Ken’s art style really hits that unintentionally disturbing point of the uncanny valley. You can still see some traces of the Sonic style in the eyes and hair, but other details like the realistic teeth and the more human-sized proportions just throw the designs completely off. Though part of me wonders if the Sonic.exe mods would be more effectively scary if they went with this look. 😅
@@Cure_HanaThose crappy exe games would definitely not be such a joke if they actually used those hideous designs. Now that's how you make something terrifying to more than just 6 year olds.
I think it’s the detailed mouths and the really indecisive method of character design. Like it’s neither human nor animal yet it’s both at the same time. The eyes are huge and the shading just draws attention to how ill fit the mouths and eyes are on the characters. Like that can work if done on purpose for something intended to horrify.
The reprints having characters still owned by Sega showing up with unaltered designs and names has me a little confused about what Ken is and isn't allowed to do.
i think reprinted work is held under different rules especially for works that might have been orphaned by their publisher (Archie). Im no expert though. It's also possible Sega just would rather not deal with him than pursue legal action, especially for something as trivial as old reprints.
he could definitely do a scott cawthon and take advantage of his art's uncanniness in this way. turn the lara-su chronicles into a psychological horror.
@@dummyyogurt5375 You talking about turning this into a horror comic has just got me wondering what kind of fanfiction people might write about this thing...there's literally Sonichu fanfiction out there. If people make fanfiction of that, surely people will make fanfiction of this too.
@@Nodeathnolife I literally have no clue what you're talking about. I wasn't justifying any harassment, all I was saying was that even a different infamous comic made by an arguably even more infamous creator has fanfiction, so this one has a chance of getting some too. I think you replied to the wrong comment, my guy.
i really hate to say it, and ive never admitted it. but i feel like i have to. i had always seen ken penders pictures with a mustache. ever since i saw him without it, i realized that he draws his own mouth as reference in ALL of his artwork. now you too, cant unsee it. youre welcome
Every time I feel bad about my own art, I'm reminded that both Ken Penders and Rob Leifeld both have decades-spanning careers in comics and suddenly that one hand looking weird on a random page of my comic doesn't seem to matter much any more.
@@ShinGallon I mean when you look back at the art that made them famous it's clearly much better than their current work even if it's still an acquired taste.
Fun fact, which is mentioned elsewhere in the comments, Scourge is NOT in fact owned by Ken. He is one of the characters Sega is legally unable to use but he's in a strange grey area that even ken cant really do anything with. he can USE him but he cant claim ownership of him. Same with his understudy and Mammoth Mogul. Figured i'd say this so people know they CAN use these characters for the funnies and completely avoid problems with the law!
Mogul is owned (or at least was created) by Scott Fulop. He tried to do what Ken did _(even making a mockup of a shop with merchendise for his character),_ to little success. Scourge is weird. He's a derivative of Sonic (who's owned by Sega, obviously), debuted in a story written by Ken Penders & Mike Kanterovich, while his green redesign was: - designed by Patrick Spaziante - written into the story by Ian Flynn - ordered to be redesigned by Mike Pellerito (the editor).
My fella accidentally used the DeviantArt afoptables policy. Not wtv legal crap they have now... I meam thag spoken agreements the user got beetwen themsleves wherere the equivalent of a legal action was spmaming your account and shit talking about ou around the site.
The art is like those horrifying “hyperrealistic” freeze frames in spongebob, except here instead of a quick two-second joke image it’s the entire damn thing
I think there was more factors as to why the Archie series ended. He might’ve been responsible for it, but I think Sega wanted a reset of the universe so sonic would have the same personality as he does in the games.
Yes and no, Sega was fine with the comic as it was due to being a sure-fire money maker, and even they knew forcing a rapid change to a twenty-plus-year old book would be damaging. However Archie Comic's incompetance when Ken came with his lawsuit, made them throw their weight as it is their IP to protect, and the reboot was the best course to salvage the book and not pay Ken his demanded royalty fees. While I hold Ken, Archie and Sega for the book's doom, I hold Ken and Archie more in contempt, while with Sega I have some understanding of where they stood and why they ultimately pushed for their specific 'how the characters act' mandates, as much as some of it grinds my gears.
Hi my name is Tom I’m a part time freelance artist. I was the production artist on this book. I was the technical and creative side of this project. In short I was responsible making sure the book is put together, art quality was met to professional standards, pages themselves look best they can be. ensure print quality standards are met, and will often collect, process and organize files. I had to go and make sure the 25 years later, The Strom and shattered dimensions were all up to print standards and be ready for the printers. I wasn’t aware of the 25 year later stuff was altered from what I as in not fitting the page for part from that everything looks the same. When I assembled the book and started with the 25 year later stuff I had to upscale it to make sure it met printing standards and looking good while upscaling the art to 300 DPI. I had to go in and touch up the art in some places not much but a little bit so it looked good on paper, so I did a bit of graphic designing on the side as well, for this project. This came up in my recommendations and thought I give this a watch. I do have one discrepancy with the book I wasn’t made aware that the 25 year later stuff was changed. With its sizing, so it be the bars there that wasn’t in my original edits of the books I worked on and I made sure it filled the page fully. The edits to the original pages at the end I was aware of, it was primary done to flow into the new content pretended in this book. All the new content in the book was already made at 600 DPI so my job make sure page order was correct and The pages himself met quantity Control and ready to print quantity (same as the 25 years Later stuff). I have to say, I really enjoyed your video and found it funny and informative. If you have any questions, you wanna know about this book and the future book which I am working on for Ken please don’t hesitate to ask.
I love all these comments praying for this guy or whatever. 😁 May your dreams be unhaunted with tall Echidnas and bug-eyed skunks from working on this comic all day.
I was curious about that as well. I wonder if he's made some sort of deal if he also plans to get the rest reprinted. I'd be surprised, but I suppose it's possible.
Sonic character examples are: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Dr. Eggman, Big the Cat, Cream, Vanilla, Team Chaotix. Ken Penders’ characters? Apparently all the original ones in The Dark Brotherhood. It’s the reason that game is so notorious now.
The no-linework, shading with...black? The burn tool? Is exactly the style that I had at 15 years old. In 2009. When I, for the first time ever, did digital art in photoshop with a mouse. But at least I had the sense not to define the character's individual teeth and mouth wrinkles! Eugh! It's so uncanny to combine these overly detailed human mouths onto an anthropomorphic design with giant, stylised eyes! Why did he do it that way? Was he too angry at Archie and decided his style needed to be as different as possible? It's certainly not easier than sticking to linework and just colouring + cel shading! And the random PS2 island asset edit into that one panel?? What!?? Why!???
This is so true 😭 I’m an artist and my number one rule is to not airbrush shade and this is exactly why… I’m 14 and I can confidently say I can probably do better than this shading wise
I honestly wonder if he is intentionally leaning into it like it's some... avant garde art style or something. I mean, he's got to be happy enough with the way it looks or... why would you print it?? Why would you have that very frame of the cute round little Mobian characters suddenly turning... weird, lumpy and triangular in an alternate timeline?
I admire his dedication to getting this out there, as terrible as it is. What's really a shame is Ken actually used to be a decent artist, not great but not outwardly bad. He refused to grow as an artist or stay in practice and his art suffered horribly for it. He also failed to nail a visually pleasing style for any of the characters, which if he had tried a little harder, would've lessened some of the backlash to this.
Yeah. He used to work on Star Trek comics, where I think he was decent. Even his "The Lost Ones" comic - which he supposedly illustrated himself - didn't look half bad. But now he doesn't even draw humans well.
I dunno how you can advance backwards in art. The only thing I can tell is that he's using a lot more digital modification tools in his work that gives everything a less than organic feel. It's almost like a human (you'd like to think) is replicating AI art with it's uncanny weirdness. The overall vibe is that he discovered basic Photoshop filters and modifiers and thought "that's going to be my artstyle now"
@@BlaizeTheDragon You stop practicing outside your interests and get complacent doing only what's comfy to you, that is how. Funnily he's basically making the same mistakes 2010 deviantartlets used to do when upgrading from MSPaint to literally any program with 1998-clipart-worthy special effects.
