🎨 Artcow Ken Penders - Former Archie Sonic Comic Writer/Artist

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Admiral Piett said:
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Archived here: http://imgur.com/a/U3u1i
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Now that's what I call nightmare fuel! Penders should drop his shitty enchilada ripoffs and do art for horror stories instead. I've seen Giger art that isn't as unsettling as this.
 
RockVolnutt said:
I don't read any of their books so I could be wrong but I've heard they dabble with it. The worst I heard about was they made a Transformers series centered around transgenderism. You don't need to be bright to see how that doesn't make sense with giant shapeshifting robots in a setting where getting a new body isn't an unheard of thing.
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Well it is TRANSformers.
 
Penders has recently returned from a vacation and is back on Twitter.

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:optimistic:
Actually, if anyone here would stomach working with the guy, it could be an opportunity to share some insider info. Adamis at Sonic Stadium is working on the app and confirmed that Penders' creation will be alluding to the Genesis Waves. I'd highly recommend reading through the rest of the thread, too; there's some other stuff including a really good takedown of Penders' claims about motivation for the series and Patrick Spaziante. tl;dr Spaz is a huge Sonic fan and imported and translated Sonic Adventure to make sure the comic adaptation would be accurate, while Penders made the adaptation a whole bunch of fucking around with his characters instead. However, note that Sonic Stadium's forum is fucked up and you have to manually refresh after clicking to load the next/previous page, unless you're logged in.

PendersDevelopsWorlds.PNG

You mean like Ian Flynn's post-reboot run?
Delusion.PNG

PendersOnCriticism.PNG

Penders on criticism.
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The weirdest thing is that he actually does seem fairly competent at drawing humans; I'm too lazy to find it now, but he did a sketch of Captain America around the same time as this ungodly abomination, and it actually looked pretty good.

Also, I don't believe that this page from the comic has been shared here before.
altteyN.jpg


Finally, the good people over at Sonic Retro have produced various responses to the Sonic sketch and this comic page starting at page 15 of their thread. It's a must-see extravaganza! Why?
NGqiE4C.jpg
 
Worthless Degenerate said:
Actually, if anyone here would stomach working with the guy, it could be an opportunity to share some insider info. Adamis at Sonic Stadium is working on the app and confirmed that Penders' creation will be alluding to the Genesis Waves.
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Can he even do that without getting sued? His book is already dangerously close to his original creations Sega's characters. Sega would still own what was created in Ian Flynn's comics.
 
RockVolnutt said:
Can he even do that without getting sued? His book is already dangerously close to his original creations Sega's characters. Sega would still own what was created in Ian Flynn's comics.
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I don't know enough about copyright law to know for certain. However, is it possible that references like this are okay if they're vague enough? As an example, Guilty Gear 2: Overture was apparently developed during some sort of ownership dispute between Arc System Works and SEGA, which is why Dizzy (who is never seen on-screen in this game) is referred to as the Maiden of the Grove.

Penders' entire project seems to hinge on this kind of 'totally not an existing thing nudge nudge wink wink' defence. In addition to the whole 'Guardian who is totally not Knuckles' thing, the bio he released for Geoffrey St. John makes reference to a "blue-spined Erinaceinae". You kind of have to admire his balls... However, there is a chance that he'll try to make these things more "original", for lack of a better term; more recently, he changed Rotor's name and turned him into a rhinoceros. He must be really far behind schedule if he's still at the drawing board... but then, we already knew that, since the first chapter was meant to come out in 2012. He's also neglected both the official Lara-Su Chronicles site and his own personal site long enough to let the domains lapse.
 
Worthless Degenerate said:
zujp5f.jpg

The weirdest thing is that he actually does seem fairly competent at drawing humans; I'm too lazy to find it now, but he did a sketch of Captain America around the same time as this ungodly abomination, and it actually looked pretty good.
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His art style is hilariously realistic. His competent anatomy skills completely and utterly clash with the style he's working against, it's the uncanny valley. This work would be totally apropos of an art house project, like an acid trip.


Worthless Degenerate said:
In addition to the whole 'Guardian who is totally not Knuckles' thing
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To be fair though, the whole guardian thing was always meant to be a mantle, at least in the comics. Before it was Knuckles, it was Locke and so on.
 
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MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
His art style is hilariously realistic. His competent anatomy skills completely and utterly clash with the style he's working against, it's the uncanny valley. This work would be totally apropos of an art house project, like an acid trip.
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This is why Penders is a nice change of pace from most artcows. He can actually draw - just not in the style that he wants to.
 
