disrupted the comic line (which they don't consider that lucrative) but because it was bad for PR.

He is if CWC actually got a job writing Sonic comics.

Blatantly letting someone steal your IP is even worse PR. And if they didn't find the Archie comics deal a success, they wouldn't have let the thing go on for 20+ years.

>That art and shirt

I RECOGNIZE THAT PENIS

I mean shitty art.

There was once a contest where fans could submit art to Sega for the chance of it appearing on the box of a Sonic the Hedgehog Cartoon VHS. That is what cartoons came on before the internet, underage b&s. Anyway, Penders wormed his way into that contest and managed to get that shit on the cover and the winner's art squirreled away in a corner on the back, just to stroke his goddamned ego.

Penders is what happens when you hire someone who knows next to fuck-all about the material he's writing about.

That would require Penders being able to find someone willing to publish his work which isn't going to happen because no one will want to work with him once they google his name and see all the shit he's done. And it doesn't seem like he has the money to start his own publishing business. So really, that whole lawsuit business isn't going to accomplish anything for him in the end except changing his resume from "I was a writer on Archie's Sonic The Hedgehog" to "I fucked up Archie's Sonic The Hedgehog".

that's as hilarious as it is pathetic

>Blatantly letting someone steal your IP is even worse PR.
Only if people see it. Lawsuits cost money, and companies sometimes deem that the gain from it isn't worth the cost. That's why you don't see lawsuits like this all the time.

>And if they didn't find the Archie comics deal a success
Being a success doesn't mean it's hugely lucrative. Comics in general don't make that much money.

I don't understand what's taking him so long?

I mean, most webcomics average one page a week at minimum. Most of the time they're in color too.

Now Pender's who was a "professional artist" for years, has been dreaming about this project for years and can't even scrape together ~20 pages for a comic issue?

What is the hold up?

>And if they didn't find the Archie comics deal a success, they wouldn't have let the thing go on for 20+ years.

The only money Sega gets from Archie is the licensing fee, and that has nothing to do with whether the book is a hit or a flop.

Sega is more concerned with brand recognition; keeping people from forgetting about Sonic and making sure he maintains some sort of public awareness.

They also want Sonic to look cool and the brand to be attractive, which is why Sega lost it's collective shit when they saw that Archie cover with Sonic curled in a fetal position and crying because his girlfriend broke up with him.

Sega only needs Archie so long as they keep the Sonic brand visible and respectable; profit has never had anything to do with it.

Sega does not want to deal with him. The lawsuit Penders filed against Sega was settled out of court, and while there is nothing legal saying they still can't use his characters in Archie Sonic, they wrote them all out of existence because they just don't want to bother fighting the guy. So Sega's done everything possible just to get him out of their hair since he sued them, no way are they going to want to use the resources to sue him back in return. If they wanted Original the Echidna and family THAT badly, they would have fought for them in the original lawsuit

It was never about making a product.

Pendars only jumped through the hoops of making shit because he had to. There is probably some law on the books that requires him as an copyright owner to show intent to use which is why he had to do mock ups, get some pages out, and why he hired on the cheap. All of it was done simply to get Archie to given him more more money for reprints. To an extent we know this was the case with why Archie killed everything not owned by them rather than just remove Pendar's toys.

Pendars from the onset knew that Archie owned everything. And when he left he figured like other writers during his tenue that he'd just get into something bigger and better with Sonic as a stepping stone. When that fell through, he took to abusing his knowledge of Archie's stupidity to hustle up more money for himself.

Heres the thing about copyrights. You have to defend them against ALL or NONE.
If they dont sue him, then I start taking thier IP and they cant sue me because he is precedent.

That's not even remotely true... The previous lawsuit was settled, the precedent has to occur to be set, nothing but a contractual agreement took place.

And the lawsuit was settled, he is allowed to use certain things, and he owns his Mary Sue. He'll never get it off the ground.

About they only thing they could likely sue for is his use of Knuckles, but he's done some copyright-dodging changes to him, referring to him by other names and terms while still making it clear that it's Knuckles (his profile even mentioned that he has a nickname based on his physical attributes but noticeably never says what that nickname actually is). I still don't think Sega would care enough to lawyer up, though.

And the fact that the very first page uses an unaltered panel from a Knuckles comic?

He won.

Does it? I didn't know he'd completed a single page yet.

Over on the right.

It's Knux from one of those ___YL stories.

Hm, this one is clearer.