He's good at drawing humans, but he's not good at stylization, which is a skill in and of itself. learning how to simplify a character design or person in a way that is appealing and easy to replicate is an underrated skill, one that penders clearly hasn't worked very much on.
It's been going around Ken was less of an artist on those comics and more of an inker and touch-up artist. So if that was what he did during the majority of his work, and didn't improve his own art, then, there you go, artistic talent going backwards.
@@LillLizzert She was and SEGA actually wanted to use her future games, but nooo, Ken had to put his hands on her because of "copyright infringement". Despite the similarities, the concept of an evil organization from a supposed "dead" race has been used over the years. General Zod and his followers for example.
@@alanemocab3465 Honestly I agree, Sega should just start using Shade then. Even if Penders cries about it it's not enforceable. You can't copyright concepts. You can only own characters. And Shade isn't his.
you could include the one person who bought ten copies as some form of revenge against Ian Flynn, only to then get upset and complain that there’s a transgender character in the book, so they might have gone through with returning it? knowing the person, they are truly Unhinged on a whole other level, so idk lmao
Also allow me to explain what a chronon is through written illustration: It takes, get ready for this, *180 TRILLION^2 (squared)* chronons for me to write this comment (yes I tried my best on the math) 6 chronons isn't even enough time for the photons making up Lara Su's physical image to enter Commander Taelor's eyeballs, and that's something that happens literally at the speed of light.
Actually I'm sorry I realized I screwed up the math after posting that. It *should* be *180 TRILLION TO THE POWER OF 10 TRILLION* (that's an even shorter amount of time) My statement of 6 chronons not being enough time for light coming from a monitor about 40 centimeters away (1 foot 4 inches) to enter Commander Taelor's eyeballs remains correct, however
So basically, a chronon is a ridiculously miniscule amount of time, and Kenny Pendy made up a different time unit using the same name as a real time unit.
@@jonathangoodwin5609 So in other words, it's a completely meaningless word that fails at its sole purpose of telling us how much time has passed since the events Taelor is watching. Wonderful.
Using the Lèvi definition of a chronon (which is the one defined on the screen- there are several) it would take about 47,850,208,044,382,582,433,090 chronons to blink your eyes.
penders vs. sega was the legal equivalent of somebody flaunting they won an internet argument just bc the other side blocked them due to how annoying they were being lmao.
It will never fail to make me laugh over the fact that Ken LOST the Sega case, because he took too long. Its more like an argument where someone shows up 6 months late, and nobody cares by then
I think that’s supposed to be 10^-24 seconds. A chronon is the hypothetical smallest possible unit of time (under the assumption that time isn’t continuous and thus *can* have a smallest unit)
@@rheawelsh4142 Even if he did make up the word, it's stupid and pointless to invent a unit of time that the reader has no way of understanding. We the reader have no way of knowing whether "6 Chronons in the future" means "just enough time to have lunch" or "long enough for multiple civilisation to rise, fall, and crumble to dust". Thus, it's a worthless sentence.
Let this sink in, Ken tried to claim that he owned Knuckles. He tried to steal a heavily established character who has existed since the third Sonic game from SEGA. This was during the infamous lawsuit he made against Archie, and thank god, SEGA stepped in and put a stop to that asshole trying to claim "Everything Echidna" was his.
Ken is crazy for thinking he could even try to say he made him. That's like me saying I own Master Chief because I helped with some art. (This is a hypothetical situation, I wish I could work on Halo)
I'm pissed he's why we can't use Scourge the Hedgehog. Apparently he owns Evil Sonic but not Scourge, but sega doesn't feel like going to court over it
As far as I know, Penders never claimed he owned or created Knuckles. However, he has claimed that his stories with Knuckles are the main contributing factor behind the character's popularity, which you argue either for or against. They were undoubtedly popular enough to get their own spinoff series that ran almost three years... but that series wasn't written particularly well at all, and gradually dropped off in sales as readers started to realize it. Like all of Penders' stories, it just sort of strung readers along for months and months, promising that something BIG was coming someday, but never getting there. Every story he writes is basically just an advertisement for the next issue.
8:04 "Six chronons into the future" "A chronon is approximately 10-24 seconds" So... somewhere between a minute and two and a half minutes? That's... not very far in the future.
So wait, Sonic characters he explicitly doesn't own, like Espio and Sonic himself, are just straight-up in the book with no alterations made? Not even just changing what they're called?
Apparently UA-cam doesn't like certain things being typed so I'll reword it ,how does pal comix make more money than a guy who inked a few sonic comics lol
She's also autistic (confirmed by Ken) and mostly naked because, uhh, I guess her clothes don't turn invisible with her or something. Even though it was no issue for Espio. And probably because Ken likes... girls of her age.
It's incredible how much of the collaborative work of the Archie comics he wants to believe belongs to him, including characters he literally never made or owned.
Ken Penders is a cautionary tale for artists that proprtion and perspective practice is VERY IMPORTANT. not to mention watching someone's art style go from respectably good to "what the fuck did I just see?" territory.
For someone whose been working in the industry for decades, his art looks like something you draw when you first picked up a copy of "how to draw manga by katy coope"
Actually he own Anti Sonic, but not the Scourge form, nor Sonic. Which means he LITERALLY can't use him, for anything, and he tried, but because he didn't own the green version of AntiSonic, Archie was able to stop him from publishing it.
I mean he did try to make a Scourge comic but it was thankfully shut down once we found out the lead artist was a well known neo n**i, then he tried to guilt us like the peeps who worked on the crappy live action Cowboy Bebop remakes
Gotta love that most designs just turns into humans with a animal head put ontop. The REAL LIFE backgrounds and odd art inconsistencies are just... *chef's kiss*. Oh and if he changed parts of the actual comic into.. well, default realistic floating island and derp wide stretch sonic, i have very little faith that he WON'T make more "improvements".
Ken Penders was always a garbage writer. This is just more proof that Ken Penders should have never been a writer or got involved with the Sonic Series.
Tbh I think if penders redesigned his characters to be a little to do with sonic as possible (eg. kept their story but different names and their designs are more alien than animal-human hybrids) this wouldn't be that bad as an original work. The human faces on the animals looks creepy yes, but for a sci-fi world of aliens that would likely look human-like but slightly off would work wonders for it. It's interesting that he wants to not be connected to archie sonic, yet (what I think) is holding him back is that he chooses to keep to that sonic world and story; which is both ironic and concerning. Especially since the echidna's could easily be just recoloured blue and it could be seen as an entirely different race. I will say at least he's trying to get his original work out there. It definitely needs more alterations but if it's something he's passionate for, it's great! But this is me looking at this positively.
If he just let go of the past and work on his strengths in his art and create something original with it. Then maybe he would be more successful. But the problem this Sonic OC crap he's doing. All of the Sonic stuff he made for Archie....it's in the past....it's just nothing more than a distant part of the past of a franchise he does not own in the slightest. And trying to hold onto these forgotten relics from something he does not own and make money off of them is just not gonna work for him in the end. I honestly think that the best thing to do is to just let go of what you made in the past. ESPECIALLY when it's derivative of someone else's work. Oh believe me! I know it's hard to let go of something you spent so much time cooking up in your head and planning. But it's better if he just finally puts all of this echidna nonsense to rest, and move on from it to something actually new and creative. I mean you can still reuse some general concepts from the past and rework them to create something new. That's what TONS of Sonic fans have done over the years. Take something they clearly have a passion for and make it something new while still being related to it in heart and spirit. That's what Ken should do. If he truly loves this peice of fiction, then he would let it go and perhaps make something inspired by it, perhaps it would be even better than what he did in the past. Because he can't ride this dead, rotted away part of the franchise forever. Someday maybe he'll see that he's wasting more time latching and holding on this distant peice of the past, rather than creating something new and fresh for the world to see. Because that's what art is all about... to create... not to make profit on forever.
yeah if he sued archie, won, didn't make a huge fuss about it, then just made his own media with the characters he won and didn't just steal stories out of Archie, I'd have far more respect for the guy.
