Hello there. You can call me David.
First of all, I'm not an English speaker, i'm french, so excuse if I make some mistakes. You don't need to trust me, I don't have any proof left I think, maybe try to contact former SEGA France Employee or les Studios Tex
Saw this topic last week-end, and it recalled me so much from my past experiences.
I created this account here to debunk/add my point of view about this. I'm a former PR and Marketing employee from france, I worked with Infogrames and Sega, and finished my carrer as a teacher in an Communication/Animation School in Lyon, France. (I will not release other personnal data)
1996-2000
So let's go to the interesting part. When i was recruited by SEGA France back in the 90's, we were working closely with other teams from the SEGA spin offs, such as DIC/Les Studios Tex. Me and two other employees had some marketing experience with DIC from The Sonic Adventure, "Les Aventures de Sonic" in french with some Spin offs toys and events held in France back in the day.
We had many appointements with Les Studios Tex, notably with D. Sarriet, one of the Directors. The production was a real hell for them from what I remember. Some derived products were supposed to be released after the first season of the show, notably the French Comic based on Sonic Le Rebelle "Sonic Underground in French". It was supposed to follow the plot, but we had some problems with a potential deal made with Archie for the followup in the US, members of the Team got in touch with US PR to learn about it, but nothing was in the works. So we started working on the French Comic.
Some early work was made back in 2000, a team of Artist and Writers from Organic Comic (Don't remember the whole name) created a 6 page demo for SEGA, and redesigns from the show Characters. (At this time I was'nt really involved with it, I was working on the Marketing of Agartha, another Game Published by Sega by Studio No Cliché.)
At this time, we were still using game and comics content for Marketing in France, even the older animations in spin off games. Advertising was quite different in the 90-early 2000
That's when Ken Penders got involved.
Delcourt, a book/comic publisher was making a deal with Sega for the Archie Comics in 2000. From rumors and personal info I know, the whole deal was supposed to bring the Archie Sonic books in France. But, on Sega France side, the whole Organic Comic was already in the works. The whole point is most of the parties tried to find an agreement. The solution found was the Comic would be part Archie and part Organic (Shares etc) and royalties would have been sent to each parties.
The first solution was in the works, and the whole project was supposed to start with the first 20 issues (Not sure, maybe 5 more-5 less) forgotten on the Archie side, and started at issue 20-22, only the most serious ones. With it, the first arc from Organic, and the Knuckles Comics. Each issues would have 3 stories inside, games etc.
But Ken Penders refused the contract (Probably about Royalties, I don't know)
The whole French comic deal sunk, and the derived product studies with it too. We could'nt release Archie Material and Organic had not the agreement to use similar characters. Delcourt stopped the deal, and no one talked about it until 2010. SEGA France had a massive laid-off in 2007, and most of the marketing team left or was fired after the economic restructuration following the "Worst Sega Years"
2008-2012
Then, many years after, at Sega France, we had the Marketing designs team of Dark Brotherhood sent by the Headquarters. It was 2007-2008, we released some to the public after the game's launch. The whole Ken Penders legal Lawsuit came 1 or 2 years after. We in France, were quite independant from the SEGA US/Japan. Along with the Benelux Subsidiaries and German ones, we knew nothing about the whole thing. In 2011, we had a memo from the Headquarters about the new mandates and the need to discard or shelf any earlier work from the Archie artists, the Dark Brotherhood games, the PLV for the events etc.
Most notably "Works made or involving Mr Penders". Yeah, we had some from archie in stock for gaming convention and events. The whole PR Team during the last 10 years went from nearly 30 employees to 10. But we still had many marketing ressources from graphic products toys and comics. We destroyed most of them after we got the memo. We could'nt use Archie Material or DIC material for Sonic Public Image, only game content, game art, etc. Same thing for product advertising.
That's when the second Penders thing came at Sega France, right before we closed the Sega France office.
Remember Delcourt the Comic/Book publisher? We were working with them again. They had a partnership with us and Archie to release the Archie Comics. The project was in the works since 2006. It was supposed to be launched in 2010 in France, as the official Sonic Comic. But the Penders case came, and we had to change the whole project. After rework, only the issued after he left were translated and released.
The French Comic release was a total fiasco. It didn't sold well, the public didn't car about it, and worst of all, we could'nt advertise it in France because of the Penders case. The Mandate from Sega said we could'nt use any Archie or any Archie involved material. It didn't last long.
We closed the SEGA France Office in 2012, but in fact we did'nt did anything since 2011. Their was maybe... 20-30 employees left. Most of the last 5 years were laids off, cancelled events, partnership etc. The whole point of the story is... I don't know this guy, but even in France some people lost their jobs and their projects because of him.
Believe me or not, that's what I wanted to say.
