When he started out with the comics, he was alright. But after #125, he just turned the comic in to gigantic, unreadable pile of mess. Between Sonic hooking up with anything that breathes and the sheer borefest of Mobius:25 Years Later, His writing(as well as the declining artwork) just made quit getting the comic. Was Penders just getting lazy or was he bitter about the Knuckles series thing?
who knows, he was a power freak, and when karl said that M25yl was not the real future for sonic, ken flipped. so they went back and forth on ken's board.
so i think it had alot to do with that, and when everyone found out that alot of knuckles' experiences were based on ken's then people got angry. also, i don't know this for sure it's merely speculation on my part, but since his own comic "the lost ones" kinda botched, he spent alot of time trying to get sci fi stories into sonic.
lolz, so Penders was ditched by his father who had went through a wall of holographic flames?
knuckles' experiences were based on ken's
Ken's a mutant who was exposed to Chaos radiation at birth and spends his free time in solitude guarding a rock on a giant island in the sky?
I'm guessing by "Ken's experienes", it's Knux's strained relationship with his father, and much of it isn't to be taken literally. At least I hope it's not supposed to be taken literally...
Umm, what strained relationship between Knux & Locke?
Before you answer that, tell me at what point did Knux & Locke not get along prior to #125? Other than M:25YL, Ken did not handle Knuckles after #124 (save for brief Knux appearances--like one panel or two--in #155/6 and I think #157-159 which I've never read). If anyone is responsible for Knux & Locke's current relationship, that goes to Karl with Ian escalating it.
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Ken's a mutant who was exposed to Chaos radiation at birth and spends his free time in solitude guarding a rock on a giant island in the sky?
from what i remember it was mostly about his parents not being married or something along those lines.
Knuckles and Locke really starting having a strained relationship around "RtAI" which was an Karl Bollers story.
Fast-foward to issue 165, when Knuckles and Locke take the fighting even further, this was an Ian Flynn story.
In conclusion, I'm proving what True Red said even further.
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Was Penders just getting lazy or was he bitter about the Knuckles series thing?
My vote is that he was neither - he was just an arrogant, two-faced, lying swine who was short on talent.
StC suffered from a similar problem: a lead writer who thought that being given a licensed property meant that the continuity was his own personal toy to play with and Mary-Sue to the hilt, and he had no responsibility to either the continuity or the fans to even try to look up how the spirit of it works.
And the only defence that Penders could ever come up with - other than outright lying - was that fans were stupid children with no imagination, who didn't appreciate genius and should just shut up and take what they were given.
It never seemed to dawn that if the original work was so goshdarned mind-blowing, he wouldn't have to be crowbarring his own material into someone else's licence, because it'd stand on its own in its own title.
And The Lost Ones didn't - not even after he pathetically crossed it with Sonic in an attempt to drum up interest.
As both a creative and a person, I find him reprehensible - and in my book, the blame also lies with his editors and/or further higher-ups for not reining him and his ego in.
As someone who followed Ken's writing pretty much from the top of his Sonic career:
Ken had several problems that manifested themselves over time. One was his inability to do anything like realistic dialogue. OK, comic books aren't known for good dialogue, but Ken's became more and more stilted and mannered, and by the time he wrote "Line of Succession" it was pretty hopeless. He also had trouble with characters with accents, dropping the accents pretty early on in a story.
Second, he was so wedded to the action comic genre (and its source material, such as the James Bond novels of Ian Fleming) that he lost the touch to do anything else. After all, I started reading this comic on the strength of his "Sally's Quest : In The Still Of The Night" in S18 where the centerpiece was the death of Sally's old mentor, Julayla. His work never got that good again.
Finally, I can't help but remember what a plate full of hash the Good/Bad/Unknown arc became. The story disappeared beneath the rubble that Ken shoveled onto it in the form of Isaac the robot going on and on and on about the origin of Chaos Emeralds and other useless junk. That kind of digression is lethal to any story, even if it's only used as padding in a story going nowhere (I've since learned that the Knuckles "Afterlife" arc was just a 4-part filler, but honestly, it takes some kind of inverted talent to write about the hereafter and make it boring!).