Zeorus said:
This is why Penders is a nice change of pace from most artcows. He can actually draw - just not in the style that he wants to.
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Imagine his rendition of the Sonic characters in a really high quality, high framerate animation that's played completely straight from start to finish. It would be amazing.
 
MarvinTheParanoidAndroid said:
To be fair though, the whole guardian thing was always meant to be a mantle, at least in the comics. Before it was Knuckles, it was Locke and so on.
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My bad; I was trying to refer specifically to Penders' version of Knuckles, but got "Guardian" mixed up with "Praetorian". I really ought to do my research before spouting crap; sorry.

While finding that, I also rediscovered that he's really going with K'nox as a family name and nickname for Knuckles the Praetorian.
 
Worthless Degenerate said:
My bad; I was trying to refer specifically to Penders' version of Knuckles, but got "Guardian" mixed up with "Praetorian". I really ought to do my research before spouting crap; sorry.

While finding that, I also rediscovered that he's really going with K'nox as a family name and nickname for Knuckles the Praetorian.
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Goddamn, his responses on that first tweet are so bad. He's really, really trying to play it off like that character isn't just Knuckles' design with a goatee.
 
Worthless Degenerate said:
Penders has recently returned from a vacation and is back on Twitter.

View attachment 275748 :optimistic:
Actually, if anyone here would stomach working with the guy, it could be an opportunity to share some insider info. Adamis at Sonic Stadium is working on the app and confirmed that Penders' creation will be alluding to the Genesis Waves. I'd highly recommend reading through the rest of the thread, too; there's some other stuff including a really good takedown of Penders' claims about motivation for the series and Patrick Spaziante. tl;dr Spaz is a huge Sonic fan and imported and translated Sonic Adventure to make sure the comic adaptation would be accurate, while Penders made the adaptation a whole bunch of fucking around with his characters instead. However, note that Sonic Stadium's forum is fucked up and you have to manually refresh after clicking to load the next/previous page, unless you're logged in.

View attachment 275758
You mean like Ian Flynn's post-reboot run?
View attachment 275760

View attachment 275761
Penders on criticism.
zujp5f.jpg

The weirdest thing is that he actually does seem fairly competent at drawing humans; I'm too lazy to find it now, but he did a sketch of Captain America around the same time as this ungodly abomination, and it actually looked pretty good.

Also, I don't believe that this page from the comic has been shared here before.
altteyN.jpg


Finally, the good people over at Sonic Retro have produced various responses to the Sonic sketch and this comic page starting at page 15 of their thread. It's a must-see extravaganza! Why?
NGqiE4C.jpg
Click to expand...


I NO LONGER FEEL SHITTY ABOUT MY ART BECAUSE HOLY CRAP.

I've been a long time reader of the Archie Sonic series and I can honestly say that while I can look back and say I enjoyed Pender's WRITING, he CAN NOT DRAW Sonic well. I've seen his HUMAN work and hey, they looks fine but the man can't do Sonic. He just can not and he over colors EVERYTHING. Take into mind, when I'm talking about the Archie series I'm going WAAAAY back when every issue was handle by a bunch of different artist at once. I remember reading books that were done by Manny, Fry, and Axer and then feeling like I was rushed into a wall when Pender's art showed up because it was just so bad.

So so SO Bad.

So bad that I actually like Jim Valentino's work better than Penders because at least Valentino knew better than to experiment with the badly done photos Penders tried to do with his backgrounds. As someone said it before he knows anatomy and that's a great thing but when he tries to experiment with characters he falls flat. It's like he's great at REALISTIC human drawings but when it comes to cartoon character designs he can't do it and this is bad for a character who is more or less based on Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse. Sonic is supposed to look excited and appealing to the eye, not dead-eyed and bony. ALL of his non-human characters look like that that it's laughable. They really do look like people in creepy looking, stiff fursuits.

EDIT: Upon making the mistake and looking closer at the attached pictures, am I the only one who thinks that the way he colors more or less wipes out any attention to detail he gave to the bodies, making them look wonky as fuck?
 
FoomiOnce said:
I NO LONGER FEEL SHITTY ABOUT MY ART BECAUSE HOLY CRAP.