Ken's stories in the Archie Sonic comics were a form of therapy for him to help him deal with certain personal issues. That's why his work on the Archie Sonic comics means so much to him.
"The loss of her father is Lara-su's Kobiyoshi Maru test" It's _Kobayashi_ Maru. You'd think he'd double check that. I know he worked on Star Trek comics at some point. The Kobayashi Maru, for the uninitiated, is a test adminstered to Starfleet cadets (in Star Trek) which is designed to be unwinnable. They're assessed on their reactions to a scenario under pressure. Not having read this comic, I don't know how apt the comparison is, but it kind of sounds like he brought it up to show off nerd cred and then slipped by spelling it wrong.
Sonichu is so bad it almost feels like it’s on purpose if you know nothing about Chris Chan which gives it a fun quality ro it . Ken penders art gives me a headache
Yeah.. I heard about the Ken Penders comic and when I saw the art style... I really wish he would have just redrawn them as humans and gotten a different style to draw them in. Why did he think that, that art style was good?
I feel like it's a consequence of it being a solo venture, not so much that he thinks it's great. Previously, he was working with a team of people who would ink and colour his art, or would sometimes be creating the art without his participation. This looks to me like the consequence of someone who had a fairly inconsistent hand when drawing with pencil and paper, but had done some interesting mixed media work before landing the Sonic gig, being presented with a fully digital workflow where he's solely responsible for every step of the process. Before, he had people who could clean up the line work or re-do certain poses and expressions to improve the legibility of the panels, as well as fully doing the colouring themselves. The result is that he's not as capable as the other members of the team at those jobs and the art style reflects that. I don't think he's a worse artist than he was, he's just using tools he's not as experienced with and that results in things looking a bit off. You're comparing work he did as part of a team where everyone involved had defined specialisations to a solo effort and I don't think that most people would be producing the same quality of work under those circumstances. I feel like a younger artist who grew up using digital might have an easier time adapting to this workflow, but the guy used to literally write the script and drew the panels onto sheets of paper before sending them off to be inked, lettered and coloured by other people by hand. It's very different from using a tablet and stylus to do it on a computer. I think that the guy's just old and isn't having an easy time with the technology.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 Ah, okay. That makes sense. I didn't think about that and with that being said, I'm guessing he doesn't have the funds to get his own team. It's really a shame because Ken had a lot of characters I really enjoyed in the Sonic comics such as Dr Fintevus, Enerjak, Lien-Da, Feist, Mammoth Mongul and the 4 Bride Houses. My biggest problem with Ken was that he never truly utilized his characters. Ian Flynn took Enerjak (Knuckles) and Dark Enerjak, for example, and made him far more threatening than Ken's stories with Enerjak (Dimetri) and even made better use of Lara Su.
@@Mangaka-Knight In terms of most comics, it normally takes someone else to bring out a character. Deadpool and Cable would be horribly bad characters if Rob Liefeld only used them. But just like Ken, he takes the "creator" card when his contributions only amassed to his writer noting how unoriginal Deadpool's design was.
Okay, small thing, but at 4:19 when you show the Angel Island, and then later how it originally looked, I think I know why it's like that. That's because that stupid ass low poly PS2-era island model is from Ken's own damn studio logo. I think it was in his original movie pitch.
The definition most likely means 10^ -24 (10 to the power of -24) seconds. A chronon is the theoretical smallest possible unit of time. A lot changed in just over 0 seconds.
You'd think with all money he got from the lawsuit, he'd be able to pay an artist with actual artistic talent as opposed to making the equivalent of a sleep paralysis demon trapped in a melting children's painting.
I'm guessing Ken's apparent style deterioration is due to technology. Back then, he would've used inks and pencils to draw the charactets, which generally worked with the style of the comic, but now he's probably experimenting with digital art, which has way more tools on offer. Maybe the uncanny style is an attempt at pursuing something more realistic while maintaining the toony style? It doesn't exactly come across well...
I also feel that he's drawing with a mouse and somehow isn't aware of the existence of tablets? You can easily make a brush in any contemporary art program that convincingly mimics the feel of a pencil.
@sonicwave779 Maybe he's sketching, scanning, and then colouring and shading with a mouse? That'd explain the weirdest part of the drawings. I still think this looks like an evolution of his Archie Sonic style, it's just the attempt at a "more realistic" style on top of that that holds it back.
Every time i think my art is bad, i look at his, and then i look at my old stuff, and then i look at my new stuff, and i'm like 'Wait these actually look decent wtf was i on two seconds ago.' His art is like a mental palette cleanser in a weird fucked up way
OMG OMG OMG this exists. Like, this REALLY happened and wasn't just an edit from UA-cam. This is a real comic. Somebody actually spent their money somebody actually PRINTED this and published it. I thought it was just one of those "eternal kickstarters"
1:09 quick correction He did not create scourge, he created... evil sonic, aka what scourge was before. The entire change into scourge was to make him legaly distinct from evil sonic :p
I’m developing a graphic novel myself with my character that was once a Sonic OC, and the fact that Ken could’ve designed Lara-Su and everyone else a hundred different ways yet chose the most horrific mishmash of cartoony and realistic is absolutely astounding to me.
I never read a single issue of Sonic Archie comics in my entire life and I can’t stand Ken Penders I feel for you die hard fans of the sonic Archie comics you guys didn’t deserve this.
@@viruschris3160 the guy is a massive hypocrite. the only "additions" are that archie is in the wrong too. That's literally it. Ken is in the wrong for everything else he did and tries to shield it behind "well they screwed me over!!!! so I can do whatever I want!!!!!!!!!!!!" fuck ken.
"I never read a single issue of Sonic Archie comics in my entire life and I can’t stand Ken Penders I feel for you die hard fans of the sonic Archie comics you guys didn’t deserve this." Thanks for the kind words. I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but as someone who grew up collecting the Archie Sonic comics and the Archie Knuckles comics as a kid back in the 90s, I love Ken's characters (especially Julie-Su) and I love Ken's stories. What I don't love about Ken, however, is him tearing down everything he worked so hard to build out of pettiness. I used to pair Knuckles with Julie-Su as a kid and I still do (sometimes). Fuck Ken for damaging the entire Sonic franchise because of his planet-sized ego, the Sonic franchise still hasn't completely recovered yet to this day. I hope Sega sues the shit of him and wins this time for a change.
Something I noticed is that he appears to place his airbrush (?) character drawings atop actual photographs of places; I.e that beach Lara-Su was at. If they are real photos, I wouldn’t have a clue if they’re Ken’s own pictures or just stock ones but either way, it’s … an interesting choice to put it nicely.
On Twitter I ran into someone who helped Penders get the Archie comics images in high definition. If it weren't for this, the pages would look like photocopies. That person received a thank you in the book and apparently a payment of $100 through Paypal. I guess he did it because he loves these stories. As for Penders, I think he is someone very mediocre, he had more than 10 years to improve as an artist and writer to deliver something of better quality in this comic.
This looks like a fanfic canon of the classic Sonic stuff. Im sure he spent a lot of work on this, but I think I'll stick with the official Sega works. My question is why do all these Sonic inspired characters when he could have made his own story and characters with a series running this long?
I think because he's sore that he can't continue where he left off. I mean he made it sound like he was going to make it like that originally but over time he kept adding back the Sonic connections.
Not going to lie, I was devastated when they canceled that Scourge comic (I wanted to see what they would do with the character). And instead of that, this comes out, dang😓
"Welcome to the Lara-Su chronicles. After 10 Years of development, hopefully it would have been worth the wait. Thanks and have fun" - Ken Penders… probably?
"Thank you for the money and free advertisement. What you think of my book doesn't matter to me. I have already profitted from you." - Ken Penders, iirc
@@Nathan-rb3qp The SNES emulation developer that took his own life due to being a victim of the site in question and so many other things that he got through that has led to his decline in mental health
@@knuclear200x Still better than Ken Penders. Even the worst deviantart projects are masterpieces compared to any of Ken Penders garbage writing & art.
It's cute seeing kids get into art. this might not be the best but I believe in a few years this (what I assume 8 year old), with enough practice, will go places
I truly love Geoffrey. He has been a great character in the series of secret agents, and has become one of my favorites. It saddens me to see how Penders is treating him.