The stupid little pissing match that developed between Ken and Karl as to whose vision for the comic would rule ended, I think, appropriately when BOTH of them were gone. Ian's work is, if anything, more focused as a result of not having to play that game. Kinda 
what happened to Ken, but that's the business for you.
Again, bearing in mind that Gabrie said that Karl was right and confirmed this in public multiple times, I blame the editorial staff for not keeping Penders on a leash when they knew exactly what he was.
Well, the editorial staff aren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Dan already touched on my biggest problems w/ Ken stories: burrowing from other writers (a beaver guard in a Geoff story is even named Fleming!) and M25YL not meshing with the lead stories. It was very disjointed to me going from Son/Sal barly talking to married with children. Arguing on boards whether the future would be or wouldn't be was like taking dog poop and lighting it afire: trying to put it out only made a stinkier mess.
I am sad Ken is gone cuz he is invested alot of time/effort into the Sonic series and did create some good memorable characters, specially in the Knux series, but I also feel that at some point he stopped having fun with it, something a writer should never do. When a furry's problems are more real than your own (or they were desined to overlap) it's time to call it quits. For your own sake as well as the readers!
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The stupid little pissing match that developed between Ken and Karl as to whose vision for the comic would rule ended, I think, appropriately when BOTH of them were gone. Ian's work is, if anything, more focused as a result of not having to play that game. Kinda what happened to Ken, but that's the business for you.
i don't know if i really agree with that. i agree that ken had to go, but i would've liked to see karl's vision of the comic come true. not that ian's doing bad, but i'm more of a fan of karl's.
Sam' got to say all the fun things that I wanted to about Kenders... D:
You make a good point Miss Puar. I would love for Ian to read what you said.
One thing I did notice that was wrong with Ken's writing was his suffering of the Claremont syndrome: setting up hanging subplot after hanging subplot to set up future stories, and then never doing anything with those hanging subplots and just adding more and more...
...Thank Aurora Ian's managed to clean up most of the hanging subplots..
Isn't Ken the reason the relationships got screwy? Not that I'm going to talk about that, but wasn't it him who wrote 150# that started that relationship confusion? That was just plain bad writing. What was his vision for the comic anyway? If it was the comic after RtAl, I'm glad he's gone.
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That kind of digression is lethal to any story, even if it's only used as padding in a story going nowhere (I've since learned that the Knuckles "Afterlife" arc was just a 4-part filler, but honestly, it takes some kind of inverted talent to write about the hereafter and make it boring!).
Why kill Knuckles at all if everyone knew he would just going to be brought back again? The Green Knuckles saga was pretty terrible, as it brought Knuckles nowhere.
I remember speaking with Ken about Finitevus and how he despised Karl's idea of Finitevus as Dimitri reborn, so he went and kept Dimitri in M:25YL.
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I am sad Ken is gone cuz he is invested alot of time/effort into the Sonic series and did create some good memorable characters, specially in the Knux series, but I also feel that at some point he stopped having fun with it, something a writer should never do.
I argee with this. Ken, although he stunk at best, he gave so much to the series,(JUILE-SU!!!!!!!!!)and created some good stories such as "Line of Sucession"
But, unfournately, when I think of Ken, I think of GBU, Metal Sonic(ew), M25YL, the crappy dialogue, and many more.
I would not be suprised if Ken had started having no fun with the comic. I could see it from a mile away(I know these things,I'm a writer)
Either way, the fact and song remain the same, my friends, Ken is gone and that is that.
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(I know these things,I'm a writer)
well anyone can say that they are a writer, hell i could say that i'm a doctor at 18 but would anyone here want me to perform brain surgery on them? most likely no.
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I remember speaking with Ken about Finitevus and how he despised Karl's idea of Finitevus as Dimitri reborn, so he went and kept Dimitri in M:25YL
EDIT: what was wrong with dimitri being finitevus? oh wait, it would've taken away from the sci fi cyborg concept that kenders shoved on dimitri.
