#Penders is a fucking asshole

[fortemelody]

i was visiting chicago last weekend and i walked around and found a comic shop. i’ve been trying to find a place that sold archie sonic comics (becus i’m a collector even of subjectively bad and not cannon media) and i happen to find a handful so i was super excited! i picked up 3 of them.

it was issue 30, 41, and the knuckles spin-off 14.

what’s so special about this you may ask?

the first two are relatively normal. knuckles 14 however is the issue where charmy’s friend (mello) gets a laced chili dog from a carnival stand and proceeds to overdose on LSD -oh i’m sorry “lemon sundrop dandelion”- and dies (and then the chaotix eventually overdose too but live obviously)

i have watched way too many archie sonic youtube review videos and so when i realized that i had found that specific issue i almost lost my shit. i treated this like it was some rare collectors item that the world has never seen. i legit almost screamed. in reality this is just another horrible pender’s story that was worth a whopping 4 dollars. but listen y’all THIS SHIT SHOW OF A COMIC IS SPECIAL TO ME IN A COMEDIC WAY OKAY ☹️☹️☹️

i have yet to read it becus it’s been a hectic week but when i do i’m going to curl up by the fireplace, relax, and absolutely laugh my ass off.

OKAY NVM DID SOME RESEARCH AND APPARENTLY ITS A 3 PART COMIC AND THE SET UP (THE PLOT THAT I JUST DESCRIBED) WAS ACTUALLY IN 13 GODDAMIT there’s way too much lore to remember help me and why did this fuckass story have to go on for so long??? i’m sure some kid in the 90s was just dying to know the ending of the LSD caper their parents definitely wouldn’t approve of them reading 😭

[heroes-rise-again]

(edit: some of my tags were remooved after I hit post so to summarize the missing tags: I rambled more and was sick more and ended up just wanting people to enjoy the iteration and reiteration of Sonc Honk and his Fronds and the world and story they live in)

sonic character analysis is like fighting over which spiderman is the objectively correct one. sonics is superheroes in the way where everyone thinks they know their guy better than anyone else and we are all WRONG

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

People being such assholes to Ian Flynn over, let’s be real, extremely minor story changes is getting to the point fucking Ken Penders is calling them out like I’m not even going to dunk on Ken here he’s right (I mean, I’d argue sonic games stories are completely fine, but that’s a personal opinion) people are genuinely just being an absolute prick to this guy for literally no reason. And like, Ken pretty notoriously doesn’t like Ian at all. Genuinely if you’re enough of an asshole to Ian Ken's like “guys what the fuck are you doing this is extremely stupid” then you’ve gone way beyond the pale. It’s not even funny it’s kinda just sad Ian Flynn literally has done nothing wrong and people are calling for his fucking death over making minor changes to a sonic storyline like. I'm not even the biggest Flynn fan I'm the Metal Sonic fan of course I don’t agree with all his decisions but like he’s just a genuinely cool seeming dude who just wants to write engaging stories he should not be getting death threats.

[ponett]

Just checked out your Ken Penders myths post. You think after learning all this stuff about how some stuff is misunderstood or exaggerated about him that you might have a more softened view of him than you might have had previously? Maybe even think that his large hatedom is misplaced? Seeing all that makes me feel less mad since it looks like he didnt go out of his way to fuck Archie or anything.

i definitely think the hatedom around penders is exaggerated, yeah. some of the shit people will say about him is wild, and i've tried (in vain) to correct people where i can. people get the facts of the lawsuits wildly incorrect and make it sound like archie never did anything wrong. people also take all sorts of shit out of context to try and paint him as a Literal Actual Child Predator for wanting to write typical dumb teen soap opera drama with sonic characters. people are just always frothing at the mouth looking for any excuse to dunk on him

that being said, i still think he's a weird asshole who never misses a chance to rile up reactionary nerd hate campaigns against any other sonic comic contributors he's perceived as being against him, particularly ian flynn. and also he still does shit like tracing the work of other artists, or threatening legal action because the sonic movies depicted knuckles as having a dad, which is an idea he thinks he owns. so some of his negative public image is definitely deserved. but i also have to pity the guy

[toaarcan]

I've seen a fair few people make videos where they discuss how much the quality of the Archie book jumped up after Flynn took over (which it did, let's not downplay how much better he was than Penders), whether as a focus of the main topic or just as part of a wider statement, and there's something that baffles me about the B-roll that often gets chosen for this sort of statement.

