#Scott Fulop

[sonicpanels]

Knuckles: The Dark Legion #1: "Army of Darkness"

Writers: Ken Penders & "Kent Taylor" (Scott Fulop) (Potential uncredited Layouts: Ken Penders) Pencils: Manny Galan Inks: Andrew Pepoy Colors: Karl Bollers Letters: Jeff Powell

Editor: Justin Gabrie Managing Editor: Victor Gorelick

[ramblingsonic]

Fuck me, Eggman backstory too? Well then, let's see what this has to do with everything...

[paulagnewart]

Sonic the Oz-Hog Act 6/12: Four Score and Three Games Ago!

Sonic Super Special Magazine issue 3 AU Publication Date: 4th June 2012 Price: $16.95

As our ancient Mayan forebearers gazed upon unspoiled lands from atop majestic pyramids, one can only imagine how they'd react to modern interpretations of their culture. How despite the transformations and advancements of western civilization, glyphs methodically chiseled to immense stone slabs continued to fascinate. How translations suggested the conclusion of their 13th b'ak'tun (or whichever term they preferred at the time) would unleash a time of speculation, panic and turmoil on a society often proclaiming itself as peak humanity.

Chances are they'd pause, stare at one-another, and share a good chuckle.

Such was the feeling of living through 2012. While the months slowly clicked down, prophecy morphed into profit seeking. Books, documentaries and movies sought to captivate audiences with doomsday diatribes. Local frugal publications printed tales of an impending destructive December. Murdoch's finest conservative newspaper covers heralded hastily photoshopped images of a drained Darling Harbour. Yet above all this doom and gloom, the impending extinction of all life on Earth meant something far more sinister; a grand total of zero new Sonic the Hedgehog media beyond that terrifying date.

Obviously the resultant cosmic shift would impact all of SEGA's output, but that didn't stop fans logging on to voice their outrage. "It's bad enough having to contemplate the crushing futility of a mortal universe…" wrote Shawn Nickeltenn, a youth volunteer at Marble Gardens Retirement Village who often posted under the alias of 'MightyPrower93' on the now-defunct Radio Free Robotropolis message board. "…But now there's not even the comfort of knowing that Sonic will continue with new games and comics under a new creative team in an entirely new universe for fans to complain about!"

Humour aside, the fandom didn't need rely on ancient Mayan calendars to spruike dark times for the blue boy, when financial and critical woes already plagued the House of Hedgehog. Sonic Generations started strong, as SEGA proudly boasted their 2011 offering broke all previous pre-order records in Sonic history. Critics loved it. Audiences loved it. Until sales tanked within a month against a flurry of other high profile games.

2012 marched on. Fans across the world were poised, primed, ready to celebrate their favourite masot's impending 21st birthday. Good timing too, for the rodent would undoubtedly need a stiff drink after future IGN subsidiary GameTrailers declared in early March that Sonic won the "well-deserved perch" in their Worst Blockbusters list. The beastial undertones of Sonic '06 proved horrifying enough, while Unleashed, Adventure 2 and the Olympic tie-ins "Do not deserve the cash they generated".

Between intense layoffs in their US and European divisions, and reports of SEGA suffering a predicted loss of upward 85 million dollars, rumours soon abounded of a potential series reboot coming 2014. Some hoped Nintendo or Archie would buy out SEGA, or try a new game in the style of then-hot Skylanders. Other commentators, optimistic as ever, declared "I don't see SEGA being around ten years from now. So the reboot idea seems pointless to me". It wasn't all bad however. US viewers got to see Sonic back on TV in January 2012 spruiking $380 automotive insurance. Probably the only "Progressive" media that hardcore conservative Sonic fans might enjoy.