That's a poor analogy, though. It's true: anyone CAN be a writer, good or bad... but generally you can't be a doctor without a doctorate. I mean, at least I THINK that's something even medical doctors need to be called "doctors"...? But yeah, medical work takes FAR more work than being a good writer does, so the analogy isn't very apt.
But yeah, medical work takes FAR more work than being a good writer does <-- Are you sure?
Also: SFOJHSLKFJHSLHLSGHLSJK! I'm a writer! 
Well, for most people, I suppose being a good writer can take forever as well, but given that there always is the odd person who writes the best-selling novel before even their college days... Admit it, that's more common an occurrence in literature than it ever was in the medical field. Heck, most people could probably write stories that are at least tolerable - something that probably wouldn't fly in the medical field, where it's life or death - no middle ground.
I had problems with both Ken and Karl, I think both have big egos and made decisions (the editor(s) has blame too in this)that I either hated and/or didn't agree with. Both at times, seem to have thought the knew so much better than the fans. Thankfully, I believe Ian is trying his best to clean up the mess.
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That's a poor analogy, though. It's true: anyone CAN be a writer, good or bad... but generally you can't be a doctor without a doctorate. I mean, at least I THINK that's something even medical doctors need to be called "doctors"...? But yeah, medical work takes FAR more work than being a good writer does, so the analogy isn't very apt.
You're right. "Doctor" is the title as well as a job description.
Although I don't like the analogy, either. Something like medical science is a very black and white, mechanical discipline where you can be right or wrong. Writing's more down to abstract and individual interpretation.
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StC suffered from a similar problem: a lead writer who thought that being given a licensed property meant that the continuity was his own personal toy to play with and Mary-Sue to the hilt, and he had no responsibility to either the continuity or the fans to even try to look up how the spirit of it works.
Except... the continuity in the comics got stuck to, so I dunno which continuity you mean; and the fans tended to go like Knuckles and Super Sonic stuff, which is why they kept turning up. As for Mary Sues... who are we talking about here? Only Sue-type character I can think of is Tekno and her amazing all-purpose scanner, but she was done by the other lead writer.
(I remember you disliking the Drakons but villains who appeared in five stories & were being manipulated by Robotnik in three of 'em is hardly a Sue. Unless the villain's name is Sue. Which it could be, we never learnt any of their first names...)
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M25YL not meshing with the lead stories. It was very disjointed to me going from Son/Sal barly talking to married with children.
Yeah, that seemed a bit daft. Even considering it's a possible future and will be contradicted, being contradicted from the word go is a bit embarrassing. (Plus - Mina and Tails? Ick.)
Ebony had her moments - albeit not as grossly as a canary who could fly without any visible wings and with both her "hands" full.
It depends on your definition of a Sue. I'm not just thinking of the bog standard I'm-so-perfect Sue, but the possession-Sue or the canon-Sue, and just the canon being tossed out of the window in general in similar style to Sue writing (note the sections on feminisation in Sue-ism - Sues as new characters don't necessarily have to be present in a Sue-type fic).
The fans (and you know that I'm not just talking about myself here - we've both been in on the discussions) also tended to dislike things like "pixel brain" Tails (who even Nigel said came about because Nigel couldn't be bothered to do his homework on the characters' basic skills before he started writing), his triumphs through dumb luck and being bailed out by random new characters and the fact that he ought to carry around his own fill-in-the-blanks ransom note to save time, but that kept turning up, too. It worked both ways.
With characters like Porker and Johnny, whose personalities were blank slates, Nigel at least made them real individuals (and I'm not trying to take anything away from storylines like Porker's breakdown or the more epic arcs). But I still think that's no excuse for thinking that just because the licence has been given to you, you don't need to bother about existing precedents because it's all yours now.
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I'm not just thinking of the bog standard I'm-so-perfect Sue, but the possession-Sue or the canon-Sue, and just the canon being tossed out of the window in general.
Since the comic's canon wasn't tossed out of the window, I assume you mean it diverged from the games. Not quite the same thing. Not sure who counts as a canon-sue either (Sonic has severe flaws and Knuckles is constantly duped & beaten up), or possession sue (unless Nigel really wants to be yellow and kill people - but hey, who doesn't?).