This should be straight up illegal. He lost both Cort cases (lost one and was settled out of Cort but his comics was reprinted after the Cort case) his patients avidly didn't go though and multiple artists wanted ken to at least take their name away from this. Nothing here is correct and it only is happening because of SEGA's ignorant Also the people you say have explained it to you before... they don't know what they are talking about. The only things ken owns is some drawings he made and even that's speculative.
@ORLY911 that is a pubically known peice of misinformation because one of the first articles about the situation said that and everyone just believed it, but if you look at the actual documents, it shows that he lost one Cort case and the other was settled out of cort... but as I said, stuff was reprinted by archie after so it obviously implied he lost.
@@BlaizeTheDragon which is wild in of itself. I mean the fact that he basically tried to copyright the echidna race felt unbelievable when i first heard it. Then I heard he was boasting about wanting to sue Paramount(!) for giving Knuckles a dad (!?).
Would be nice if all of the issues of Archie Sonic were digitally restored and given new reprints, but this however... OH MY Gosh! The artwork on the cover and for the newer stories in the book look absolutely horrifying! 😱
The weird airbrush effects on the characters gives me big 2000s edgy Deviantart vibes
That’s an insult to 2000’s Deviantart artists, they had an excuse at least, lol.
True
Also the "horny while ashamed of being horny" art style
This is too cursed
Wacom sheep artists.
His art disturbs me in ways that I cannot describe
Ken’s art style really hits that unintentionally disturbing point of the uncanny valley. You can still see some traces of the Sonic style in the eyes and hair, but other details like the realistic teeth and the more human-sized proportions just throw the designs completely off. Though part of me wonders if the Sonic.exe mods would be more effectively scary if they went with this look. 😅
@@Cure_HanaThose crappy exe games would definitely not be such a joke if they actually used those hideous designs. Now that's how you make something terrifying to more than just 6 year olds.
I think it’s the detailed mouths and the really indecisive method of character design. Like it’s neither human nor animal yet it’s both at the same time. The eyes are huge and the shading just draws attention to how ill fit the mouths and eyes are on the characters. Like that can work if done on purpose for something intended to horrify.
My eyes burn everytime I see it.
His art compels me to call my therapist
The reprints having characters still owned by Sega showing up with unaltered designs and names has me a little confused about what Ken is and isn't allowed to do.
i think reprinted work is held under different rules especially for works that might have been orphaned by their publisher (Archie). Im no expert though. It's also possible Sega just would rather not deal with him than pursue legal action, especially for something as trivial as old reprints.
That sounds like Copywrite Infringement.
@@ORLY911part of me wants sega to make a thinly veiled jab at this comic., just to see penders reaction.
@@leviticusprime4904they didn’t, but Paramount did by making Knuckles dad look like Penders during a fantasy sequence in the Knuckles series
Ken is also confused about what he is and isn't allowed to do.
Ken penders would be unironically goated at drawing horror comics, like his artstyle genuinely disturbs me and I read junji ito.
he could definitely do a scott cawthon and take advantage of his art's uncanniness in this way. turn the lara-su chronicles into a psychological horror.
@@dummyyogurt5375 You talking about turning this into a horror comic has just got me wondering what kind of fanfiction people might write about this thing...there's literally Sonichu fanfiction out there. If people make fanfiction of that, surely people will make fanfiction of this too.
@@Tail_sez Then tell me how you would defend Jousha Moon and Kiwifarms after the update on the Byuu incident
@@Nodeathnolife I literally have no clue what you're talking about. I wasn't justifying any harassment, all I was saying was that even a different infamous comic made by an arguably even more infamous creator has fanfiction, so this one has a chance of getting some too. I think you replied to the wrong comment, my guy.
@@NodeathnolifeWho the hell is Joshua Moon
i really hate to say it, and ive never admitted it. but i feel like i have to.
i had always seen ken penders pictures with a mustache.
ever since i saw him without it, i realized that he draws his own mouth as reference in ALL of his artwork.
now you too, cant unsee it. youre welcome
Well, no friggin’ wonder it looks off.
Oh my fucking god
I hate you for this
NO NO NO NO NO
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
It genuinely shock me that Ken despite working in the industry and having decades of experience his writing and art have gotten worse, like wow
He's basically Chris Chan is sega actually hired him
I think maybe it was due to Archie having other people do the inking and coloring.
I guess when you become a hated public figure, you just assume any and all negative feedback is because ppl don’t like you
@@mredbadgerso the Andrew dodosn approach.
@@therealmrarchivehow do we know they arnt the same person, they’ve never been in the same room together after all.
Even the 2019 Movie Sonic prototype didn't look as ugly as this comic.
That’s more insulting to old Sonic Movie Sonic
@@onemariobro yeah atleast ugly movie sonic is has charm
And Ugly Sonic redeemed himself in the Chip & Dale movie
@@mrcritical6751and that design was altered to be even uglier and still looks better than ken penders comic
Agreed
Every time I feel bad about my own art, I'm reminded that both Ken Penders and Rob Leifeld both have decades-spanning careers in comics and suddenly that one hand looking weird on a random page of my comic doesn't seem to matter much any more.
@@ShinGallon I mean when you look back at the art that made them famous it's clearly much better than their current work even if it's still an acquired taste.
Leifeld improved hugely though, so he isn't anywhere near as bad as Ken
@@gregormcscrungus9727 Leifeld's new stuff looks exactly like his old stuff to me, I can't see any improvement.
@@ShinGallon I do. He's got way better proportions and shading
@@gregormcscrungus9727 If you say so
Fun fact, which is mentioned elsewhere in the comments, Scourge is NOT in fact owned by Ken. He is one of the characters Sega is legally unable to use but he's in a strange grey area that even ken cant really do anything with. he can USE him but he cant claim ownership of him. Same with his understudy and Mammoth Mogul. Figured i'd say this so people know they CAN use these characters for the funnies and completely avoid problems with the law!
Mogul is owned (or at least was created) by Scott Fulop. He tried to do what Ken did _(even making a mockup of a shop with merchendise for his character),_ to little success.
Scourge is weird. He's a derivative of Sonic (who's owned by Sega, obviously), debuted in a story written by Ken Penders & Mike Kanterovich, while his green redesign was:
- designed by Patrick Spaziante
- written into the story by Ian Flynn
- ordered to be redesigned by Mike Pellerito (the editor).
So I have as much legal ability to use him as Ken does. Interesting
@@robertlupa8273dude thought he was gonna make a Mammoth Mogul Movie
My fella accidentally used the DeviantArt afoptables policy.
Not wtv legal crap they have now... I meam thag spoken agreements the user got beetwen themsleves wherere the equivalent of a legal action was spmaming your account and shit talking about ou around the site.
"YOU!! BACK TO THE PENDERS ZONE!!"
The art is like those horrifying “hyperrealistic” freeze frames in spongebob, except here instead of a quick two-second joke image it’s the entire damn thing
Alternate title: "I bought Penders' new book so you don't have to"
Nice Reference to AlphaRed
Alternate title: "I bought Penders"
@@Hydro_SparksI read it in Nostalgia Critics voice
I don't think I had to, thank hell.
Stop
He destroyed Sonic Archie comics for this!?
My thoughts exactly.
His ego has no bounds.
I think there was more factors as to why the Archie series ended. He might’ve been responsible for it, but I think Sega wanted a reset of the universe so sonic would have the same personality as he does in the games.
That and petty jealousy towards Ian Flynn.
Yes and no, Sega was fine with the comic as it was due to being a sure-fire money maker, and even they knew forcing a rapid change to a twenty-plus-year old book would be damaging. However Archie Comic's incompetance when Ken came with his lawsuit, made them throw their weight as it is their IP to protect, and the reboot was the best course to salvage the book and not pay Ken his demanded royalty fees.
While I hold Ken, Archie and Sega for the book's doom, I hold Ken and Archie more in contempt, while with Sega I have some understanding of where they stood and why they ultimately pushed for their specific 'how the characters act' mandates, as much as some of it grinds my gears.
