Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ken Fu#%!ng Penders
71 Plays2 years ago
For today's episode, Derek follows up on last week's Sonic the Hedgehog coverage to give Corinne all of the details about Ken Penders and the breakdown at Archie Comics.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Comically Pedantic'
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Eric L. Chase, and joining me again on this episode is the wonderful Corinne Levy. Wow! That is my impression of R2-D2 saying hi.
00:00:35
Speaker
Is that how R2-D2 says hi? Because that sounds more like a scream to me. Does it? Oh, well, yeah. Because it screams a bit like, ah! No, wait. No, that's not it. This is going to be terrible to edit. It worked. It's fun. I ran out of things to say. So I'm just going to make sounds now. I can just start by asking you what your bright spot is.
Concert Highlights with Corinne
00:00:59
Speaker
Oof. Well, I got to hang out with your lady.
00:01:04
Speaker
Ayo, we went to a concert. It was a lot of fun. She's a good concert pal. So we had a good time. And yeah, we saw the front bottoms. We love the front bottoms.
00:01:20
Speaker
uh i've seen them maybe like this might have been my third or fourth time seeing them so i was hyped um and yeah it was a good time that probably is my highlights everything else has been stressy spaghetti but we are rocking and rolling everything's gonna be fine how are you doing i i'm doing all right austin actually gave me
Significance of 'Mouse' Comic
00:01:47
Speaker
a book yesterday that I started reading this morning. I very much enjoyed it. It's called Mouse Now. It's a collection of essays about the comic book mouse and its cultural, historical relevance and impact. I feel like I can picture mouse, like just the imagery, but I couldn't tell you what it's about.
00:02:14
Speaker
So Mouse is like, it's kind of an autobiographical story about being a Polish Jew during the Holocaust. It was the first comic book to win a Pulitzer. That's cool. Yeah, so like it- I wanted to go on a Pulitzer for what they were doing.
00:02:40
Speaker
So it was what they were doing. So I mean, how could I have known that they won a Pulitzer? Art Spiegelman interviewed his father, who was alive during the Holocaust.
00:02:54
Speaker
A lot of that is what is in the book. So it's, it's really sad and a very, like just a very honest take on what it was like and how like that affects you moving forward. Uh, how that like, how bigotry of all kinds really kind of shapes you. And like, just because you were.
00:03:20
Speaker
Um, persecuted at one point doesn't mean you can't hold your own bigotry. This is all kinds of interesting stuff. Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. I mean, I'm just thinking about it now because Polish, but I had some really good pierogies the other day. And I think that's my second. It was really good. It was this new bar and grill and the woman who runs it, she's like from Poland and.
00:03:47
Speaker
I was not expecting that sharp turn we just took. I like them a lot. I got a good set of pierogies, some roasted beets and sauerkraut, a little bit of horseradish, a little bit of mustard, a little bit of kielbasa, a little bit of a lot and it was great. I had a good time. Shout out to Polish cuisine on a brand new note.
00:04:11
Speaker
I do like that. I guess I did bring it down too. We were talking about bright spots and I was just like, let me talk about this very depressing thing. But the bright spot itself was that I got the essays and those are really cool. It's a good gift. It is definitely a gift that is like on brand for you. You're a bitch who loves essays.
00:04:33
Speaker
I do. I am very deep into heavy research on stuff. The more analytical you can get about something, the deeper I go into it.
00:04:48
Speaker
Which is, hey, that brings us to what we're gonna talk about today. It's for you to do analytical deep dives and me to be like, wow. That's how I feel about that. We are the left and the right brain. I wonder who the right brain is.
Evolution of Archie Comics and Sega's Role
00:05:06
Speaker
So last time we discussed the beginning of Archie Comics series, Sonic the Hedgehog, and how one man wove his personal mythology and history directly into the character Knuckles,
00:05:17
Speaker
While there may have been many contributors to the comics at the time, Ken Pinders was the only one who seemed to make such an indelible mark on the weird stories being crafted for a comic book that was ostensibly still based on the video game series being made by Sega and for children.
00:05:34
Speaker
Sonic had, over the years, drifted further and further from his origins, but corporate mandates still required the comic to reconcile the differences with each new game release. This is how we were introduced to Eggman, even though the evil Dr. Robotnik had been killed off earlier in the series. Sega seemed happy to allow the comics to create their own universe, so long as they could be used as a complement to the games. This all changed, though, with a seemingly innocuous entry into the series.
00:06:04
Speaker
In June of 2007, Sega of America Incorporated, Sega Europe, and Canada-based development studio BioWare Corp announced their partnership in creating a Sonic video game for the Nintendo DS. So two Sega companies, essentially, are coming together, which, again, they all have their own different... Yeah.
00:06:32
Speaker
bibliography of, or biography, I don't know, a bio, a bib, a Bible of sonic. I don't know what words are. I just had an aneurysm. All of the different sonic backstories and companies that follow this little blue guy.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, so at this point, Sega has just decided we're just going to go with what is in the video games, right?
00:07:06
Speaker
And at this point, they've also done like Sonic Adventure. They've definitely fleshed out the lore of the Sonic video game series. And the comic books are just kind of like a separate thing. So they're just letting them run wild. And just every so often being like, all right, we just did this thing. You have to adapt this video game because that's how we're going to bring in, it's an advertisement. It's part of marketing, you know. Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
So the different Sega's teamed up with BioWare and BioWare was known for doing like RPGs. And the game that they were doing was notable for being the first and so far only RPG entry in the Sonic series. And it featured Knuckles the Echidna being captured as well as the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds.
00:07:58
Speaker
In the game's lore, 4000 years prior saw two rival civilizations coexisting peacefully with each other. Hey everyone, this is where I get to break in and let you know that my dog made a whole bunch of noise while we were recording and I didn't quite catch all of it. So I have to rerecord part and I'm basically just telling you that the two clans are the Knuckles clan and the Nocturnus clan. From here everything should play just as normal.
00:08:26
Speaker
I'm sorry.
Ken Penders: Legal Battles and Influence
00:08:28
Speaker
I'm just thinking of like sonic looking bats. There are sonic looking bats. Are there? I feel like that would be so cute. There's a character named Rouge who shows up and I am not a huge fan of her design because I don't really think it screamed bat to me. A chipmunk lady doesn't look like a chipmunk either.
00:08:51
Speaker
They also give Rouge like big mammalian breasts. It's just very weird to have like... With it odd, because I mean a lot of the other ladies are... They're just, you know... No, they're more slender. Borderline unisex look, because it's just... Again, it's for kids. Yeah. Like, I don't know.