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The fans also tended to dislike things like "pixel brain" Tails (who came about because Nigel couldn't be bothered to do his homework on the characters before he started writing)
To some extent he's just following on from what Mark Millar did before him; except when Robofoxed, Tails was very hapless. Plus, while Tails tends to get out of his league, he's still right there in battle, smashing up Badniks and saving Sonic's life on multiple occassions. I won't hold it against the guy that he cacked himself over Trogg early in his career - Trogg is huge!
Being bailed out by random new characters though? That's more of a Mark Eyles thing, I'd have thought (Zonerunners and Morbiddent Hunt).
Umm, what strained relationship between Knux & Locke?
Before you answer that, tell me at what point did Knux & Locke not get along prior to #125? Other than M:25YL, Ken did not handle Knuckles after #124 (save for brief Knux appearances--like one panel or two--in #155/6 and I think #157-159 which I've never read). If anyone is responsible for Knux & Locke's current relationship, that goes to Karl with Ian escalating it.
When I used the word "strained" (it was probably the wrong word to use), I was more referring to early in the Knuckles series, where Knuckles was unaware his father was still around, and he was still guiding Knux subtly from behind the scenes. On top of that was the family problems caused by Locke's failure in marraige.
I still think the Knuckles series was an overall better, more interesting series than Sonic (likely because that series wasn't forced to draw contents from multiple source materials from Sega and DiC), and if Ken used a little bit of his own experiences as inspiration for stories, I'm totally fine with that. What I think really caused his downfall was the fact that he'd worked on Sonic and Knuckles for such a long period that the got complacent, and stopped having fun. He'd been around so long that he'd probably started believing that his stories and ideas took precedence over anyone else's ideas, thus causing the quality of his work to suffer as well as his "pissing match" with Karl. But that's just my theory...
...And maybe that's why I'm so critical of Ian. He currently has no co-writer to present their own views of how things could potentially go, a good number of the readership are currently supporting him, and, like Ken, it appears that he's going to stick around for a while. It would be easy to get a little self-satisfied under those circumstances.
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Although I don't like the analogy, either. Something like medical science is a very black and white, mechanical discipline where you can be right or wrong. Writing's more down to abstract and individual interpretation.
Thank you very much. Besides, who are hypershadow to judge if I'm a writer or not? Its not as if you know me personally, so keep such crud to yourself.
Besides, whether I'm a writer or not is not the topic. The topic is about Ken Penders, not is knuxfreak52 a good writer.
Maybe the topic should be, what's YOUR problem?!
Seriously, the guys's been off the book for two years and your still attacking him like this? Sure, his last two years on the book weren't so hot (probably burned out) but, he helped lay down a lot of the Sonicverse for what it is today, and created a ton of great characters such as Julie-Su and Locke. Hell, he had the best Sonic spinoff series ever in Knuckles the Echidna. It was all his doing and that book was excellent.
So, lay off!!
Calm down, I was just wondering why did his writing get so damn poor. If he was helped the franchise so much, he should of never written stuff like 150# and some of the issues after.
I really like Ken Penders stories especially the knuckles stories in the early 100's. The Mobius 25 years later was a little akward but I liked it.
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Maybe the topic should be, what's YOUR problem?!
Seriously, the guys's been off the book for two years and your still attacking him like this? Sure, his last two years on the book weren't so hot (probably burned out) but, he helped lay down a lot of the Sonicverse for what it is today, and created a ton of great characters such as Julie-Su and Locke. Hell, he had the best Sonic spinoff series ever in Knuckles the Echidna. It was all his doing and that book was excellent.
Good point, and very valid, nice serve.
oh i have no intention of laying off, but i it's not like i was bashing you or anything. your profile says your 15, so i don't think you are a proffessional writer, regardless if i know you or not. so making such judgements like "trust me, i'm a writer." comes across as pompous at 15. but no, i didn't mean to bash you or anything.
Now Ken has done some good stories, let's not forget that.