Sonic and Tails' reconciliation from Issue 179 is normally part of the examples of things Flynn fixed, and I fucking hate that scene and think it's one of the lowest points of Sonic's entire character in the book.

And like, on some level, it makes sense why people look at that and go "Yes, this is better", because Penders broke the friendship between Sonic and Tails and Flynn repaired it, that's good. Bit weird that it took him 19 issues to get there but whatever, he's only got so many pages a month.

But it's the way Flynn has it happen that pisses me the hell off, because it ends up repeating one of the major mistakes of Penders' run, and people just kinda ignore that.

Sonic tells Tails that his entire relationship with Fiona was a farce, and he only agreed to be her boyfriend because he thought that doing so would make Tails move on from his unrequited crush.

So first of all this is a really stupid plan. Like, hey, Sonic, you're friends with Amy Rose, why did you ever think "My crush isn't single" would convince anyone to stop crushing? I know this version of Sonic isn't far out from saying that he "takes everything Amy says with a grain of salt" (which feels unbelievably mean to Amy. I've never been an Amy fan but even when my opinion of her was at its lowest, I never thought she deserved that shot across the bow), and I know Tails is generally treated as being somewhat more mature than Amy despite them being the same age in Preboot Archie, but this nonetheless should've been a major sign that this was a stupid plan.

But the thing that pushes it over the edge into "Sonic you unbelievable asshole" is that it's very, very apparent that Fiona didn't know. She probably still doesn't know. He was using her.

And I know some people will argue that Fiona was also using Sonic, but she makes it clear that she was desperately trying to find the thrill she got from being with Scourge with someone who wasn't, y'know, this creep.

In 172, she describes Sonic as 'boring', and no wonder she did, it was fake the entire time and nobody told her.

(This is part of why I dislike the take that Fiona has much more agency as a villain, because she basically never makes an informed decision under Ian's pen. She has no idea that Sonic never loved her-though knowing that would probably only make her angrier- and she has no idea that Scourge is an omnicidal maniac who has already tried to kill her by proxy at least once. She never really knew either of her partners, despite her relationships to them being the driving force of her character)

At the end of the day, this story reduces Fiona to an object to be fought over, without her ever being fully aware of that, and the resolution of it all isn't making things right for her, it's having the two protagonists involved make up, while she gets left stuck with Scourge, who has demonstrated the capacity to kill her if it suits his goal.

[canyoufucksoniccharacters]

CAN YOU FUCK MILES "TAILS" PROWER?

...

APRIL FOOLS, ASSHOLES. THAT'S A CHILD.

NO COURTESY FOR THIS ONE. NO FLOWERY SPEECH. NO PROPER MANNERS. WE ARE GOING FOR THE FUCKING THROAT ON THIS ONE. THE LARGER FURRY COMMUNITY HAS INCURRED YEARS' WORTH OF BUILT UP WRATH UPON THE BLOG'S OWNER AND IT MUST BE RELEASED. JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU FOR FIVE SECONDS STOP DRAWING PORN OF THIS CHARACTER I CAN'T GO 5 TURNS WITHOUT SEEING HIM THERE HE'S EVERYWHERE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON THE CROSS

THAT'S A CHILD. THAT'S A FUCKING CHILD. OH THE AGES AREN'T CANON ANYMORE RIGHT HE'S BEEN THERE SINCE THE START OF THE SERIES RIGHT? HEY DICKHEAD HE WAS LITERALLY ALWAYS PORTRAYED AS A CHILD, HIS AGE IN THE SONIC 2 MANUAL WAS LISTED AS 8, THE CARTOONS CONSISTENTLY PORTRAYED HIM AS A KID AND AOSTH EVEN MADE SURE TO LET THE VIEWER KNOW SONIC ALWAYS SAW HIM AS HIS YOUNGER BROTHER. WANT MORE PROOF? YOU WANT MORE PROOF? FROM A MORE MODERN SOURCE, WITHOUT NUMBERS EVEN BEING STATED? HERE! HERE YOU GO! HERE YOU FUCKING GO!

There is undeniably, long-running, canon proof that Tails is, and has always been meant to be a child. "Oh, just age him up" Yeah yeah, real nice of you sit there imagining what a child would look like as an adult so you can fuck that character. Fun stuff, really. That was sarcasm, by the way. OH, AND DON'T EVEN THINK OF RESORTING TO ARCHIE FOR THIS ONE.