Australian media meanwhile was enjoying Julia Gillard (and how refreshing it is to discuss a different Prime Minister for once), sadly for all the wrong reasons. By this point she was two years into top job, having successfully retained national leadership after a second spill motion from vindictive predecessor Kevin Rudd. This would not be the last time they went to loggerheads as she continued battling the vengeful former leader, entitled internal party members, and low polling brought on by a complicit conservative mainstream media. Elsewhere in June 2012, cunning linguist Flo Rida managed to whistle his way to number one on the local music charts, blowing away Carly Rae Jepsen. Men in Black 3's time travel antics weren't enough to stop Ridley Scott's Promethius bursting the box office. And in less than two months, Channel 9 would captivate audiences with their coverage of the London 2012 Olympics. Ultimately the home team reaped in a paltry 35 medals, with the swimmers having to pick up the slack by scoring ten.

A disappointing result. As would be fan reaction to Archie's third installment of their Sonic Super Special Magazine series.

Making its way to local newsagents over a week before Sonic the Hedgehog issue 235 and less than a week after Sonic Universe issue 39, the existence of this premium packaged product was already contentious among fans, with its often hedgehog hodgepodge of reprinted stories. Reviews this time around saw little improvement.

What should've been a turning point for the book with its "Exclusive story inside!" was anything but. "Oh boy, I can say I was disappointed with SSSM. The Sonic 4 plot? Tiny. To put it in a nutshell "Sonic, beats Death Egg robo, talks to Tails on Little Planet, fly off, hey look its metal." That's it. Bit of a shame really." or "Someone please tell me that the Sonic 4 ep 2 story will be more than five pages? That's all we usually get for game adaptations lately, and it's usually ridiculous.". Reader reactions ranged from "Oh geez, that sucks. You'd think for a 130-page magazine we'd get something a bit more substantial." and "Pretty much is a cas(sic) grab putting something slightly new in there to get people to buy it.", to "Yardley accidently drew Green Hill instead of Splash Hill..".

Setting aside the game adaptation, the special's remaining stories raised further eyebrows. Issue 176's 'Cracking the Empire' made the cut because... reasons, while Michael Gallagher and Patrick Spaziante's acclaimed 'Go Ahead, Mecha My Day!' ensured Archie literally gave complaining fans the finger. As opposed to 2008's Sonic Archive Volume 7, this version of issue 25's blockbuster story saw a further edit on the penultimate page, whiting out a finger used to represent the reader pressing a button. Resources such as the Archie Sonic Wiki may suggest the reason for such a change is unknown, but it's clear they did it to disguise the Caucasian pantone, making the insert feel more inclusive. Archie Sonic pulled quite a global readership for its time, thus fans could imagine themselves regardless of race in Sonic's shoe-erm, gloves, pressing the button to bring our loathed Big Round Guy crashing down.

For Aussie readers, and fans of Sally Acorn in bondage (a sentence this author never thought they'd unironically type), the inclusion of 'Reigning Cats and Dogs' was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. The two-part reprint specifically chosen to hype upcoming stories featuring Lupe and her Wolfpack proved a happy coincidence, as the latter installment completed a nearly 2-year long 'lost' Sonic story. More on that contentious matter in a later post.

As history has come to show, the world did not end right before Christmas 2012, and Sonic's adventures both in and out of comics would continue for many years to come. Much to the conviviality (or was that consternation?) of fans everywhere.

[thankskenpenders]

As I'm sure many of you are already aware, Did You Know Gaming (who have been doing some really great investigative work lately) recently put out a video on canceled Sonic games. The whole thing's worth a watch, but I have to bring it up here specifically because they talk about the plans for Sonic Chronicles 2 with a LOT of new info directly from the lead designer.

The section on how the story of Sonic Chronicles 2 would have went starts at 9:45. It's very interesting! He outlines the whole plot, including the fact that they were going to end with ANOTHER obvious plot hook for a sequel in the hopes that they or some other studio could keep the Sonic Chronicles series going indefinitely. Sonic Team even claimed they were interested in using Chronicles characters like Shade in other games. It's crazy to imagine a timeline where this might have become a pillar of the franchise.

I refuse to mourn the loss of the sequel, though, because y'all saw me stream the original. It was miserable. And with the original game selling and reviewing decently well, they would have had little reason to go back to the drawing board and overhaul that game's bizarrely hateful design.