The _pained smile_ that “thanks, Ken!” was spoken through.
I could _feel_ that.
Its like 80s airbrushed carnival art of celebrities collaborated with rock and rule and took advice from every version of the cats musical
Yeah I'm definitely getting Rock And Rule vibes, where everyone have rotoscoped human faces with snouts. It's unsettling.
Hi my name is Tom I’m a part time freelance artist. I was the production artist on this book. I was the technical and creative side of this project. In short I was responsible making sure the book is put together, art quality was met to professional standards, pages themselves look best they can be. ensure print quality standards are met, and will often collect, process and organize files. I had to go and make sure the 25 years later, The Strom and shattered dimensions were all up to print standards and be ready for the printers. I wasn’t aware of the 25 year later stuff was altered from what I as in not fitting the page for part from that everything looks the same. When I assembled the book and started with the 25 year later stuff I had to upscale it to make sure it met printing standards and looking good while upscaling the art to 300 DPI. I had to go in and touch up the art in some places not much but a little bit so it looked good on paper, so I did a bit of graphic designing on the side as well, for this project.
This came up in my recommendations and thought I give this a watch. I do have one discrepancy with the book I wasn’t made aware that the 25 year later stuff was changed. With its sizing, so it be the bars there that wasn’t in my original edits of the books I worked on and I made sure it filled the page fully. The edits to the original pages at the end I was aware of, it was primary done to flow into the new content pretended in this book.
All the new content in the book was already made at 600 DPI so my job make sure page order was correct and The pages himself met quantity Control and ready to print quantity (same as the 25 years Later stuff).
I have to say, I really enjoyed your video and found it funny and informative. If you have any questions, you wanna know about this book and the future book which I am working on for Ken please don’t hesitate to ask.
God help you.
Bless your soul, dude.
I love all these comments praying for this guy or whatever. 😁 May your dreams be unhaunted with tall Echidnas and bug-eyed skunks from working on this comic all day.
Bless you
God bless you
i don't think i've seen art regression this bad
Can’t he be sued for actual using Sonic characters? He only has ownership of the characters he made, not actual SEGA characters right?
I mean, yeah, but his mind says otherwise
I was curious about that as well. I wonder if he's made some sort of deal if he also plans to get the rest reprinted. I'd be surprised, but I suppose it's possible.
Yeah he could be, i wonder if someone decided to go bring this to the heads unless he's sending sega royalties for it
Sonic character examples are: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Dr. Eggman, Big the Cat, Cream, Vanilla, Team Chaotix.
Ken Penders’ characters?
Apparently all the original ones in The Dark Brotherhood. It’s the reason that game is so notorious now.
He owns the work he did so he can reprint his work on sonic
The no-linework, shading with...black? The burn tool? Is exactly the style that I had at 15 years old. In 2009. When I, for the first time ever, did digital art in photoshop with a mouse.
But at least I had the sense not to define the character's individual teeth and mouth wrinkles! Eugh! It's so uncanny to combine these overly detailed human mouths onto an anthropomorphic design with giant, stylised eyes! Why did he do it that way? Was he too angry at Archie and decided his style needed to be as different as possible? It's certainly not easier than sticking to linework and just colouring + cel shading! And the random PS2 island asset edit into that one panel?? What!?? Why!???
This is so true 😭 I’m an artist and my number one rule is to not airbrush shade and this is exactly why… I’m 14 and I can confidently say I can probably do better than this shading wise
I honestly wonder if he is intentionally leaning into it like it's some... avant garde art style or something. I mean, he's got to be happy enough with the way it looks or... why would you print it?? Why would you have that very frame of the cute round little Mobian characters suddenly turning... weird, lumpy and triangular in an alternate timeline?
I admire his dedication to getting this out there, as terrible as it is. What's really a shame is Ken actually used to be a decent artist, not great but not outwardly bad. He refused to grow as an artist or stay in practice and his art suffered horribly for it. He also failed to nail a visually pleasing style for any of the characters, which if he had tried a little harder, would've lessened some of the backlash to this.
Yeah. He used to work on Star Trek comics, where I think he was decent. Even his "The Lost Ones" comic - which he supposedly illustrated himself - didn't look half bad. But now he doesn't even draw humans well.
I dunno how you can advance backwards in art. The only thing I can tell is that he's using a lot more digital modification tools in his work that gives everything a less than organic feel. It's almost like a human (you'd like to think) is replicating AI art with it's uncanny weirdness.
The overall vibe is that he discovered basic Photoshop filters and modifiers and thought "that's going to be my artstyle now"
@@BlaizeTheDragon You stop practicing outside your interests and get complacent doing only what's comfy to you, that is how.
Funnily he's basically making the same mistakes 2010 deviantartlets used to do when upgrading from MSPaint to literally any program with 1998-clipart-worthy special effects.
He's good at drawing humans, but he's not good at stylization, which is a skill in and of itself.
learning how to simplify a character design or person in a way that is appealing and easy to replicate is an underrated skill, one that penders clearly hasn't worked very much on.
It's been going around Ken was less of an artist on those comics and more of an inker and touch-up artist. So if that was what he did during the majority of his work, and didn't improve his own art, then, there you go, artistic talent going backwards.
We need SEGA to bring back Shade and her clan just to pissed Ken off.😂 Also to establish that no matter what he does, he doesn't own her.
Wasn't Shade created for the game first anyway?
Although the Sonic Chronicles game is dead cuz Bioware was bought by EA
Sega made shade, They had every right to do what they ever want with the next sonic games.Beside Shade not really his and she not Julie-su.
@@SugarMama98-qb2td My point exactly. He can have his Archie characters, but leave other people's Echidnas alone.
@@LillLizzert She was and SEGA actually wanted to use her future games, but nooo, Ken had to put his hands on her because of "copyright infringement". Despite the similarities, the concept of an evil organization from a supposed "dead" race has been used over the years. General Zod and his followers for example.
@@alanemocab3465 Honestly I agree, Sega should just start using Shade then. Even if Penders cries about it it's not enforceable. You can't copyright concepts. You can only own characters. And Shade isn't his.
“I bought Penders’ new book” You and absolutely no one else
He’s been tweeting about how many books he sold
@@AAAAkaishicÌIÍ636 so... He didn't sell any at all?
you could include the one person who bought ten copies as some form of revenge against Ian Flynn, only to then get upset and complain that there’s a transgender character in the book, so they might have gone through with returning it? knowing the person, they are truly Unhinged on a whole other level, so idk lmao
@@LooLooChoodarn do I hate Ian Flynn, but I'm also extremely transphobic, what to do, what to do /s
that's probably why it's signed
WHY would you torture yourself like that?! We all knew it was gonna be garbage man, you didn't have to endure that suffering!
Remember, statements “fuck giant corporations, artist should own their work” and “damn, Ken Penders is a bad writer” are not contradictions
You can include '****** Ken Penders' in that.
Also allow me to explain what a chronon is through written illustration:
It takes, get ready for this, *180 TRILLION^2 (squared)* chronons for me to write this comment (yes I tried my best on the math)
6 chronons isn't even enough time for the photons making up Lara Su's physical image to enter Commander Taelor's eyeballs, and that's something that happens literally at the speed of light.
Actually I'm sorry I realized I screwed up the math after posting that. It *should* be *180 TRILLION TO THE POWER OF 10 TRILLION* (that's an even shorter amount of time)
My statement of 6 chronons not being enough time for light coming from a monitor about 40 centimeters away (1 foot 4 inches) to enter Commander Taelor's eyeballs remains correct, however
So basically, a chronon is a ridiculously miniscule amount of time, and Kenny Pendy made up a different time unit using the same name as a real time unit.
So he knew some fancy time term and assumed it meant something big, when its absolutely irrelevant. So I wonder what was actually meant.
@@jonathangoodwin5609 So in other words, it's a completely meaningless word that fails at its sole purpose of telling us how much time has passed since the events Taelor is watching. Wonderful.
Using the Lèvi definition of a chronon (which is the one defined on the screen- there are several) it would take about 47,850,208,044,382,582,433,090 chronons to blink your eyes.
penders vs. sega was the legal equivalent of somebody flaunting they won an internet argument just bc the other side blocked them due to how annoying they were being lmao.