00:09:18
Speaker
That's just my opinion. Um, but I guess also in the defense of Sonic, none of them really look like the animals that they're supposed to look like. Yeah. That's true. Like Sonic doesn't necessarily look like he's got quills, but he doesn't have like a hedgehog specific appearance. Yeah. And then eight, I never remember what Amy is. Amy's a hedgehog. She's also a hedgehog. Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
I wouldn't have known. That is okay, because we understand that. That's the point. We're just supposed to believe. Yeah, I mean, I just looked up a character and they introduced a character that's a tenric.
00:10:05
Speaker
And it's like a hedgehog cousin, almost. It's another rodent. But they make the character kind of look like a bunny. Like it's very difficult to figure out, like if you were to show me this picture, I could not tell you what animal they were based on. Well, and I thought for the longest time that knuckles was also a hedgehog.
00:10:32
Speaker
I mean, he's an echidna, which is also pretty similar to a hedgehog. Yeah, but I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have known unless someone actualied me, which I think is exactly how I learned. But I wouldn't have known. I just know he's the red one.
00:10:54
Speaker
And that's okay. So it's the Knuckles clan and the Nocturnus clan. Now in terms of understanding what this whole situation is gonna unfold to, do I personally need to know what that means? Do I need to know the plot of the game?
00:11:15
Speaker
And what's going wrong with lawsuits and things to come? Very slightly. And I'm going to give you a brief overview and you'll figure out very quickly why it matters.
00:11:30
Speaker
So, the Knuckles Clan was the keeper of the Master Emerald and they sought to expand its territories. The Nocturnus Clan declared a war against their counterparts and eventually the Knuckles Clan home was lost when the events of Sonic Adventure happened and the whole island floated into the sky. So it's just a floating island. Okay. Meanwhile, the Nocturnus Clan and everything associated with it disappeared for unknown reasons never to be seen again. For those who had been following the Sonic comic,
00:12:01
Speaker
This all sounds pretty familiar. The creators at BioWare had decided to open the toy box and take inspiration from everywhere within Sonic Media, including the Archie Comics. In fact, one person on Tumblr posted pictures of the Sonic Comics in the archives of BioWare with stickers that labeled them as the property for research purposes. Okay.
00:12:24
Speaker
The Nocturnus Clan was a direct reference to the Dark Legion from these early comics. Both were groups of ancient echidnas that were sealed away in a Twilight Zone or cage, depending on which media you follow. The game also featured... Oh, go ahead. So BioWare was using good old Kenny P's work as a reference
00:12:52
Speaker
to their video game. But under technical paperwork, potentially, it's a lot of P's. I feel like alliteration, everyone. But so under technicality, the comics that Ken makes is not technically under Sega. So he would have to, like there's some sort of royalties or like,
00:13:21
Speaker
We're gonna get into that in just a little bit. So the game also featured a character named Shade, who was a female echidna that defected from the Nocturnus clan, which is again heavily based on the character Julie Sue, a female echidna that defected from the Dark Legion.
00:13:38
Speaker
So like they're really pulling a lot from this. Um, and this is where from the comics. Okay. Right. This is where a lot of that trouble starts to creep in. Julie Sue was clearly a favorite of Penders. He put a lot of time and backstory into her and the other akin to characters, even writing that she soul touched knuckles, which essentially was just a way of making them soulmates at first sight. Like they look at each other and they're bonded for all of eternity.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah, he made an implied love interest for his comics. Yeah, and this is expanded on at one point when Penders put together an entire family tree for his echidnas, unexpectedly revealing that Julie Sue and Knuckles are distant cousins, pointing again to the more Dungeons and Dragons slash fantasy inspiration that Penders has had for the series, because that is a weird thing that like a lot of fantasy stories go with. So he made Knuckles' love interest, like his main love interest is distant cousin? Yes.
00:14:39
Speaker
Why? Why? It is a very specific thing. Even Jane Austen would make the bad guy of almost all of her books, the distant cousin that wanted to marry the main woman, and then she rejects him and goes with like some other, whoever, Mr. Darcy. I'm just so confused.
00:15:08
Speaker
It's just a weird trope that keeps showing up in a lot of these fantasy books and fantasy movies and things like that. And I think he was just really inspired, but I mean, I can't speak for Ken Penders, but I can say that that seems to be... It seems to me like he's getting a lot of his muses from... Right. Okay. But in short, Penders was quite upset that his creations were being used for a video game without proper compensation.
00:15:36
Speaker
He felt he should be paid for this if they're taking something that he kind of created. Okay. To further explore the implications of this, we should talk about how work for major comic book publishers such as DC and Marvel, as well as work for franchise properties such as Sonic, are handled legally.
00:15:55
Speaker
Most of these cases are handled as work for hire, meaning they fall under the collective work provision. The copyright act defines collective work as a work such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions constituting separate and independent works in themselves are assembled into a collective whole.
00:16:17
Speaker
Major publishers. What is the dumb version of that? A bunch of people working on a series of things together.
00:16:26
Speaker
for a collection so like if if i were to go in and keep it just as simple as possible you're doing a comic book you have multiple people working on a single thing and that is being published for a company and that company is the one that is uh contracting everyone to work on
00:16:48
Speaker
So it's almost like a freelance work where you're getting like a project rate and you're hired by a big company, but you're hired just for that project or comic. That is exactly how, so most of these publishers often include specific language in their contracts that require freelancers to sign away any and all rights that they may have in contributions to a character or a series over to the publisher themselves. So kind of like,
00:17:17
Speaker
I don't know how recent anymore, but recently when a lot of the Marvel things and DC things were being made, a lot of the character creators in the comics
00:17:28
Speaker
Like a lot of the comic characters, you know, like the writers and things we're getting writers. Yeah. Holy shit. My brain has broken today. I'm so sorry. So the people who wrote the comics are upset with like the MCU because they're not getting like their royalties is probably not the proper term, but like they're not getting their money for the use of their characters.
00:17:55
Speaker
Right and the argument they should as they think that they should be getting which I mean like hey I don't blame you you made the you made Captain America yeah the argument here if you're looking at it from a publisher standpoint is well we paid you this is clearly work for hire and we own the thing that you created
00:18:16
Speaker
the argument from a creator standpoint is you are making millions of dollars, sometimes billions of dollars off of something that like I, like it is my creative work that you were using. And cause like, especially if like,
00:18:38
Speaker
They're using the story that you made or the character that you created like if someone hires like if DC hires
00:18:49
Speaker
me, muhaha, I don't really hear anything. But if like, or Steve, DC hires Steve to create a new superhero. And probably DC because they're a business, has a brain in the back of their head being like, if this works well, we want to make merch, we want to make movies, we want to do more than comics. Like, but they're trying to basically swindle into just getting the bare minimum.
00:19:16
Speaker
out of, yeah, okay. I mean, that's shitty. Yeah, I mean, how these agreements tend to favor large corporations at the expense of the workers is an important conversation that I think should be had.