Of course, DYKG also had to talk about the reason why the game was canceled. I was dreading this because of how often people tend to get the basic facts of the Penders cases wrong or downplay the obvious Archie Knuckles inspiration in Chronicles. But no, they did their homework! And they got the details right in part because, well... they asked Penders for comment directly. And he sent them back a MASSIVE wall of text about the whole ordeal, including some fascinating details that I don't believe I've heard before!

You can go to 15:19 in the video and scrub through to read the many, MANY screencaps of their emails from Ken, but here are the most interesting and/or hilarious tidbits to me:

#1: Perjury!

As we already knew, Ken claimed that the incomplete, photocopied contract Archie presented in court was a forgery, and that he had never signed a work for hire contract.

The judge obviously knew that one side had to be lying here, and thus was more than willing to present the case to a jury to let them decide the truth... and send whoever was deemed the liar to jail for perjury. (The judge apparently looked Ken directly in the eye when he said this, which... well, make of that what you will.)

Archie's lawyers knew that they didn't have a completely airtight case and obviously did not want to go to jail. So they decided to settle instead of going to trial in front of a jury.

(I will reiterate that Archie's arguments not working out is overall a GOOD thing, because we really do not want to set a legal precedent where corporations can "lose" a contract for a creator, make up a story about what was on the contract, and then have that hold up in court. They gotta get that shit in writing. And they didn't. They fucked up!)

#2: Sega was threatening to revoke the Sonic license!

As we knew, Sega wanted nothing to do with the comic copyright lawsuit. To them, it was Archie's job as licensee to deal with their freelancers. (Y'all watch Succession? You know how Logan loves lackeys who will eat shit for him without him having to even hear about the problem? Yeah.) And, in fact, according to Ken, Sega gave Archie an ultimatum: if they wanted their license to make Sonic comics renewed, they were gonna have to deal with Ken on their own, and cover all the costs.

Yeah, uh, this kinda makes me think that Sega being pissed about the ongoing Scott Fulop copyright case in 2016 may have been a bigger factor in Archie Sonic's cancellation than I previously thought. There was a lot going on at the time that could have contributed, but, y'know.

Anyway, Archie sued Ken for "damaging their business" largely because Sega was threatening to take away the Sonic IP. But because Archie couldn't ask Sega for help and they couldn't produce an original contract, they had to settle.

There's another detail I find funny here, though. Ken WANTED Sega to get involved in the comic copyright case, thinking that Sega would strongarm Archie into paying him the millions of dollars he wanted for "using his work without permission" so that they could be done with it. I mean, sure. I guess Sega wouldn't have cared about Archie's finances, but still. I'm not so sure that would've worked out for him.

#3: Shade!

Yes, Penders still claims he legally owns Shade, and under advice from his lawyer still intends to put out an NFT of her to put his claim to the test. Yes, it's incredible that he still hasn't put out the damn NFT. It only needs to be one image, which he already drew! The market has collapsed!

Anyway, building an argument off the legal concept of estoppel, he says that if Sega continues to not do anything about his claims that he owns Shade then, in the eyes of the court, they'll be forfeiting their claims to Shade altogether. But they aren't going to do anything because they never wanted any part in the copyright battles in the first place, and to them Chronicles is a long dead asset not worth fighting over. Why bother trying to use Shade again and giving Ken a reason to take them back to court when they can just move on? It's not like this franchise is short on characters. And so Ken can say that Shade and Julie-Su are literally the same character, and if he owns Julie-Su then therefore he also owns Shade.

Our copyright system is, indeed, a nightmare. Chronicles should have been halfway to the public domain by now.

#4: Sega's oversight on the Archie comics!

Ken says that in his first year on the series Sega only requested some dialogue changes here and there through the editor. They never requested huge script changes, and also never spoke to Ken directly. After that first year, they stopped asking for dialogue changes altogether, and Ken "had a free hand to do pretty much whatever he wanted." Yeah, no surprise there.