But there have been times he has done things not so hot, I mean trying to kill off Sally for starters, I mean If I were Ken I would have done my homework first to find out if she was killable instead of going off doing it.
And hooking Sonic up with Fiona was very questionable.
But again he did give us some good stories and moments to remember for a long time.
As for Karl, for what he did in #134, I never will forgive hime for that 😥
I liked issue 134. Dub's work made what would have been a boring issue, hilarious slap aside, incredibly awesome.
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oh i have no intention of laying off, but i it's not like i was bashing you or anything. your profile says your 15, so i don't think you are a proffessional writer, regardless if i know you or not.
Oh my Gosh, shut up already. You're 18, and you're complaining like you're 7 years old, and so what if I'm not a pro? Not every writer is, so shut up please, or I'll just decide to ignore you.
Sorry but you need to chill out.
Internet: Serious Business.
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Wait, did someone say........DRAMA?!!
DRAMARAMAMAMAAAAAA!
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Knuxfreak52, hypershadow77 and shigamado's pissing posts
Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, meet Pot. Have a good time together.
Honestly, Penders used to be my favorite Archie comic writer, but somewhere down the line - let's say post-#75/KTE #25 - he really started to deteriorate as a writer and as someone who was personable to fans. Honestly, when I read #150, I was extremely disappointed. It was a complete letdown, nothing that a milestone comic should be. I kept asking myself if this was really the same man who wrote Endgame.
Also lot of his public actions were very suspect, such as outing Benny Lee's real identity amid the intense speculation of who "Romy Chacon" was, especially given Pender's known dislike of Karl Bollers and the secrecy surrounding "Romy Chacon's" real identity. This was right after his lipservice to fans who called him out on his childish antics surrounding the M:25L debacle, where Karl revealed it wasn't canon. I HIGHLY doubt that was coincidence, and I wouldn't be surprised if Penders was Chacon.
Also, a man who publicly calls his fans a bunch of mindless puppets with no imagination clearly doesn't have respect for the people who buy his products, and the fans are one half of what makes a good comic. If you can't respect your fans in any way, you have no business working on a comic/movie/show/any entertainment medium. I'm certainly not saying someone should pander to every fan's most minute wishes, but sometimes, it does a writer good to listen to what the people have to say about your work - fans can be a good gauge of what's wrong and what can be improved.
Penders never did this, as far as I'm concerned, and he never seemed to geniunely care about what anyone thought, much less what the readers felt. He was arrogant about his work at best, a petty megalomaniac who wanted the comic to be "his" at worst, whose continued employment at Archie post-#134 became an insult to the comic. And frankly, this is one fan who's glad he's gone - the comic is much better without him.
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Wait, did someone say........DRAMA?!!
Ha, that's funny
Well, this has been pretty well discussed out. I just thought I'd add that the biggest problem I had with Ken's work at the end of his run was the dangling plotlines and the secret keeping. Like the A.N.O.N.Y.M.O.U.S. plotline. It started out interesting enough and was mysterious -- but then they went a full year without even bothering to explain or give hints about it. When A.N.O.N.Y.O.U.S finally returned I had forgotten what it was. I guess The Good, the bad, and the Unknown was going to tie into that with Ivan Kintobor...But since it didn't...
From reading the Sonic Comic, I've learned that keeping secrets from the reader is a risky manuever and you have to ask yourself if there's a benefit from keeping the secret. Holding a secret in a comic for too long can aleinate the audience, but if it's executed just right it can be fun. But I don't think Ken executed that well enough often enough.
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Oh my Gosh, shut up already. You're 18, and you're complaining like you're 7 years old, and so what if I'm not a pro? Not every writer is, so shut up please, or I'll just decide to ignore you.
sorry i'm not gonna shut up. you can ignore me if you feel like it, it's not like your opinion or life matters to me.
i said that saying " trust me i'm a writer" seemed pompous, and it does. you freaked out, and you keep saying shut up, it's the internet, i'm not talking.
btw, am i the one who's acting immature? you're the one who exploded after i said i'm not trying to bash you.