Archie Comics Legal Complications
00:19:29
Speaker
As it has directly led to several Marvel contributors needing to seek help with medical bills while Marvel Entertainment rakes in billions off of their contributions. That's not specific to Marvel, as you just mentioned with DC, it's the same thing.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah and like if you know if BioWare was gonna make this video game and it's like well they didn't really like sure they put the effort in to like making the visuals and making the mechanics of the game and everything but if you've essentially taken the story
00:20:08
Speaker
And it's one thing, like if it's in public domain, I mean, like everybody does their own version of like Snow White now or whatever because it's in public domain or Sherlock Holmes or whatever. And like, you know, that's fair game obviously, but this clearly isn't because it's still being written. Like there should have been some discussion at least with like, was there even a discussion with the comic company or
00:20:37
Speaker
That I don't know. My guess is no. The understanding is probably just that it was Sega who owned everything because it's being licensed out. Therefore, they wouldn't have to ask because it's just a Sega property.
00:20:57
Speaker
it would be like going to Warner Brothers and being, and saying like, I'm making a Mickey Mouse, or I guess not Mickey Mouse, because that's Disney. But you were going to Warner Brothers, like I'm making a Looney Tunes story, and I'm going to directly reference a Batman, which is owned by Warner Brothers. Like you don't really have to get that cleared, necessarily. You know? Yeah, I guess so.
00:21:29
Speaker
For those that also don't know, there is a website, an initiative called the Hero Initiative. It's an organization that helps bring financial support to many of the comic book creators who've been left without healthcare or health services or anything like that, largely because of low royalty payments.
00:21:52
Speaker
That organization exists entirely because this is how the comic book industry works. It is so many of these people are left without proper health care or anything like that because they're not considered employees. They're considered entirely freelance. Yeah, and when you have an industry like that,
00:22:15
Speaker
wouldn't it would be so difficult to like unionize like yeah you have like a writer's guild but i know that's really with like entertainment more than like literature yes you know and there is uh image comics had unionized um but that's also it's not like the creators themselves it's more of like the people working
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. So it gets a little bit more wonky there. Yeah, I getcha.
00:22:49
Speaker
So these agreements between the creators and the companies are legal, even though they can be quite shitty, and they have been upheld for many decades. So it would seem that Ken Penders was out of luck. He even said, as such, in an interview with Sonic HQ stating, quote, part of the contract Sega has with Archie stipulates that any and all characters created in the Sonic and Knuckles comic books become property of Sega.
00:23:16
Speaker
The sole exceptions being Sonic Super Special 7 and 10 for obvious reasons. I don't really know why, obvious reasons. I did not feel the need to go and look those up.
00:23:24
Speaker
Thus, Sega now owns everything I created in the Knuckles series, including Locke, Lara Lee, and Julie Sue, to say nothing of characters like Jeffery St. John, Hershey, Dr. Quack, and Robba the Hedge, to name but a few. As a professional, I knew that going in and had no qualms at the time. Now that I'm creating my own series, however, I must admit certain ideas will probably never make it into the Sonic books as I'm keeping those for my own use.
00:23:51
Speaker
So going into this, he knew this is sort of like how the business is done. And he has in the past said, everything I create is owned by Sega. Yeah. Well, I mean, like at least he knew about it. Like, I guess.
00:24:07
Speaker
I'm not trying to be like a hard-ass Ken, but like at least like this company didn't try and pull wool over your eyes because I mean been there done that. But that's a different podcast though. So he knew about it, but what's this about stories that he's saving for later? Because would he even be able to use the characters?
00:24:32
Speaker
Oh, this is going to get so much more complicated. So with the understanding that he was working as a freelancer in a work for hire scenario and that he owned nothing of the works he created, Penders decided to copyright his characters. The U.S. Copyright Office sent letters to both Sega and Archie informing them that if this matter wasn't addressed, the copyright would be given to Penders.
00:24:58
Speaker
While the actual filing only mentions the text and art created, Penders would loudly proclaim that this would mean that he would own the characters. And I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really know if that holds any water, but it is clearly a thorny issue for anyone trying to publish a comic.
00:25:12
Speaker
This, of course, led Archie to Sue Penders. And as part of the suit, he signed an affidavit explaining exactly why he felt it was appropriate that he take this action. So he went through and said, I created all of these characters for the Sonic the Hedgehog slash Archie Universe series. And I am copywriting. And it is an extensive list. It is like 200 characters that he did.
00:25:40
Speaker
So all of them that he made for Sega. Yes. Archie, which in his contract says whatever he makes is owned by Sega. He he copyrighted for himself. Is that what you're saying? Yes. And if you seem like a thing he could even do to begin with, because if in your contract it says whatever you make goes to Sega immediately,
00:26:10
Speaker
then you essentially are just like saying, fuck your contract because you're trying to copy or you have copyrighted that. That doesn't make really any sense. I feel like that's really counterproductive. You've caught on to why this is going to get very complicated. Oh, great. So, uh, Penders wrote- We think I am gay.
00:26:36
Speaker
Penders wrote in his affidavit,
00:26:55
Speaker
Before undertaking these copyright office filings, I wanted to make absolute certain of my position as the owner of all rights in the works I created, which were published in the Sonic Comics. I therefore telephoned Victor Gorlick, editor-in-chief of Archie Comics, in December of 2008. During that conversation, I requested that Archie return to me original artwork still in its possession and provide me with copies of any agreement I may have signed with Archie Comics relating to any of the freelance work I did for them.
00:27:25
Speaker
Gorlak told me that no such documents existed. Following our December 2008 telephone conversation, I reached out to Gorlak several more times by email and telephone seeking written confirmation that no documents existed. But Gorlak never provided the requested written confirmation, nor returned my original artwork to me.
00:27:46
Speaker
Nonetheless, with Gorlak's confirmations that there were no agreements between myself and Archie Comics that impacted on my ownership of all copyrights in the works I created for the Sonic Comics, I proceeded with the copyright application filings. So, if you were following along here, Penders is actually making a pretty valid argument.
00:28:08
Speaker
If there was, in fact, no contract stipulating the exact nature of his relationship with Archie and Sega, then the works he created could reasonably be understood as his own. So the contract we mentioned with Sega were like all the characters and whatever he makes for the comics goes to Sega. They can't find it, is that what you're saying? Yes, that is exactly what's going on. Okay.
00:28:39
Speaker
So because at first, man, I'm going to go through a roller coaster here and I'm just going to preface it because I have a feeling my opinion is going to change at least 12 more times. But my brain's on fire right now and everyone needs to feel that because I refuse to go down alone. So first, I'm thinking that Ken's just trying to be sneaky.
00:29:06
Speaker
And honestly, I don't like sneaky people. I am a person, a little peep into my character. When I sign up for a job, I commit to the job and I follow the jobs rules. If I have to tell you a month in advance that I want time off, I'm going to tell you probably a month and a half in advance.