He does, however, say that Archie's original deal with Sega stated that they weren't allowed to create ANY new Sonic characters without informing Sega. They would've needed to make a contract every single time to get Sega's approval and make it absolutely crystal clear that Sega owned the whole cast. And then Archie just... didn't do that! And didn't tell any of the freelance creatives not to come up with new characters! Had Archie followed this rule, the trajectory of the comics would have been completely different, but there also never would've been a copyright battle in the first place.

What a shitshow. Truly.

[ceoofdestructix]

Oh Sgt. Simian... My Roman Empire 🐵💚💚

(Scott Fulop didn't take care of the Destructix, so I'll be treating them with the love and respect they deserve)

[rondo-of-blog]

On the Beginnings of The Lara-Su Chronicles

Today is, as of writing, the last day you can pre-order The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings if you want to make it into the Special Thanks section of the book. Anyone who pre-orders after will be in the app, still, but I think it goes without saying the significance of having your name make it into the first printing. You can pre-order here.

Whether you go and pre-order it now or later, or if you’re looking back at this after the book’s come out, I think it’s gonna be worth the read. Today, I feel moved to write a little about what The Lara-Su Chronicles means to me.

It all started with the Archie Sonic comics. A gag comic that metamorphosed into the bonafide superhero book it came to be known as, that was inarguably the blueprint for what Sonic comics get published today. These things aren’t predestined, no divine hand laid its knowing finger on it to move it from one to another - no, it was the freelance creators who put in the work to make Archie Sonic what it was.

And no freelancer who touched the book can be said to have had a greater impact on it than one Ken Penders. Not Mike Gallagher, who wrote the very first issues; not Scott Fulop, who oversaw the initial transformation the book underwent as the editor; not even Karl Bollers, an incredible talent whose original concepts & characters come the very closest to rivaling Ken’s.

It was Ken who wanted more for the comic, for it to become what the readers of the time wanted it to be. Ken, whose eyes were trained on the countless fan-letters that flooded in, who would test each story idea of his first on his son to determine if he was going the right direction. Sonic comics and everyone who’s helped make them over the years owe him a great deal, whether they want to admit it or not, but it was the Knuckles comic series where he truly shined.

Though it’s become fashionable in some circles to claim he ‘shoved Knuckles down reader throats,’ it doesn’t take too long a memory to remember how popular Knuckles was - and is to this day. One need only look at the incredible reaction to the reveal of Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and the very fact that there is going to be another Knuckles series on Paramount Plus, to know Knuckles stands out in the cast of Sonic the Hedgehog.

But where does Knuckles come from? Who is he? You can refer to wiki articles that note his species and status as a former rival of Sonic, you can watch YouTube videos collecting all the cutscenes for his story in the video game Sonic Adventure, but, as a ‘life-long fan’ of Sonic who is also a writer, I can tell you none of those get us a true insight into the interiority of Knuckles the Echidna.

You can restate his character’s premise like a dog chasing its tail, you can try and mine his angst at being so alone on his island until you’re blue in the face, but neither of those take the character himself in any kind of direction. Not forward, not backward, but stagnant. Only in the Knuckles comics did we see a true step forward, where words met action and the story of the echidna’s past finally had anything meaningful to say about the story ahead of Knuckles.

In the initial miniseries Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis Knuckles the Echidna, after B-stories and C-stories in the Archie Sonic series had laid the groundwork, Knuckles’s past came back for the first time. This was before Sonic Adventure, before Tikal and Chaos, and crucially… it was Knuckles’s story, first and foremost, not Sonic’s as it was in the end for Sonic Adventure.

The follow-up miniseries and ensuing ongoing comic series would expand upon Knuckles’s family, the society they had lived in the past as well as where they lived in the present, and even Knuckles himself. While the Chaotix may be familiar to Sonic fans, they and the Knuckles of these comics live lives and make decisions that SEGA’s characters have not and will not ever know.

In the Knuckles series, Knuckles doesn’t just reunite with his mother and eventually his father. He doesn’t just get into battles with greater stakes for his life than anything he had or would later experience in the video games, face foes more personal and meaningful than the leftovers Sonic leaves for him, and accomplish more than his official SEGA counterpart has in all the decades of history he’s had since. He gets a life - a home with people, not just an emerald and an empty island, to protect. And another soul, who starts off as an enemy, for him to fall in love with.