It will never fail to make me laugh over the fact that Ken LOST the Sega case, because he took too long. Its more like an argument where someone shows up 6 months late, and nobody cares by then
So true
8:02 Damn, a lot changed in 60 to 144 seconds.
I bet Ken had no idea what the word meant and just used it because it sounded like a fancy science term
I think that’s supposed to be 10^-24 seconds. A chronon is the hypothetical smallest possible unit of time (under the assumption that time isn’t continuous and thus *can* have a smallest unit)
@@SaltyDChefHonestly I'm wondering if he just made the word up and it happened to be a thing
Dang then an ad appeared
@@rheawelsh4142 Even if he did make up the word, it's stupid and pointless to invent a unit of time that the reader has no way of understanding. We the reader have no way of knowing whether "6 Chronons in the future" means "just enough time to have lunch" or "long enough for multiple civilisation to rise, fall, and crumble to dust". Thus, it's a worthless sentence.
His character designs are freaking terrifying!
It's pure body horror
The book doesn't show explicit adult content but I still want bleach
@@matheuspires2462
He still had the gall to flash monster titties at us, though. That's pretty close. Coulda done without that.
I don't think he's ever actually seen a rhino?
I love how they all have weird patches of human hair *on top* of their hedgehog hair
This is technically the latest piece of Archie Sonic media we had in years...
As bizarre and twisted as that sounds
@@ADJackD
Oh yeah...
@@vincenzomarinostylex9765 also very ironic they look rather ok until the sudden shift uglify them.
@@ADJackD Oof!
Yeah, no, let's not place this shitty fanfic from a Manchild to that please
Let this sink in, Ken tried to claim that he owned Knuckles.
He tried to steal a heavily established character who has existed since the third Sonic game from SEGA.
This was during the infamous lawsuit he made against Archie, and thank god, SEGA stepped in and put a stop to that asshole trying to claim "Everything Echidna" was his.
Ken is crazy for thinking he could even try to say he made him. That's like me saying I own Master Chief because I helped with some art. (This is a hypothetical situation, I wish I could work on Halo)
I'm pissed he's why we can't use Scourge the Hedgehog.
Apparently he owns Evil Sonic but not Scourge, but sega doesn't feel like going to court over it
As far as I know, Penders never claimed he owned or created Knuckles. However, he has claimed that his stories with Knuckles are the main contributing factor behind the character's popularity, which you argue either for or against. They were undoubtedly popular enough to get their own spinoff series that ran almost three years... but that series wasn't written particularly well at all, and gradually dropped off in sales as readers started to realize it.
Like all of Penders' stories, it just sort of strung readers along for months and months, promising that something BIG was coming someday, but never getting there. Every story he writes is basically just an advertisement for the next issue.
Even that is quite the claim given that Knuckles was an instant fan favorite with Sonic 3.@@jbwarner8626
@@Protoraptor69 It would be like if a writer and illustrator for the Halo books claimed they owned Master Chief. Which is just stupid.
A single furry might have been able to save any design in this book
there's no saving them
The right furry in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world
The only case where someone saying "this animal isn't fuckable enough" would actually be an improvement.
@@kongychannel Lmao
it would also put 27 fetishes in every page
The fact he could just make it like a doujin or unnofficial fancomic...
But instead he made THIS.
8:04 "Six chronons into the future" "A chronon is approximately 10-24 seconds"
So... somewhere between a minute and two and a half minutes? That's... not very far in the future.
It's so much worse than that, it's actually "10 to the power of -24" seconds or 0.000000000000000000000006 seconds.
@@HoveringAboveMyself bruh. This man Penders ain't shit at writing
Using that definition, it would take about 47,850,208,044,382,582,433,090 chronons to blink your eyes.
So wait, Sonic characters he explicitly doesn't own, like Espio and Sonic himself, are just straight-up in the book with no alterations made? Not even just changing what they're called?
I'm genuinely shocked he actually released this. Felt like something that he'd be forever "working on"
It'd prolly look slightly better if he *was* still working on it...
Okay, who am I kidding? No it wouldn't.
I'm gonna risk saying it.
Pal comix is making more money off his characters then Ken is himself & thats hilarious
Someone should tell Ken that lmao
Actually, maybe not, 'cause he'd probably (and rightfully) call them out for being horny.
@fakeo you mean the comic where cream is getting "things " put in her even though she's barely legal ? Wow Ken really does suck lol
Apparently UA-cam doesn't like certain things being typed so I'll reword it ,how does pal comix make more money than a guy who inked a few sonic comics lol
@@shoken4421 Corn
Palcomix is still running?
2:30 to answer your question. That's Espio's Daughter SALMA. The girl Knuckles caught making out with his Nephew in the park.
She's also autistic (confirmed by Ken) and mostly naked because, uhh, I guess her clothes don't turn invisible with her or something. Even though it was no issue for Espio. And probably because Ken likes... girls of her age.
Ngl, that looked like a male alien to me.
4:26 The island that was photoshopped in is the logo for Penders' Floating Island Production.
I said it before, and I'll say it again, Ken's version of Lara-Su looks like the Granny squid from "Squidbillies"
Holy shit lmao, she does!
I don't know who the granny squid is.
@@thardump859 Just look up "Granny Squidbillies", and she's the wrinkly pink one in the walker. The faces are so similar, ha ha
@@thardump859Norma Jean, the pink one with the walker
@@cashomnitrix I unfortunately don't know anything about this show because I have never seen it before in my life.
Ken lore is fascinating, so I definitly wanna see where he goes with this. It's like watching a ship sink. You can't look away
Ken's Sonic lore is some of the deepest Sonic lore ever made. I don't care what anyone says, I still love pairing Knuckles with Julie-Su to this day.
Maybe once this comic finishes its run there'll be enough Ken lore for one of those three hour long iceberg videos!
Is it bad that I'd prefer Sonichu over this shit
Floating Island Productions.....oh dear
@@MegaFan5 I know, which makes it even funier that it's his own studio name 😅
I've never seen anyone want to fuck Knuckles this hard before.
It's incredible how much of the collaborative work of the Archie comics he wants to believe belongs to him, including characters he literally never made or owned.
@@MegaFan5 The term is generic enough that it can't be copyrighted (I think). It's just two standard English words put together.
Ken Penders releasing his book isn't what I had on the 2024 bingo card.
Ken Penders is a cautionary tale for artists that proprtion and perspective practice is VERY IMPORTANT. not to mention watching someone's art style go from respectably good to "what the fuck did I just see?" territory.
Also, not being an utter ***** about the stuff you do and do not own.
For someone whose been working in the industry for decades, his art looks like something you draw when you first picked up a copy of "how to draw manga by katy coope"
0:25 He looks like Jeff the Killer here
Actually he own Anti Sonic, but not the Scourge form, nor Sonic. Which means he LITERALLY can't use him, for anything, and he tried, but because he didn't own the green version of AntiSonic, Archie was able to stop him from publishing it.
I mean he did try to make a Scourge comic but it was thankfully shut down once we found out the lead artist was a well known neo n**i, then he tried to guilt us like the peeps who worked on the crappy live action Cowboy Bebop remakes
@@gregthehedgehog0956Wasn’t a “Neo-Nazi” he was a conservative who disliked Islamic immigration
Gotta love that most designs just turns into humans with a animal head put ontop.
The REAL LIFE backgrounds and odd art inconsistencies are just... *chef's kiss*.
Oh and if he changed parts of the actual comic into.. well, default realistic floating island and derp wide stretch sonic, i have very little faith that he WON'T make more "improvements".
I love that his take on an anthropomorphic rhino is just a human with a horn instead of a nose. It's so dumb.
Ken Penders was always a garbage writer. This is just more proof that Ken Penders should have never been a writer or got involved with the Sonic Series.
Blame Kens son.
Thank you. It's hard to believe this man even has fans.
@@sezunemizuhana3870 he has a son? what loony lady wanted to marry that overgrown man child.
@@sezunemizuhana3870why?
But he knew better tho.