00:29:29
Speaker
I don't like screw people over and clearly i don't understand that a business is a business i care too much about people so i need to tell you and i refuse to be an inconvenience that i will follow the rules i am lawful good to my car unfortunately i am.
00:29:47
Speaker
So I don't like when people try to be sneaky. There are obviously some points where I'm like, if you are in an unethical business and they're being shitty to you, screw them over. I don't care. That's fine. Protect yourself. But if you're just going to be sneaky for the sake of being sneaky because you want a little thing,
00:30:07
Speaker
and you just don't want to follow the rules and you just want to get what you want, then I'm going to be annoyed with you. So I'm starting off to be annoyed with Ken, but if you're going to basically not have a contract, like if you're going to lose your paper trail as a business, then clearly maybe you're the one screwing people over and maybe I shouldn't be liking you very much. So I don't, I don't know how I feel right now. I'm confused.
00:30:37
Speaker
So with all of this in Pender's mind, he did file nearly 200 copyrights to protect what he viewed as his intellectual property. In response, Archie produced two photocopies of the legal agreement between them and Pender's signed in 1996. But there were a few problems with this. Number one, as photocopies, their legal validity was in dispute.
00:31:03
Speaker
Number two, Penders maintained that documents were faked, stating that a company that had been doing graphic reproduction for decades had sufficient know-how to reproduce forgeries, which is, okay, fair. I mean, it's a weird thing to be like you're putting forward a fake document. I would want a little bit more info. Number three,
00:31:27
Speaker
Penders had started at Archie in 1993, not 1996. And thus, even if the contracts were judged valid, they might not cover the first years of work, including when he created the Dark Legion characters that were the alleged inspiration for Sonic Chronicles.
00:31:45
Speaker
This part could be in dispute though, as according to the contract, a creator gives Archie the rights to any past, pending, or future contributions to comics published by Archie. Archie had previously been successful in arguing that the contracts covered content produced for Archie that were made before the contract was signed, so it's iffy there.
00:32:07
Speaker
And the last part of this is that the paperwork seemed incomplete with several boxes never filled in and no mention of Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog or Knuckles. So then this is on the Archie side. Yeah. They, they said we have photocopies of a document you signed in 1996 that says we have the rights to the things that you're creating. And because, and the court doesn't see Archie's photocopies.
00:32:37
Speaker
It's iffy. The court hasn't made a decision on this. It's just like, we don't know if this is going to be valid or not. Okay. But it sounds like maybe the Archie comics has their, for the most part, has their contracts together.
00:32:58
Speaker
Maybe. Okay. My God. If anyone hasn't learned anything yet from this, it's just be good at paperwork. Keep your receipts and keep a folder. Always have a folder. Why are people walking around without folders or binders?
00:33:18
Speaker
Why? You're an adult. Look at Trapper Keeper. Get a little, like, a little, uh, uh, hold on. Get a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper. Yes. Everything in that. Get the felt markers. Yes. Color the whole thing. Put a sequin on it. Keep your medical records in there. Keep your taxes in there.
00:33:44
Speaker
So, in August of 2011, depositions began in the Archie vs. Pender's case. Pender's attorney contacted former Archie staff and claimed that they were made aware of an issue that happened in 1996. Archie had been storing contracts in boxes at their on-site warehouse, but found that an unknown number of creator agreements had been destroyed.
00:34:08
Speaker
When this happened, the company provided creators with revised contracts, which essentially would replace what was lost. It's possible that Penders was one of the creators asked to sign these documents, and that this is the source of the photocopied 1996 documents of questionable validity. Which is pretty interesting, right? So like if they have a photocopy of it,
00:34:30
Speaker
then that means that he probably signed that thing, right? You know, like what caused the destruction of the documents? Was it like, Oh no, a small fire is broken out into the warehouse. Or was it like people's contracts were expired kind of situation? Like if you have like a three year contract or something and those are finished,
00:34:57
Speaker
I've read slightly different things about why that happened. It largely came down to they said that there was incompetence on someone on their part. And I believe it was like a fire, but it could have been something else. It was like a very small, but it took out these contracts. An incompetent fire. Yeah.
00:35:21
Speaker
But if you're also paying attention, that means that it's not that they lost the first contract. That means they also lost the second one because they only have photocopies of it. Like if they don't have the original, that means they lost both of these contracts. Is it that they don't have the original or that they're like...
00:35:45
Speaker
Oh, how do I, how do I, how do I explain? Um, cause like there's some places where it's like you should just have a photo, like a copy of your birth certificate. You don't feel safe to take your birth certificate to the place. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, if you were going to go to court over a contract,
00:36:12
Speaker
And there was some question about the validity contract with you. Yeah, that is fair. Um, I don't know. Did they kind of think this was as big of a deal? Did it become more of a big deal as it progressed? Or was this already like a pretty like,
00:36:30
Speaker
I'm getting I'm my understanding of this is that And this is me guessing my understanding of this is that they went in being like well, I mean clearly It's not his product Like we are licensing we are getting this character from Sega and he is producing it for us there is no way he owns this we can probably cakewalk this but
00:36:56
Speaker
Uh, I think as they went forward, they were like, Oh, maybe we fucked up. Yeah. That's my understanding. Okay. So on, on May 31st, 2011, Ken Penders filed a civil lawsuit against Sega and Electronic Arts owners of Bioware alleging that Sonic Chronicles, the dark brotherhood infringed on his copyrights of the dark Legion and several other characters.
00:37:22
Speaker
The lawsuit was dismissed twice while the current Archie case was pending and eventually fell out of the statute of limitations. Now, the reason it was dismissed twice was that the judge specifically told Penders that he needed to wait for a ruling in the Archie case and Penders refiled only four days later and the same judge refused to hear it.
00:37:43
Speaker
Like as you can imagine, this would not really make Sega very happy with the mishandling of proper legal documents by Archie. So Archie apparently lost the contractual privilege of being offered the chance to publish any Sonic spinoffs before the offer was made to other companies. So like essentially that was like part of their agreement with Sega was if we're going to do any spinoffs, you get first dibs and they let that lapse as it was coming time to like redo contracts. They're like, we're not going to let that happen.
00:38:14
Speaker
And I think that was an intentional sign of like, you're fucking up and we want you to know you're fucking up. So the publisher alleged in court documents that the damage to their relationship with Sega was a direct result of Pender's action and we're demanding a quarter of a million dollars in damages.
00:38:35
Speaker
from Penders. Yes. So we got multiple lawsuits going at the same time with one being dismissed. Yeah, like three people suing the same three people. Yes. You know what? It's like the Spiderman meme where they're all pointing at each other. You ruined me. No, you ruined me.