I’ve never met a Sonic fan who’s been able to reconcile this Knuckles with the echidna that SEGA calls Knuckles. In point of fact, every Sonic fan I’ve ever encountered considers the Knuckles series and every story of Ken’s that came before and after to bear so little resemblance to the source material as to no longer have the right to call itself Knuckles or to claim to have anything to do with what SEGA has done with the character. From their lips, this is an insult. To me, it is both the Knuckles comics’ ultimate badge of honor and greatest strength.

What’s the use of perpetually spinning your wheels and refusing to grow and change? What has Knuckles gained in the three decades since the character debuted, sitting on an island as the last survivor of a dead people? The right to mention every now and then he might take a break from being a guardian, and never seeming to follow-through on that? The right to star in animated shorts where he once again illustrates how little has changed since 1998?

I don’t say all this as a hater, either. I happen to like Sonic Team’s video games, I liked Sonic Frontiers, and heck - I’ve even enjoyed some of the comics they’ve printed in the current ongoing series of Sonic books. The simple fact remains that it’s 2024, Knuckles is still on Angel Island and he still has nothing but ghosts. In every way that matters, SEGA’s Knuckles the Echidna is as dead as his people.

Maybe SEGA does something new with the character in the future, maybe the writers they’ve entrusted with the comics become bolder with their plans, I don’t know and I don’t claim to know what will or won’t happen there. My point stands that today, all these years later, there still is no story told of SEGA’s Knuckles that gives him even half the dignity and respect that Ken’s stories have.

Now, all these years later, what is to become The Lara-Su Chronicles series of graphic novels is finally set to begin with the upcoming release of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings. In it, after a reprint of the unforgettably-excellent Mobius: 25 Years Later story, we’ll be seeing what awaits Lara-Su in the next chapter of her life and in the wake of her father’s death.

I’ve read literal hundreds of Sonic comics over the years. The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings is not one of them.

But that was always the beauty of the Knuckles series, now succeeded by The Lara-Su Chronicles. It started in Sonic, but emerged from it like a butterfly from a chrysalis into something unlike anything a humble caterpillar could imagine - and the sky’s the limit.

[shadowwingtronix]

"Yesterday's" Comic> Knuckles' Chaotix

BW's "Yesterday's" Comic> Knuckles' Chaotix

“My comic and the hedgehog still steals the spotlight.” Knuckles’ Chaotix Archie Comics Publications (January, 1996) WRITER: Ken Penders COLORIST: Barry Grossman LETTERER: Mindy Eisman COVER ART: Pat Spaziante & Harvo COVER COLORS: Heroic Age EDITOR: Scott Fulop “The Chaos Effect” CO-WRITER: Mike Kanterovich PENCILER: Art Mawhinney INKER: Rich Koslowski “Tag! Your It!” ARTIST: Harvo “The Hunt Is…

[themattress]

A great retrospective, though I have some disagreements.

- He doesn't feel there's any one person to blame for the "Endgame era" (which is actually the end of the Classic Era: #41 - 50 + Sonic Quest: The Death Egg Saga #1 - 3 + Sonic Super Special #1) when, in fact, there is: Justin F. Gabrie. He was the editor the comic swapped to once it became clear it might not last much longer and needed to wrap up, and he's the one who sided with Ken Penders in forcing this sudden pretentious, self-important, "it's about the WAR!" tone onto it, even when writers such as Michael Gallagher were clearly uncomfortable working with it. Scott Fulop really should have stayed editor during this time.

- There are points where he gives way too much leeway to things such as the Knuckles spin-off series or the Declining Era of the comic. Yes, I understand getting ironic enjoyment out of them, but that in of itself isn't an excuse for them. Treating the Mobius World Tour arc more harshly than those over what amounts to nitpicking feels incredibly disingenuous of him.