I agree 100%, with bw1979 about Ken and Karl and both of their mistakes in the comic, and with Cookirini about how Ken acted toward the fans at times. Ken should have "done his homework" when thinking about wanting to kill off Sally, and not just taking into account what fans would think but also what the powers that be(his editor Justin, Sega)would think. He probably should have come up with a backup plan to bring back Sally in a better way, and make things go smoother. I think the reason why some fans are still complaining is that both Ken and Karl left a lot of hurt when the left the comic. Ken did have some good stories though and made some good decisions, for example "Upgrade" and the decision to make Bunnie's partial robotization permament.
HS77 and Knuxfreak:
Whilst I feel that creativity's too individual to dictate to people, at 15 and 18, I don't think that either of you has enough experience behind you to even try.
Be writers in your spare time all you like, but just throwing your age and the word "writer" out there like those things matter isn't worth the pixels they're written on.
There're eleven year olds out there who write under pseudonyms and get published. There're adults who can't. Skill and maturity don't go hand in hand, even if it helps - if they did, we wouldn't be having this discussion on Penders' shortcomings or fanboys like Ian being cherry-picked.
But what both of you are're students with hobbies that you perfect, not professional authors.
And in publicly bickering like this, I think that you're both looking pretentious, immature and silly. As well as dragging the topic away from its actual theme for people who actually want to discuss the comics.
Break it up. Now.
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My vote is that he was neither - he was just an arrogant, two-faced, lying swine who was short on talent.
Indignant much? I mean, I can understand disliking the guy's writing, but I'm a little confused as to where the personal insults are coming from...
Ken did write some great stuff at first, though, in my opinion. But then a lot of it went downhill.
It seems tough to completely dislike him, though, given some of the good achievements he had, and he was the writer who came up with Julie-Su.
The spending years publicly lying about the "Sonic movie" that never materialised and that neither Sega nor even Justin Gabrie knew about - even long after it became obvious that nobody but his most ardent, blinkered fanboys believed the fairytales any more.
The publicly insulting said fans if they dared object to his behaviour or criticise his work. Not rebuffing or simply replying to - personally insulting.
The publicly insulting and lying about other creatives who didn't disagree with his grand visions, and trying to sabotage their work to force his own prominence.
The blatant lying to his bosses about all of this, despite the fact that people made copies of the public evidence all over his message board, which is how Archie knew about it in the first place.
There're a few more things I don't want to say, in order to protect third parties involved.
Those aren't just the signs of someone who isn't much of a creative or even has a ruthless streak - those're the signs of someone with a wildly distended ego and whose personal morality is seriously, seriously in question as far as I'm concerned.
Had I been being totally unkind and wanted to be needlessly personal, I could've questioned his mental health for either believing his own crap (if I wanted to be kind, I could suggest that he was simply deluded and in a world of his own, rather than simply nasty and manipulative) or being convinced that we believed it and he'd get away with it. As it was, I'm just going off what I feel is the evidence.
These guys've known me for up to nine years and'll vouch that I'm not naturally vicious and don't tend to bring personal insults into an argument.
Trust me - Penders is not a nice man.
And 'da church say?
Amen.
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Whilst I feel that creativity's too individual to dictate to people, at 15 and 18, I don't think that either of you has enough experience behind you to even try.
Be writers in your spare time all you like, but just throwing your age and the word "writer" out there like those things matter isn't worth the pixels they're written on.
There're eleven year olds out there who write under pseudonyms and get published. There're adults who can't. Skill and maturity don't go hand in hand, even if it helps - if they did, we wouldn't be having this discussion on Penders' shortcomings or fanboys like Ian being cherry-picked.
But what both of you are're students with hobbies that you perfect, not professional authors.
And in publicly bickering like this, I think that you're both looking pretentious, immature and silly. As well as dragging the topic away from its actual theme for people who actually want to discuss the comics.
Break it up. Now.
Sam, you're right, I'll shut up, truce, HS77? I'm sorry that I did that and I hope you don't stay mad, and if you choose to, I will reconize its you choice and not penalize you.