00:38:55
Speaker
So the Sega one gets dismissed because they're like, bro, you can't keep coming back here. You have to finish the first lawsuit because we can't make a ruling if it's going to affect that one. So we need to know how that one plays out first. Which makes sense. Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
He could have refiled, but once you get past the statute of limitations, the thing would be getting the most amount of money from when it was produced, but he's quickly got past when that game came out, so it's like he's not going to make any money off of that anyway.
00:39:33
Speaker
The Archie case meanwhile still needed to prove that Penders had signed a work for hire contract that was legally binding. After all, the only thing they produced was a photocopy of a document which again meant that they lost two different contracts. Penders tried to get the suit dismissed due to a lack of jurisdiction since it was filed in New York and he claimed he was living off of unemployment and could not travel to New York.
00:39:56
Speaker
This is probably a sound reason, but he did file copyright claims on around 200 characters in a very expensive endeavor, and decided to sue Sega and Electronic Arts, two of the largest video game companies in the world, so regardless, his notice to dismiss was denied. Like, you can't say you have zero dollars and you are living off of unemployment.
00:40:18
Speaker
and also be like, I am taking these very expensive routes to protect my property. And it's like, I understand that you should be able to do that, but you're also shooting yourself in the foot by saying you had the money to do this thing, but not this other thing. Exactly. I admired to an extent, well, no. I admire that you're trying to protect yourself, but you're not
00:40:47
Speaker
you're not doing it in the right way. Oh yeah. Like you think you're playing the game, but you're, you, it's almost like you don't know how to play the game. No. Yeah. Yeah. It's this is going to keep happening. So, uh, around this feel about Ken, cause it's just like, I dunno, maybe, maybe I'm a bit more of a naive person. I don't know.
00:41:17
Speaker
But if you go into a job from the beginning and they tell you you're making characters for us to use in the future or just to own, it doesn't sound like that's a thing that the company's willing to compromise on. So part of it is like, why would you even waste the money on trying to copyright a thing that you know
00:41:49
Speaker
isn't supposed to be yours. The idea I think is I will force. Why wouldn't he try to amend the contract in the beginning? I just don't, I don't understand. I think he got to a point where he felt like he could force them into paying out
00:42:12
Speaker
royalties and maybe larger lump sums for use of things that he created. And I mean, several comic book creators argued that they were never given work for higher contracts at Archie around this time, because they all were like, hey, wait a minute. I never got one of those. And Ken said he never got one of those. And look where he is now.
00:42:41
Speaker
Uh, so they also said that they were going to be filing copyright claims on their creations. Well, Archie comics seems like a mess right now. Like them, I'm kind of just like, you guys are fools. It's, it's the Sega thing. That's like, cause it seems like that's, well, I mean, that's obviously where it starts cause Sonic, but it's just weird the whole time.
Sega Moves Sonic Comics to IDW
00:43:05
Speaker
As more information came out, it was really looking bad for Archie. And in fact, I'm gonna read from a transcript, a little snippet from a transcript between Mr. Paul, the lawyer for Archie Comics, and the judge during a hearing on when they would actually go to trial.
00:43:23
Speaker
So this is Mr. Paul speaking. He says, so what's been missed, your honor, is this. The question is, this is a derivative work. The underlying rights here don't come from Archie. They come from a contract between Sega of America, which owns the copyrights, which then granted to Archie the right to use the copyright for a particular purpose.
00:43:43
Speaker
Archie, in turn, hired Mr. Penders. The cases have said that in this circumstance, the ownership of the derivative work is governed by the intention of the licensor and the licensee in the grant. And it's that I'd like to be able to write at least explain that authority. And the court responds, so are you saying prior counsel blew it?
00:44:05
Speaker
And Mr. Paul responds, absolutely your honor. So I will say that this, the issue will need to be addressed in one form or another. And we're hoping, we're hoping that you'll allow us an opportunity to explain the issue and to explain our proposal, our proposal for dealing with it in a way that will not further inconvenience and drain resources, but we'll still allow this court to apply the correct law. It can be as, and then the court interrupts to say, well, give it to the jury.
00:44:32
Speaker
That's the way we're gonna deal with it. We're not going to have more motion practice. My God, this thing has been litigated up down. If it's a ballot issue, you and council will discuss it. Meet and confer. If you need to revise the joint pretrial order and the jury instructions, you'll do that and the jury will decide it. So I get back to my original question. When would you be ready for trial?
00:44:54
Speaker
and Mr. Paul says, I did not come today prepared to answer that question, but I will, and the court responds, that's really surprising to me because what else would we be talking about today? Oh my God. You know who I feel the most bad for out of this whole situation? That judge? Is the judge. I feel so, because this man,
00:45:21
Speaker
Like, there are so many other things that he could be worrying about. And like, Ken, I'm sorry you didn't get the money you wanted. Like, but you got paid to write stuff. Like, you did get paid to write the things. So on November 29, 2012, Archie agreed to terms for settlement with Penders.
00:45:44
Speaker
The exact terms aren't really known, but it's public record that Archie did not agree with Pender's claim of ownership, but they would not pursue a legal claim against him should he use the properties. By 2013, a full settlement agreement was signed and the case was dismissed, but we clearly are not done with both parties.
00:46:05
Speaker
During the lawsuit, Archie started slowly removing any of the characters that Penders claimed to copyright to, and changed several of the references and reprints moving forward. As things progressed, it became clear that they needed to make much more monumental changes to the series if it were to make sense, so they introduced the idea of a Genesis wave that would rewrite reality.
00:46:26
Speaker
Characters were purged from existence and the entire comic book line ended up looking a lot more like the video game series with a few of the added characters from the Saturday morning cartoon show.
00:46:37
Speaker
While it is often reported that Sega added new mandates for the series moving forward, very little evidence is ever provided with Ian Flynn actually stating, if they're looking for an itemized list on corporate letterhead, no, that doesn't exist. Never said there was. It's rules and guidelines handed down through approvals that change with the brand's direction over time. So essentially you still like you submit a comic story,
00:47:00
Speaker
And they will say, yeah, that's fine. Or no, we need you to change this thing. They never made a list of you cannot do this, this, this, or this. Right. If you're online and you read anything about the Sega and Sonic, everyone says that Sega has a very specific mandate. But that's not really how that works. It's more just like a general guideline. OK.