- Above all, his fanboyism for Ian Flynn as the "savior of the comic" means there is little to no objectivity when analyzing his works. He evidently thinks Scourge is a good character, that there's nothing wrong with the sudden derailment Fiona received, and is totally on board with the mentality that because you can reintroduce and spotlight some obscure character or element of the comics' past means that you should...a mentality that I don't agree with at all.

Just about everything else is spot-on, though. I am totally with his affection for most of the Classic Era, his love for Dr. Robotnik / Eggman as a villain, his praise of the Robotnik's Return arc and how brilliant it is, his defense of the Sonic Adventure adaptation and noting what it did right, his hyping of the Xordia Invasion arc which really does live up to that hype, the respectful acknowledgments of every good contribution that each creative on the comic's staff made - yes, even Ken Penders (ex: Julie Su!), and his recognition of the world itself as the comic's true "main character"; love it or hate it, there isn't anything like it in the franchise.

[abcnewspr]

HIGHLIGHTS FOR ABC NEWS’ ‘GMA3: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW,’ APRIL 17-21

The following report highlights the programming of ABC’s “GMA3: What You Need to Know” during the week of April 17-21. “GMA3: What You Need to Know” is a one-hour news program that airs weekdays at 1:00 p.m. EDT | 12:00 p.m. CDT on ABC, and 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EDT on ABC News Live.

Highlights of the week include the following:

Monday, April 17 — Author Gretchen Rubin (“Life in Five Senses”); Zero Waste Daniel with sustainable fashion; musician Chilli on new documentary (“TLC Forever”)

Tuesday, April 18 —American Rivers’ Matt Rice; ABC News senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer on the Supreme Court; water expert Gary Beutler; actors Michael Rainey Jr. and Gianni Paolo (“Power Book II: Ghost”)

Wednesday, April 19 — Jersey City Mayor and New Jersey gubernational candidate Steven Fulop; fashion designer and author Steve Madden (“The Cobbler”); actor John Leguizamo (“The Power”); Deals and Steals with ABC e-commerce editor Tory Johnson

Thursday, April 20 — “GMA3” The Power of Water; ABC News senior Congressional correspondent Rachel Scott on water inequality

Friday, April 21 — Faith Friday with GreenFaith senior ambassador and Global Muslim Climate Network co-founder Nana Firman; NewBeauty magazine senior editor-at-large Sarah Eggenberger

ABC Media Relations Brooks Lancaster Brooks.Lancaster@abc.com

-- ABC --

[toaarcan]

Ken Penders doesn’t *want* to make The Lara-Su Chronicles.

So Penders has been stupid on Twitter again. Normally not worth talking about unless what he’s saying is especially heinous or stupid, but this time it was followed reasonably closely by Matt McMuscles posting an episode of What Happened? about Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

Unlike most discussions about Sonic Chronicles sucking, this video included a segment voiced by SomecallmeJohnny talking about Ken Penders’ role in the game never being continued and all of its ideas being dropped from SEGA’s canon. 

Naturally, the comments contain plenty of people talking about how the game was what got Penders angry enough to finally kill the Archie Sonic comic by collapsing the house of cards of incompetence that Archie had built for him to topple.

But I think there’s a misconception here. Because I don’t think Penders wanted Archie Sonic to die.

No, Penders didn’t want to kill Archie Sonic. Why on Earth would he want to kill something he wanted to be the head writer of?

Penders knew that he’d contributed an enormous amount of the lore of Archie Sonic. Not just characters, but settings, concepts, ideas, the whole world was largely defined by him. Other writers were certainly better, but they were playing in the house that Penders built. It was rotten and riddled with woodworm, but he made it. 

Just like Ian Flynn, whose dedication to this comic allowed it to stumble on while bleeding out, and enjoy a quasi-resurrection under IDW, Penders has an undeniable passion for Archie Sonic, and refused to let go of it.

Yes, it’s a version of Sonic warped by Penders’ own ego, incompetence, confusing political views, ego, lack of self awareness, ego, absence of talent, sexism, ego, enormous daddy issues and of course, ego. But it’s passion nonetheless. It would be admirable if that dedication didn’t just kill it for everyone else, but, y’know, points where they’re due.