Tbh I think if penders redesigned his characters to be a little to do with sonic as possible (eg. kept their story but different names and their designs are more alien than animal-human hybrids) this wouldn't be that bad as an original work. The human faces on the animals looks creepy yes, but for a sci-fi world of aliens that would likely look human-like but slightly off would work wonders for it.
It's interesting that he wants to not be connected to archie sonic, yet (what I think) is holding him back is that he chooses to keep to that sonic world and story; which is both ironic and concerning. Especially since the echidna's could easily be just recoloured blue and it could be seen as an entirely different race.
I will say at least he's trying to get his original work out there. It definitely needs more alterations but if it's something he's passionate for, it's great! But this is me looking at this positively.
He wants to keep the connection for two reasons, ego and money. The former doesn't make realize how little of the latter he's going to get.
If he just let go of the past and work on his strengths in his art and create something original with it. Then maybe he would be more successful. But the problem this Sonic OC crap he's doing. All of the Sonic stuff he made for Archie....it's in the past....it's just nothing more than a distant part of the past of a franchise he does not own in the slightest. And trying to hold onto these forgotten relics from something he does not own and make money off of them is just not gonna work for him in the end.
I honestly think that the best thing to do is to just let go of what you made in the past. ESPECIALLY when it's derivative of someone else's work. Oh believe me! I know it's hard to let go of something you spent so much time cooking up in your head and planning. But it's better if he just finally puts all of this echidna nonsense to rest, and move on from it to something actually new and creative. I mean you can still reuse some general concepts from the past and rework them to create something new.
That's what TONS of Sonic fans have done over the years. Take something they clearly have a passion for and make it something new while still being related to it in heart and spirit. That's what Ken should do. If he truly loves this peice of fiction, then he would let it go and perhaps make something inspired by it, perhaps it would be even better than what he did in the past. Because he can't ride this dead, rotted away part of the franchise forever.
Someday maybe he'll see that he's wasting more time latching and holding on this distant peice of the past, rather than creating something new and fresh for the world to see. Because that's what art is all about... to create... not to make profit on forever.
yeah if he sued archie, won, didn't make a huge fuss about it, then just made his own media with the characters he won and didn't just steal stories out of Archie, I'd have far more respect for the guy.
Ken's stories in the Archie Sonic comics were a form of therapy for him to help him deal with certain personal issues. That's why his work on the Archie Sonic comics means so much to him.
@@Rishi123456789 now it seems he’s obsessed.
"The loss of her father is Lara-su's Kobiyoshi Maru test"
It's _Kobayashi_ Maru. You'd think he'd double check that. I know he worked on Star Trek comics at some point.
The Kobayashi Maru, for the uninitiated, is a test adminstered to Starfleet cadets (in Star Trek) which is designed to be unwinnable. They're assessed on their reactions to a scenario under pressure. Not having read this comic, I don't know how apt the comparison is, but it kind of sounds like he brought it up to show off nerd cred and then slipped by spelling it wrong.
This is what would happen if Chris Chan got slightly better art skills.
Then how are you going to defend a site that's responsible for the passing of Byuu?
I prefer Sonichu art to this lmao.
If Chris chan had brushes and pens instead of coloring pencils
Sonichu is so bad it almost feels like it’s on purpose if you know nothing about Chris Chan which gives it a fun quality ro it . Ken penders art gives me a headache
Ken Penders is Chris Chan if Chris Chan had a wife and children.
He went through all that trouble to battle Archie and the end result is your typical deviantArt comicbook that anybody could've made.
Yeah.. I heard about the Ken Penders comic and when I saw the art style... I really wish he would have just redrawn them as humans and gotten a different style to draw them in. Why did he think that, that art style was good?
I feel like it's a consequence of it being a solo venture, not so much that he thinks it's great.
Previously, he was working with a team of people who would ink and colour his art, or would sometimes be creating the art without his participation.
This looks to me like the consequence of someone who had a fairly inconsistent hand when drawing with pencil and paper, but had done some interesting mixed media work before landing the Sonic gig, being presented with a fully digital workflow where he's solely responsible for every step of the process.
Before, he had people who could clean up the line work or re-do certain poses and expressions to improve the legibility of the panels, as well as fully doing the colouring themselves.
The result is that he's not as capable as the other members of the team at those jobs and the art style reflects that.
I don't think he's a worse artist than he was, he's just using tools he's not as experienced with and that results in things looking a bit off.
You're comparing work he did as part of a team where everyone involved had defined specialisations to a solo effort and I don't think that most people would be producing the same quality of work under those circumstances.
I feel like a younger artist who grew up using digital might have an easier time adapting to this workflow, but the guy used to literally write the script and drew the panels onto sheets of paper before sending them off to be inked, lettered and coloured by other people by hand. It's very different from using a tablet and stylus to do it on a computer. I think that the guy's just old and isn't having an easy time with the technology.
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 Ah, okay. That makes sense. I didn't think about that and with that being said, I'm guessing he doesn't have the funds to get his own team.
It's really a shame because Ken had a lot of characters I really enjoyed in the Sonic comics such as Dr Fintevus, Enerjak, Lien-Da, Feist, Mammoth Mongul and the 4 Bride Houses. My biggest problem with Ken was that he never truly utilized his characters. Ian Flynn took Enerjak (Knuckles) and Dark Enerjak, for example, and made him far more threatening than Ken's stories with Enerjak (Dimetri) and even made better use of Lara Su.
@@Mangaka-Knight In terms of most comics, it normally takes someone else to bring out a character. Deadpool and Cable would be horribly bad characters if Rob Liefeld only used them. But just like Ken, he takes the "creator" card when his contributions only amassed to his writer noting how unoriginal Deadpool's design was.
Okay, small thing, but at 4:19 when you show the Angel Island, and then later how it originally looked, I think I know why it's like that.
That's because that stupid ass low poly PS2-era island model is from Ken's own damn studio logo. I think it was in his original movie pitch.
looking at that definition of chronons on the screen, it looks like that human astronaut was watching those logs from... three minutes later?
The definition most likely means 10^ -24 (10 to the power of -24) seconds. A chronon is the theoretical smallest possible unit of time. A lot changed in just over 0 seconds.
You'd think with all money he got from the lawsuit, he'd be able to pay an artist with actual artistic talent as opposed to making the equivalent of a sleep paralysis demon trapped in a melting children's painting.
I dont really gaf about Archie, but I rlly enjoyed Scourge, Sonics Father and Enerjak (exactly the ones that are gone)
Jules Hedgehog > Thomas Wachowski
@@EternityKingdomsHeadHonchodon't you insitl the donut lord like that
@@EternityKingdomsHeadHoncho Based, I completely agree with you.
I'm guessing Ken's apparent style deterioration is due to technology. Back then, he would've used inks and pencils to draw the charactets, which generally worked with the style of the comic, but now he's probably experimenting with digital art, which has way more tools on offer. Maybe the uncanny style is an attempt at pursuing something more realistic while maintaining the toony style? It doesn't exactly come across well...
Defintiely
I also feel that he's drawing with a mouse and somehow isn't aware of the existence of tablets?
You can easily make a brush in any contemporary art program that convincingly mimics the feel of a pencil.
@sonicwave779 Maybe he's sketching, scanning, and then colouring and shading with a mouse? That'd explain the weirdest part of the drawings. I still think this looks like an evolution of his Archie Sonic style, it's just the attempt at a "more realistic" style on top of that that holds it back.
Every time i think my art is bad, i look at his, and then i look at my old stuff, and then i look at my new stuff, and i'm like 'Wait these actually look decent wtf was i on two seconds ago.' His art is like a mental palette cleanser in a weird fucked up way
HE PUT A DAMN PNG ON A COMIC WHAT
OMG OMG OMG this exists.
Like, this REALLY happened and wasn't just an edit from UA-cam. This is a real comic.
Somebody actually spent their money somebody actually PRINTED this and published it.
I thought it was just one of those "eternal kickstarters"
1:09 quick correction
He did not create scourge, he created... evil sonic, aka what scourge was before.
The entire change into scourge was to make him legaly distinct from evil sonic :p
"The State of things are dire" used to describe art is for some reason hilarious to me.