00:47:24
Speaker
So, while Sega's editorial decisions may not have completely changed due to the lawsuit, Archie's Sonic universe clearly did. The purge of characters that resulted from all of this, it turns out, could have been easily avoided. Penders just wanted Archie and Sega to pay him for the continued use of his characters, something that both companies were extremely reluctant to do since
00:47:45
Speaker
they could continue using their own characters with no financial obligation. He's like, hey, use my characters, pay me for it. And they're like, but we have all of our characters that we don't have to pay for. Yeah. As a result, Penders decided in 2021 that he would like to license the characters out to anyone that wanted to use them. The details of the agreement were laid out in a post on Twitter stating,
00:48:13
Speaker
A $10,000 advance against royalties for a two-year license automatically renewable if my characters continue to be used. Said renewal would also include an advance against royalties at that time. So, the two-year $10,000 licensing agreement created by Penders could have easily been where the story ends. And unfortunately, it is not. I just feel like no one would take that deal
00:48:40
Speaker
It's an insanely high price for characters that you have to make distinct from Sega. They cannot look like Sega is producing them. Yeah. Why would you want to make a deal like that with a guy who just spent at least three years
00:49:04
Speaker
having this argument about these characters like that just doesn't it just seems like someone's trying to have you buy their lit up dynamite it essentially yeah and especially if you think about like the characters that you're licensing from him a lot of them are like specific we're going to talk about um a character named scourge the hedgehog okay uh
00:49:30
Speaker
Scourge originated in the comics as anti-Sonic. But that's Shadow. Well, okay, this is before Shadow was created. The idea here is an evil version of Sonic. It's Sonic from an alternate universe that is evil. Yeah.
00:49:54
Speaker
He is trying to license this character out, but like how do you license out evil Sonic without doing right and without like coming across Sega's like they cannot be what Sega wants. Right. So the way like anti Sonic was he looked just like Sonic except, you know, he was evil. So he wore a leather jacket and sunglasses and was a bad dude. So like it's literally Sonic.
00:50:23
Speaker
It wasn't until 12 years after the creation of this character that writers Ian Flynn and Tania, or Tania, I'm not sure, Del Rio, would change Anti-Sonic into the green-furred, super-strong villain powered by the Master Emerald. This is also when he took the name Scourge. Okay.
00:50:46
Speaker
The version of the character that has green fur and is super powered and uses the name Scourge, that version of the character skyrocketed in popularity among fans, making his exclusion due to Pender's lawsuit an interesting little wrinkle. Pender's co-created the character in as much as he made an evil version of Sonic that commits petty crimes and wears greaser clothes.
00:51:13
Speaker
The more identifiable and popular version of the character was introduced by other writers. So the green fur, the super strength, the supervillain-esque tendencies, none of those were created by Penders. So the idea that it would be owned by Penders annoyed a fuck-ton of fans.
00:51:34
Speaker
And this came to a head when it was announced that the character, Scourge, was licensed to rush comics for a four-issue limited series titled Scourge the Speed Demon. Now the absurdity of this scenario is hard to describe. A character created as an evil alternate dimension version of a massive video game was licensed to a company that could not in any way reference his origins. Yeah, this is the most like left field.
00:52:04
Speaker
If Rush Comics used any of his backstory, it would be infringing on their own copyright since they own Sonic as a character. Or they didn't own Sonic as a character. It would be like, you cannot use any part of Sega's shit to make this thing. But they were like, fuck it, we're going to.
00:52:23
Speaker
Regardless, Scourge was announced with cover art featuring a slightly redesigned green hedgehog smoking a cigar. When her fan pointed out that Ian Flynn should be credited along Penders in Kentervitch for the massive changes he added such as his name, his appearance, the super-powered origins, all of that shit, Penders argued to the contrary stating,
00:52:45
Speaker
In another life, Ian had no problem taking credit for the things I did when he was working for Archie. Also, he was on the opposing side when I was fighting my battle with Archie. He could have chosen to stay neutral, but didn't. This is a result of that battle.
00:53:01
Speaker
which is just a shitty, like the guy. I'm sorry, but this is stupid. Like this guy's being a child. First off, like, I hate that I'm picking strong opinions right now, but like, okay. Like in the last episode, we talked about how possessive Ken was over his characters. So I mean, like, obviously like, yeah, I guess it does make sense that he would try and be sneaky and weird and spend a ton of money trying to copyright a thing that wasn't even worth his time copywriting.
00:53:31
Speaker
But how do you know that specifically this other guy was actually against you? What's to say that he's just saying that because he's mad that someone took a spin or inspiration off of one of his characters?
00:53:54
Speaker
A lot of it is misreading things that Ian Flynn has said, which it's just like, Ian has largely stayed out of anything dealing with the lawsuits, right? He just wrote the character. And Penders gets really mad. He thinks that like,
00:54:11
Speaker
His version of whatever is created like that tends to be the thing that he looks to as like the perfect version of it and he gets really upset when someone else takes that and does a different thing with it cuz he's as like you're you're profiting off of what i created not seeing the irony. In him doing the exact same thing yeah.
00:54:38
Speaker
Like I understand wanting to have Like I absolutely support that writers and creators should have protection and like, you know Everybody should be paid a livable wage not to be political, but that's also not political. That's just like Me having a moral backbone. I want everyone to just yeah be able to live but I don't know this guy's just being
00:55:07
Speaker
This guy's just being a bit dumb. And again, to the core of the issue that creators are not getting the credit, or again, the money and whatever that they deserve, I agree with that. And I guess this is a chaotic way of him trying to protect himself.
00:55:29
Speaker
But it's chaotic and it's messy. And how do you not see that you're just screwing yourself over and also now you're just shaming other writers and you're not... He's not looking at himself, you know? Oh, no. I would agree with that. It's reflection, it feels like. And that's where I start to not... This is where I don't pity then. Because if you're not gonna bother to look at yourself,
00:55:59
Speaker
and try and help yourself. Pardon me, it doesn't feel bad for you then. I think it's a sad situation overall, and at the bottom of it, I still feel most bad for the judge that had to deal with everything. I would agree with that. Yeah, and I mean, I don't know. Ken, I'm sorry, it didn't work out, but you gotta look at yourself, man.
00:56:29
Speaker
I hope you actually learned from this just a little bit, or like, I don't know. Also, like, clearly, like, if you feel that you've been screwed over this hard by Archie and Sonic, which, like, yeah, you've been screwed over by them. Like, I won't lie. Like, I won't. I understand both sides here. But just find a new thing.
00:56:53
Speaker
Pick a new thing. If you're that creative, I'm sure you've got other ideas. It sounds like you've got a lot of cool backstories for your brain. Just go do them with a different look. You can do that. It's okay. Just look back with fondness and move on.
00:57:22
Speaker
I'm gonna ask you to just be prepared for this next part. Maybe strap in a little bit. Oh, boy. Did I speak too soon on everything? Fans decided to look into the creative team behind the comic itself, and they found some even more interesting points. For one, in the previous comic published by Rush, there was a sexual harassment scene in which the hero strips the female villain's nude in public because he thinks they're hot.
00:57:48
Speaker
What ended up being slightly more troubling was the list of accounts followed by the lead artist on the series. The long list included Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, PragerU, Breitbart News, and Paul Joseph Watson, all of which are known to promote conspiracy theories, alt-right talking points, and far-right ideologies. And this is the Scourge series?