I think Penders believed that if he gained ownership of all those characters and concepts, they’d have no choice but to hire him back. The Archie Sonic universe couldn’t exist without what he had made, and if they wanted to continue in that form, they’d need to give him a seat at the table.

When he issued his statement on the restrictions he was placing on further use of his ideas by Archie, I don’t think he was making intentionally unreasonable demands. I don’t think he wanted to be a third executive that Ian had to please, after SEGA and Archie themselves. He wanted to supplant Ian entirely. He wanted Ian’s job.

Why else would he talk so much about what he’d do if given the job again? Why else would he keep posting about things he wanted to do with Archie but never got the chance to? Why else would he not involve anybody else, like Scott Fulop, say, until after the reboot had happened and he already had what he wanted?

That’s the smoking gun, for me. If this was really about giving back authors what they were owed by the evil company that had been making money off their hard work, he would’ve done much better as just one writer among many, all aiming for the same goal. 

Fulop’s later litigation, which probably finished Archie off, proves that, at the very least, Penders was able to get others to take up his cause. At most, that other writers had genuine grievances with Archie’s actions.

So why did he wait? Why make himself the sole enemy of the very fandom he’d be intending to sell his own comic to?

Because The Lara-Su Chronicles was never the goal.

He wanted to be in control of Archie Sonic, and if he’d achieved that, Fulop taking ownership of Mogul and everything else he did wouldn’t have helped Penders. It would’ve outright hindered him, taking away things that he would’ve wanted access to in his new role as head writer. He knew he was integral to the continued survival of the original Archie universe, and he was expecting that to give him power over the comic. He wasn’t expecting Archie to turn around and delete everything not made by SEGA, DIC, or one of their then-current employees.

He thought they needed him to survive. And then they found a way to do it without him. And that pissed him off something fierce. And when the reboot of Archie tanked after three short years, of course he celebrated. Because as far as he could see, they’d refused to do things his way, and perished. They had rejected him, and failed without him.

And that’s why he turned his sights on IDW as soon as they got the license with Ian at the helm. Because he cannot stand not being the man at the helm of the Sonic comics. It’s got to be him, it can only be Ken Penders. 

That’s why he posted his own idea for what he’d do with IDW, and it mainly consists of trying to turn IDW entirely into a revival of Archie.

And that’s why The Lara-Su Chronicles has never materialised. Because he didn’t want to make it. He still doesn’t. He wants to be writing Archie Sonic. And that’s why his lore for Lara-Su is a confusing mess of concepts stolen blatantly from SEGA and Archie. Why he’s had the legal rights to do whatever he wants with those characters for almost seven years, and has done nothing. 

He’s made one page. And it was posted online a few months after the lawsuit ended, and since then, nothing.

It’s almost tragic, really. He had a genuine passion for this work, but because of his own ego, he couldn’t allow it to survive without him. And so he killed it, and now all he can do is sit about online and hope against all sanity that it will one day return to him. And only to him. 

[aquillis-main]

As much as I have high expectations for my Original Characters, I do not have as high of expectations as Scott ‘I can’t write nor draw’ Fulop.

[ramblingsonic]

Let's start issue 34.

This (first) story seems to be just "Yet another egg-plan, and also fuckin' with Chuck and Musttski."

I'll bet 3-1 that this story has no long term impact and Chuck+Muttski are cured before the end.

[theamazingsallyhogan]

U.S. District Judge Vincent L. Briccetti  of federal court in White Plains ruled for Archie Comic Publications Inc. in a Sept. 5 court order.

Narrative Ark Entertainment LLC, a Mamaroneck company founded by Scott D. Fulop, a former Archie editor, sued Pelham-based Archie Comic Publications last year. Fulop alleges copyright infringement, deceptive business practices, unfair competition and unjust enrichment.

The lawsuit also names Sega of America, an Irvine, California video game publisher that licenses Archie Comic Publications to sell comic books based on characters, such as Sonic the Hedgehog.