4:35 apparently that new island is the logo for Ken’s company
Ken sending along a extra signed comic seems like a nice thing to do.
I’m developing a graphic novel myself with my character that was once a Sonic OC, and the fact that Ken could’ve designed Lara-Su and everyone else a hundred different ways yet chose the most horrific mishmash of cartoony and realistic is absolutely astounding to me.
5:01 BROTHER THIS IS MEME WORTHY, IM DEAD LMAO
I never read a single issue of Sonic Archie comics in my entire life and I can’t stand Ken Penders I feel for you die hard fans of the sonic Archie comics you guys didn’t deserve this.
Same. But there’s more to the story of Ken.
Might hate him less, but he still kinda deserves the displeasure from fans.
@@viruschris3160 the guy is a massive hypocrite. the only "additions" are that archie is in the wrong too. That's literally it. Ken is in the wrong for everything else he did and tries to shield it behind "well they screwed me over!!!! so I can do whatever I want!!!!!!!!!!!!" fuck ken.
"I never read a single issue of Sonic Archie comics in my entire life and I can’t stand Ken Penders I feel for you die hard fans of the sonic Archie comics you guys didn’t deserve this."
Thanks for the kind words. I know I'm gonna get shit for this, but as someone who grew up collecting the Archie Sonic comics and the Archie Knuckles comics as a kid back in the 90s, I love Ken's characters (especially Julie-Su) and I love Ken's stories. What I don't love about Ken, however, is him tearing down everything he worked so hard to build out of pettiness. I used to pair Knuckles with Julie-Su as a kid and I still do (sometimes). Fuck Ken for damaging the entire Sonic franchise because of his planet-sized ego, the Sonic franchise still hasn't completely recovered yet to this day. I hope Sega sues the shit of him and wins this time for a change.
Dude, I just gave up so it wouldn't hurt as bad
Yeah, no, Ken Penders should be sued for this, specially since he didn't change anything from the original stories.
he maybe more liable for altering the stories. He "owns" the story. Altering it is where problems come.
Something I noticed is that he appears to place his airbrush (?) character drawings atop actual photographs of places; I.e that beach Lara-Su was at. If they are real photos, I wouldn’t have a clue if they’re Ken’s own pictures or just stock ones but either way, it’s … an interesting choice to put it nicely.
It's the type of art you'd see that features an incredibly specific fetish.
That both sounds insulting to the talent of the fetishists yet also somehow decidedly on brand.
I’m just gonna wait until people start selling it on eBay or Mercari for cheap.
Or upload it on the internet. For free.
The artwork looks like the artwork you would see on a gangster rap mix cd album cover from the early 2000’s in a random record store
On Twitter I ran into someone who helped Penders get the Archie comics images in high definition. If it weren't for this, the pages would look like photocopies. That person received a thank you in the book and apparently a payment of $100 through Paypal. I guess he did it because he loves these stories. As for Penders, I think he is someone very mediocre, he had more than 10 years to improve as an artist and writer to deliver something of better quality in this comic.
I'm interested on a whole video about "Mobius 25 years later" backup stories
looking at the panel at 6:15 made me VIOLENTLY ILL!
This looks like a fanfic canon of the classic Sonic stuff. Im sure he spent a lot of work on this, but I think I'll stick with the official Sega works.
My question is why do all these Sonic inspired characters when he could have made his own story and characters with a series running this long?
I think because he's sore that he can't continue where he left off. I mean he made it sound like he was going to make it like that originally but over time he kept adding back the Sonic connections.
Not going to lie, I was devastated when they canceled that Scourge comic (I wanted to see what they would do with the character). And instead of that, this comes out, dang😓
"Welcome to the Lara-Su chronicles. After 10 Years of development, hopefully it would have been worth the wait. Thanks and have fun" - Ken Penders… probably?
"Thank you for the money and free advertisement. What you think of my book doesn't matter to me. I have already profitted from you." - Ken Penders, iirc
@@robertlupa8273 Also every entertainment company ever.
@@robertlupa8273 ~ Man who lies as often as he breaths
Dating an event in "chronons" makes as much sense as weighing an object in quarks.
Will he ever understand that grotesque art style doesn't work?
This motivated me to draw Sonic stories better. And write
Fantastic to hear that!
The comic laying out events that will happen in the future reminds me of the first issue of Sonichu. Lmao.
Then explain how you would defend a site that was responsible for the passing of Byuu
@@NodeathnolifeWho?
@@Nathan-rb3qp The SNES emulation developer that took his own life due to being a victim of the site in question and so many other things that he got through that has led to his decline in mental health
@@Nodeathnolife What does this have to do with Ken and what site do you speak of?
@@Nathan-rb3qp Kiwifarms
Ken Penders is the official Sonic Deviantartist
Wrong. Deviantart produces better stuff than Penders.
@manoftruth0935 Deviantart also produces bad stuff. Now what?
@@knuclear200x Still better than Ken Penders. Even the worst deviantart projects are masterpieces compared to any of Ken Penders garbage writing & art.
@@knuclear200x you don't get the joke. Penders is so bad, he makes Deviantart content look better by comparison!
@@DragonKingMadaraUchiha show me the worst thing on Deviantart that's better the Penders' own
I saw Ken Penders selling this at a convention, just the other day! I didn't approach him.
The Ken has finally Pended
It's cute seeing kids get into art.
this might not be the best but I believe in a few years this (what I assume 8 year old), with enough practice, will go places
"I still don't know who this is!"
That's supposed to be Espio's daughter, Salma.
4:30 This reminds me of that image Ken used for to represent his “Floating Island Productions” film studio when he pitched a Sonic movie.
Very good review format. Balances context with not spoiling or recapping content.
We appreciate your sacrifice, brave sir!
Ken Penders is like an slightly evolved form of Chris Chan. Slightly
@@felipeaguena5289 so what you're saying is that you defend Kiwifarms and Jousha Moon after the update on the Byuu incident
@@Nodeathnolife that's is exactly what I was saying
@@felipeaguena5289 oh so you do support the site despite what happened to Byuu
@@felipeaguena5289 Oh so you do support the site despite the incident
@@felipeaguena5289 You literally think that it's funny that he took his own life
Thank you for enduring this for us. Oh geez, I cannot look a this and think this Sonic related.
Some traditions should never be lost.
Like hating on Penders.
I truly love Geoffrey. He has been a great character in the series of secret agents, and has become one of my favorites. It saddens me to see how Penders is treating him.
This should be straight up illegal. He lost both Cort cases (lost one and was settled out of Cort but his comics was reprinted after the Cort case) his patients avidly didn't go though and multiple artists wanted ken to at least take their name away from this. Nothing here is correct and it only is happening because of SEGA's ignorant
Also the people you say have explained it to you before... they don't know what they are talking about. The only things ken owns is some drawings he made and even that's speculative.
I thought ken won his suit? Archie lost all the paperwork regarding the ownership of the characters so it defaulted to Ken.
@ORLY911 that is a pubically known peice of misinformation because one of the first articles about the situation said that and everyone just believed it, but if you look at the actual documents, it shows that he lost one Cort case and the other was settled out of cort... but as I said, stuff was reprinted by archie after so it obviously implied he lost.
@@ironpiyepic2666 it's hard to tell since the only active information you get about the ordeal is from Ken himself who thinks he owns Knuckles.
@@BlaizeTheDragon which is wild in of itself.
I mean the fact that he basically tried to copyright the echidna race felt unbelievable when i first heard it. Then I heard he was boasting about wanting to sue Paramount(!) for giving Knuckles a dad (!?).
@@HandepsilonThat's complete and utter bullshit cuz we were introduced to the Echidna race in SA1
2:34 You can almost feel the anguish in that scream
Would be nice if all of the issues of Archie Sonic were digitally restored and given new reprints, but this however... OH MY Gosh! The artwork on the cover and for the newer stories in the book look absolutely horrifying! 😱
Thank you so much for doing this review!
That is certainly expensive toliet paper that ken penders have made
I don’t understand how an adult can look at this art and say “yeah I should expect people to pay for this.”