00:58:13
Speaker
Paul Joseph Watson in particular has a history with Gamergate and worked with Alex Jones for years. Breitbart used to employ Milo Yiannopoulos, who by the way was just a yay West's campaign manager while he was running around telling everyone that Jews are behind fucking everything. And allowed his stories to be solicited from, Breitbart allowed Milo's stories to be solicited or straight up stolen from neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.
00:58:44
Speaker
Due to all of this, the long list of far-right people that they were following, the artists in the company were harassed to the point that just four days after announcing the comic, Scourge the Speed Demon was cancelled. I mean, for those reasons, good. It should have been cancelled, because that's horrific.
00:59:04
Speaker
I do think a point should be very clearly made here in that the accounts followed by someone are in no way an indication of how that person actually feels about those accounts. Like for instance, I have at many points followed Scott Adams or Ethan Van Schuyver to keep a tab on some of the things that they are saying. And I fundamentally disagree with nearly everything that those two men constantly talk about. And yet I have followed them.
00:59:33
Speaker
There is a reason I did not list the name of the artist on the Scourge comic. They do not deserve to be harassed based on assumptions made by others. And the artist didn't write the story of people being sexually harassed. No, that was someone else. That was the writer of the series. Exactly. The artist didn't tell the writer to do that. If anything, the artist has put in an uncomfortable situation where
01:00:03
Speaker
maybe they have to draw something that they don't want to draw. But like, yeah, it's all a gray area. All of this being said, I do think that if they were, and I don't know if they were, if they were truly politically aligned with the far right personalities that they actually followed,
01:00:24
Speaker
then this should be a lesson in free association in the market of ideas. As often as argued by the political right, the free market stamped out a product that they did not want to associate with.
01:00:36
Speaker
So like, this is one of those things where it's like you constantly are saying, if this is the ideology that they follow, that like, you cannot, there should be no restrictions on what can be put out because, you know, like if you're against racism, then like, if there's a racist thing, it won't exist. Here's a case of that happening. So like, you know, I don't, again, I don't know if they follow it, but like,
01:01:07
Speaker
If they do, then this is one of those examples, and they just happen to be on the bad side of it. Exactly. I also want to point out there was a lot of harassment of this person, and the name, so they were constantly called a white supremacist online, and I really think that that is unfair.
01:01:33
Speaker
They might be. I don't know. But like, that's an assumption that's made, you know, and that's bullshit. Yeah, people are gonna, we're not here to fuel that fire though. We're just here to talk about how cooked this whole scenario is. As far as Penders goes, this brings us to what he's spent the majority of his time working on over the last few years. Essentially, he's creating a graphic novel sequel to his echidna stories.
01:02:03
Speaker
One of the last story arcs he ever did for Sonic was a story titled Mobius 25 years later, which follows our heroes 25 years in the future.
Ken Penders and 'Lara-Su Chronicles'
01:02:12
Speaker
The main protagonist of this series was the daughter of Knuckles and Julie Sue, named Lara Sue.
01:02:19
Speaker
After leaving Archie and having a very public legal battle over the characters, Ken decided to continue Lara Sue's story in the Lara Sue Chronicles by replacing Knuckles with a character named, I don't know if it's Knox or Knox, but I mean, it's just Knuckles. He looks the exact same as Knuckles from that series. He just has a different name.
01:02:45
Speaker
and changing the species to, now these are not echidnas, these are echidnias, and they are aliens that look like the echidnas from Sega. This is infuriating. Okay, I understand if you're upset that your original character was then turned into some really grotesquely horrible thing that you can be upset about, but also, so when the whole Scourge thing happened, was he upset because of
01:03:13
Speaker
somebody was using what he believed to be like his intellectual property, or was he upset that they were using the intellectual property to create a gross thing? So he licensed it to them. He licensed it to them. Yeah, he licensed that character to Rush Comics. And when it was pointed out that they followed some political
01:03:42
Speaker
ideologies that he did not agree with. Uh, he did a lot of backtracking and just saying like, well, I mean, I don't check everyone's like follow counts and it's like, I'm like, that's fine. You don't have to, but like you are licensing a character out to, so you're, it's, it's speaking of you, you know, it's your, if you're owning this character, you're letting someone do this, you know? So, okay. So it sounds like Penders then.
01:04:10
Speaker
didn't do his research and not the whole, he was caught off guard by like. I think he, yeah, I think he was caught off guard. I don't think he was like, I'm going to seek out problematic people. I think he was going to pay me. I don't think he was trying to do that. Okay. So, all right. So I feel kind of bad for you for that. But like, again, I said it before, move on, like,
01:04:39
Speaker
Stop poking despair. Stop. Why? Make a different sci-fi alien thing. Or is it just like he's going insane because he actually doesn't have any ideas and he's like, well, this is the only thing I know, this is all I can do. Ken is driving me crazy. I'm sorry, Mr. Penders, you're driving me crazy. I just don't understand why you keep doing this to yourself.
01:05:09
Speaker
This particular series has been in development for years and the artwork has been widely mocked online. So due to the battle with Sega and Archie, as I've mentioned before, Penders can't have the characters look like the characters from Sonic. So instead, they all look oddly human with animal features. The promotional materials use really bad coloring and really weird graphics.
01:05:37
Speaker
I'm going to, I'm going to text you a picture right now of what the Lara Sue Chronicles looks like. I think this is, I think you're going to be a little surprised. Oh, I do not like, I really don't like what's in the background. Oh,
01:06:03
Speaker
So the funny thing about this, what I just sent you is a direct homage or reference to the cover of Mobius 25 Years Later. It is the exact same cover just with the new versions of these characters. And then are the new versions, are they the center ones coming out of the portal? Or are they the ones in the back?
01:06:27
Speaker
So the one in the front with the weird cowboy hat kind of thing. That's nuts. Yes. Okay. And then Laura Sue? Laura Sue. Laura Sue. That's the pink one with the ponytail. I think. It's very confusing. The two right next to Knox literally look like Sonic characters.
01:06:58
Speaker
And then the one in the middle looks like the Sonic they tried to make in the live-action movie before everybody shit on it. Yeah, pretty much all of, I think, the weird anthrop- the echidna's all kind of look like that. Also, I don't know if you've noticed, there's just a regular dude in the background. Yeah, like, what's he doing?