Fulop worked for Archie Comic Publications from 1988 to 1991 and again from 1994 to 1996. When he left the company, he continued to create stories, characters and artwork for the publisher as a freelancer. He claims, for instance, that he collaborated with a freelancer on several Sonic the Hedgehog projects.

He discovered in 2009 that Archie Comic Publications was reprinting stories and using characters he had created.

Fulop obtained copyright registrations for his work, organized Narrative Ark and transferred his copyrights to the company.

He claims that Archie Comic Publications and Sega have failed to compensate him for his works.

Archie Comic Publications and Sega charge that Fulop is claiming false authorship and ownership of the works.

Briccetti dismissed the copyright infringement and unfair competition claims, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it is not improper to reproduce an author’s ideas without proper attribution.

The judge dismissed the deceptive business practices claim because Narrative Ark provided insufficient evidence of how Archie Comic Publications had harmed consumers.

Briccetti dismissed the unjust enrichment allegation under New York law because copyright law preempts claims under state law for matters covered by the federal law.

He dismissed the claims against Sega because the licensing agreement was not enough to establish jurisdiction in New York.

Fulop wanted to add two Archie Comic co-owners to the lawsuit, Nancy Silberkleit and Jonathan Goldwater. Briccetti denied the request, finding that the basis for adding them was “threadbare.”

Fulop also is asking the court to declare that Archie Comic Publication’s original copyright registrations are invalid. And he asked the court to dismiss the publisher’s counterclaim that Fulop slandered Archie by casting doubt on the validity of its ownership of the works.

Briccetti rejected Fulop’s slander motion, for now, because if Archie Comic Publications can establish that it is the owner of the copyrights that Narrative Ark claims to own, then Archie will have established an element of slander.

[thankskenpenders]

At this point we're used to old Archie Sonic contributors trying to do their own thing with their old creations in the wake of the Penders lawsuits, since they're now legally free to do so. Most infamously we have Penders spending over a decade working on The Lara-Su Chronicles with his huge cast of Angel Island and Acorn Kingdom characters, and we also saw Scott Fulop briefly try to pitch Mammoth Mogul as a comic superstar in his own right

But for once, we now have a former writer tweeting about how he's actually totally game for Sega to do whatever with his most famous Sonic character. And its coming from one of the most minor contributors to Archie Sonic, who arguably went on to be the biggest name who ever touched the series

That's right: prolific Spider-Man writer Dan Slott is ready to bring back Zonic the Zone Cop

Zonic did have 1 gag going for him that I really liked. He was someone who maintained order across parallel worlds from the PERPENDICULAR dimension that ran thru all parallel dimensions. So he was always standing at a 90 degree angle from everyone else. (What was I smoking?) 🤷‍♂️

There's a Sonic creator who's super protective of all the characters he's created over the years to the point where SEGA doesn't want to use ANY of them in other media. I'm saying it here and now: I do NOT have that hangup with Zonic. SEGA, go to town! I am ready to play ball!

@SEGA, I am super-serious. I would be a dream to collaborate with. If you ever want to use Zonic The Zone Cop in a movie, cartoon, video game, breakfast cereal, you-name-it... the entire process would be headache free. It'd be smooth sailing the whole way. Call me. ☎

.@SEGA, I'm not kidding. It'd go something like this: SEGA: We want to use Zonic. ME: Sounds cool, Daddy-O. SEGA: We'll pay this reasonable amount as a consultant. ME: I'm in. SEGA: We want to give him human teeth. ME: Sounds nifty. SEGA: No. Wait. We don't. ME: All good, man.

Do I actually think this is going to happen? Fuck no. Never in a million years. I don't even know how serious Dan is being here despite the claims that he's actually super serious. He knows this is a silly minor character, even if there is, in fact, still a small subset of fans intrigued by the idea of an alternate universe Sonic who's an interdimensional cop. I just think it's funny that he even thinks about Zonic at all in a world where he wrote Spider-Verse

[superbillnye]

(via Archie Wins Fulop Lawsuit Case And Fulop Is Now On The Defensive)