I've been a long time reader of the Archie Sonic series and I can honestly say that while I can look back and say I enjoyed Pender's WRITING, he CAN NOT DRAW Sonic well. I've seen his HUMAN work and hey, they looks fine but the man can't do Sonic. He just can not and he over colors EVERYTHING. Take into mind, when I'm talking about the Archie series I'm going WAAAAY back when every issue was handle by a bunch of different artist at once. I remember reading books that were done by Manny, Fry, and Axer and then feeling like I was rushed into a wall when Pender's art showed up because it was just so bad.

So so SO Bad.

So bad that I actually like Jim Valentino's work better than Penders because at least Valentino knew better than to experiment with the badly done photos Penders tried to do with his backgrounds. As someone said it before he knows anatomy and that's a great thing but when he tries to experiment with characters he falls flat. It's like he's great at REALISTIC human drawings but when it comes to cartoon character designs he can't do it and this is bad for a character who is more or less based on Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse. Sonic is supposed to look excited and appealing to the eye, not dead-eyed and bony. ALL of his non-human characters look like that that it's laughable. They really do look like people in creepy looking, stiff fursuits.

EDIT: Upon making the mistake and looking closer at the attached pictures, am I the only one who thinks that the way he colors more or less wipes out any attention to detail he gave to the bodies, making them look wonky as fuck?
Click to expand...
Wasn't it a Penders comic that tried explaining the furries as being literal half-human abominations that were made because some aliens got pissed that we couldn't understand them and they nuked the planet with "gene bombs" because that's easier then figuring out communication? It was near the time Sonic Adventure came out that Archie made them "human".
 
RockVolnutt said:
Wasn't it a Penders comic that tried explaining the furries as being literal half-human abominations that were made because some aliens got pissed that we couldn't understand them and they nuked the planet with "gene bombs" because that's easier then figuring out communication? It was near the time Sonic Adventure came out that Archie made them "human".
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If memory serves me correctly he only applied that to how Sonic and his kind existed on Mobious along with humans/Overlanders. It sort of opened up a lot of plotholes once you think about it because humans STILL existed on Sonic's world even if they evacuated after the events of the Great War. So....the gene bomb didn't wipe out humans at all but sort of just brought EVERYONE up to a level of human intelligence ala Dragon Ball (in where we have humans and animals also co-existing while dinosaurs roam the land too) but since humans/Overlanders just left the planet it made Eggman and Snively out to be the last of their kind when they weren't. And THEN there was the human colony that lived in an advanced area with its own fucking ENVIRONMENT that was hidden on the island that Sonic and Tails lived on from the OVA and-

Penders is dedicated to world-building but good lord, make sure your world building make sense!

And speaking of Ken Penders not being able to keep up with his own shit and mistakes in the comic, I remember being like 14 and reading his not-finished Sonic character guide (which he of course drew from poses from Sonic Adventure) and he made a tiny typo in Amy, stating that her eyes were brown when they were colored in green.

How did Penders correct this when a fan asked him about it? Not saying that it was just a mistake and thanking the fan for catching it.

"AMY'S EYES AREN'T BROWN OR GREEN. THEY'RE HAZEL. THEY CAN LOOK LIKE EITHER."

Bitch, just say it was a mistake. You made things overly complicated for a typo. It's almost like a reverse 'SONIC'S EYES ARE BROWN!!11212' in a sense that this shit was just a text mistake and Kenders covered it up so he couldn't be wrong.
 
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The entire thread is autism tbh. As the discussion is literally Ken complaining that Ian Flynn didn't use half of his beloved characters anymore.

Ignoring that the entire Angel Island story for Archie was a total mess because of Penders love for setting up cliffhangers or sudden reveals which he *might* resolve but never bothered unless pushed.

Also no, IDW will never use his characters because they sure as heck don't want to inherit Kens lolsuits. His comic will likely never release anyway as he's constantly reworking the entire thing.
 
RisingPheonix said:
Also no, IDW will never use his characters because they sure as heck don't want to inherit Kens lolsuits. His comic will likely never release anyway as he's constantly reworking the entire thing.
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The funny thing is that while Brianna Wu finally put Revolution 60 out, Penders will continue to drag his heels on his pet project because he knows one of two things:

1) He knows Sega will come down on him hard for copyright infringement, because he can't be assed to change the design of his echidna-knock offs from Sega's stuff. He'd be stubborn enough to fight it, but even with his wife's money (as I believe his wife is the breadwinner of the family), he'd probably end up going bankrupt due to said stubbornness.

2) He knows it would be ripped to shreds by critics and casuals upon arrival, and his ego is way too fragile for him to handle that.

Either way you slice it, once he releases this comic, his ass is going to be fucked harder than a gay pornstar's.
 
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