First of all, this is a Penders-ism. The whole Light Mobius plotline seems to have been thought up by him, same for coupling Tails with Mina. All the romance stuff in Archie involving Tails is really weird as is, anyways. And if you're really over here looking to a super niche strange part of pre-SGW Archie just have an excuse to be able to fuck the character who's been known for being the child prodigy of the series, you really, really need to reconsider trajectory here. Please, for the love of god. It's fine if you want to imagine Tails as an adult for writing opportunities, or to examine what that would look like from a design perspective, maybe play with the whole Kitsune angle and mess around with the tail count, but if you're doing all that for the sake of being able to fuck him, in no universe could I ever endorse that, and I really think no one should. It's fucking weird. Fuck off.

If you want to fuck Tails, in any way shape or form, you are banished from setting eyes on this blog. There will not be mercy. There will not be opportunity for negotiation. You will be cast off to realms known not to mankind. You shall never be seen again.

YOU CANNOT, WILL NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE ABLE TO FUCK MILES "TAILS" PROWER. AND THAT. IS. FINAL.

Anyways, back to normal posting. Goodness, I don't know what overcame me there. We shall never speak of this again.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

ken penders is actually decently progressive he just is a massive dick to everyone. he is fucking weird with a lot of stuff like female characters (not just them there’s some weird stereotyping shit with blatant poc coding in some of his sonic comics) but he’s in general pretty supportive. he’s just really self centred and an asshole to everyone around him.

SO UM

HUH???????????????????????????????

[nuttyrabbit]

Christmas has come early for the Sonic Fandom it seems, because that Penders-sponsored Scourge comic has been canceled!

And not only that, but it's even come with a Phil Fish-tier "explanation" too!

You can just feel the salt oozing from every single word.

Now normally I'd feel bad for a creative team shuttering a project like this, but considering everything that's come out about the people running the project, as well as the fact they gave Ken Penders money for something he shouldn't own to begin with, I'm instead filled with exuberant joy at this piece of news.

Rest in Piss, "Scourge the Speed Demon"

[sharpieskunk]

So I told my brother (the same guy who said Fallout 4 was better than New Vegas) about the Sonic Comic ending and how Penders is a root cause; and he said that everyone who thinks Penders stole his contract and that he’s a big reason it ended is an idiot.

desire to set him on fire and toss him screaming into the grand canyon intensifies

[nuttyrabbit]

How in the ever loving fuck has Penders managed to maintain such a fanatically loyal fanbase despite his…well, EVERYTHING?

Because people are fucking morons, simple as

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i am in Awe that this series can fuck up the end of sonic adventure which is Literally Fucking Spelled Out in the game and then like five issues later get a fucking spot on metal sonic when he has had literally like One line in anything at this point. Like I’ve seen official media way after this by good writers fuck him up and make him essentially just a glorified Badnik, but this series is the one that gets that deep down he's exactly as much of a cocky asshole as Sonic. Okay. Sure. I know there’s multiple writers and this isn’t written by Penders (if Penders wrote Metal I have the feeling I'd explode) but it’s still such a funny contrast.

Tails unfortunately still looks terrible in this issue, but hey, Sonic’s looking pretty good now!

[sharpieskunk]

When you know the absolute legal minefield that Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood spawned, this set of images becomes simultaneously hilarious and paradoxical

[nuttyrabbit]

Ken Penders plans to sue paramount since he thinks the echidna tribe leader in the 2nd sonic movie is his locke character.

Yeah I saw. What a fucking clown lmao

[nuttyrabbit]

Ya gotta admit though, some of Penders comics were unintentionally hilarious . There was one where he had a cute cartoon bee die of LSD overdose and a bunch of other where the characters were hilariously off-model.

Listen, showing that shit to people not in the know is always a fun time

[nuttyrabbit]

Oh yeah, Ken Penders plagiarized a famous Holocaust poem for one of the Knuckles comics, and when called out on it, said and I quote "It is okay because a Jewish friend of mine approved of it"

How to grow more confident about your fanfic:

1. Remember that you didn’t alter real life war poems to relate to the family tree of Knuckles the Echidna in an official licensed comic series.

2. That’s it. Your confidence has boosted already.

[nuttyrabbit]

Seriously what is it with Ken penders and turning Sonic into a jerkass that will make out with anything even remotely female? does he think that being a jerkass playboy makes sonic cool?

Yes, yes he does. He's even said that that's how he views the character and that's what makes him cool.

As you can tell he doesn't get Sonic at all