01:07:23
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know who that is or what's going on. Although the ones in the back that are like behind this portal thing looks so scary. Yeah. That's how most of the artwork, uh, for this series looks. I don't like it. Like, I mean, I, I'm sure somebody, like I'm trying to, I want to try and be nice. I don't want to shit all over it, but like,
01:07:47
Speaker
Again, I'm sure someone likes it. It just is really unsettling. It's really creepy, especially a lot of these female characters. The eyes and the mouths are just like, oh, it's really weird. You hit it right. It was perfectly stated. They look just like what Sonic
01:08:13
Speaker
looked like in the original trailer that they put out before everyone went nuts and they had to fix it. But it still looks like Sonic. Like when they made that, I'm gonna call it live action Sonic first draft. Like you still knew it was Sonic. It was just unsettling. That still looks like all of them. Like I can tell you in the background, one of them looks like Amy.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah. And one of them looks like, two of them look like knuckles. One of them is in the center background. Looks like Sonic, but with like a helmet on. Mm-hmm. There's one that looks just like Jeffrey St. John. I know you don't know who that character is, but. Is that the dog looking one, the brown one? No, it's the sort of skunk with the French hat. It even looks like tails. Like if you just color changed tails. Yeah, pretty much.
01:09:12
Speaker
This is really creepy. I gotta exit out of it. You ever watch the movie, Tusk? This sounds like it's going to be really... Oh, yeah. Okay. I saw it once and it was one of those... I was like, I am happy I saw this. Probably never going to watch it again. So one of my really good friends, Logan and I watched it together.
01:09:36
Speaker
years and years ago. And when you see the Walrus, it's really unsettling. I hated it. And as a prank, he would randomly just message me the Walrus. And I feel like this is almost... I don't think it's gonna be as jarring as the Walrus. But there is a level of...
01:10:05
Speaker
getting the creeps. It's really creepy.
01:10:12
Speaker
And also I'm just going to clarify, cause, uh, I don't know if everyone knows what tusk is, but it's a, it's a weird horror movie by Kevin Smith. Yeah, it's Kevin Smith horror movie. And he is all based off of, he was having a conversation in his podcast again, forever ago about like this horror movie premise. And at the end of the horror movie, all he knew he wanted was like the woman to throw a fish to the walrus to like.
01:10:42
Speaker
and they're laughing hysterically about it. And then he had the budget and made the movie. Well, I don't know. The actual story was apparently there was an ad put out where someone was like, free rent, you can stay with me. You just occasionally have to dress up like a walrus.
01:11:00
Speaker
Oh, that part I didn't hear. Yeah. And so he was like, I'm fascinated with this. So then it turned into, I'm going to make a movie about a guy turning someone into a walrus. Yeah. It's a, like, it's, it's a crazy movie. Um, it's so weird. Johnny Depp sent it.
01:11:20
Speaker
But he's not credited. It's like, I don't know. Guy's name's like Maxime Gaspard, and he's credited as Maxime Gaspard plays himself, like the detective. I don't know if you know this. His daughter, Johnny Depp's daughter, was in the next movie that Kevin did with his daughter. Oh, Lily Rose Depp. Yeah, so Lily Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith
01:11:49
Speaker
I didn't know that was her name. That's a fun name. Good for her. Yeah. And she's named after Harley Quinn. I know. Yeah. Really. And the movie is called Yoga Hosers. And I've only seen part of it because it's very strange. But it involves a Hitler bratwurst attacking like a small town. Oh.
01:12:16
Speaker
I don't know, that's, I've been offered a child. Johnny Depp apparently, I don't know if he's just friends with Kevin Smith or if like their daughters are friends or whatever, but like it just was this weird thing that they were doing for a while. I mean, I love it. All right. So anyway, anyway, this would be very similar to Sega's art.
01:12:42
Speaker
It's just again, it's very first draft desk. Yes. Okay. And he's been working on this for years. This is a, a, a, a years long progress. And I don't think that's fine. Take your time. Like do what you need to. Uh, it's just that, um, I think maybe the outcome was not what anyone was expecting. I just.
01:13:10
Speaker
I just want him to get therapy. Yeah, there is that. I just feel like if you're really hung up on this, I think you need some help. I'm worried about you because it's been years now. He's still working on this right now. Yes. Oh yeah.
01:13:35
Speaker
I honestly have not seen any other work that he's done.
01:13:44
Speaker
I don't know what he's doing. It's so weird to me. I mean, he got that payout for Scourge. So there was some money that came in, but I don't know outside of that what he's doing. I mean, this is essentially the end of Pender's story here. I'm gonna wrap up. Kind of like a Shakespeare tragedy. Oh, I'm sorry, Ken.
01:14:16
Speaker
It's not. I told you this was a weird story that I could not wait to tell you. I came in today being like, all right, we're going to record. Today's been wild. I don't really know what's going to happen. I didn't know I'd get this invested in it.
01:14:36
Speaker
I played Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. That's the closest thing I have for Sonic. That's why I only know three characters. I didn't think I'd get this invested in it and now I'm here. I feel like I'm going to finish this episode and I'm just going to be so emotionally hungover.
01:15:04
Speaker
Well, let's, let's, uh, let's go through this last bit that we, we have a little bit to wrap up and I think that this will have a little bit more for you to like to grip onto and it's a little less like crazy. Uh, as we, we've already kind of found out like what happened with, uh, Penders, but as for Archie, they found themselves back in court over other Sonic related business. Namely they were sued by Scott Fulop, another writer who wanted to have the ownership of the characters he created.
01:15:32
Speaker
Now the details of the case were pretty similar to the one for Penders, but the outcome was wildly different. Fulip claimed he owned the rights to the stories he worked on and Archie claimed he didn't, but Fulip argued that Archie's use of his stories constituted an infringement. In any lawsuit concerning ownership of a copyright, the claim must be brought within three years of discovering evidence of the disputed ownership. Fulip brought these claims well after three years,
01:15:59
Speaker
after the dispute and the case was dismissed, negating Philip's claims to copyright infringement. So with multiple costly lawsuits, a very probably angry licensor, and the revelation of complete mismanagement at Archie, it was no surprise when SEGA released a statement on July 20th, 2017, reading, after 24 years of memorable storytelling, SEGA of America will conclude their Sonic the Hedgehog Publishing Partnership Program with Archie Comics.
01:16:28
Speaker
This does not mark the end of Sonic in comics, but signifies Sega of America's decision to take a different direction for the series that will be announced at a later date. Sega would like to thank Sonic's amazing fans for their loyalty and passion over all of the years. Sega looks forward to providing more information soon. Now, while the news of the longest-running licensed comic book coming to an end is incredibly sad, the follow-up was fascinating, specifically for myself.
01:16:56
Speaker
See, they announced this on July 20th and July 21st just happens to be my birthday. So, younger Derek, sad that a fun comic book series ended, was surprised to find that Sega announced on my birthday that they had found a new home at IDW.
01:17:15
Speaker
While details weren't fully revealed at the time, it would later be announced Ian Flynn and several of the beloved creators from the Archie series would follow Sonic over to IDW, with the tone and subject matter of the stories being set firmly in line with the video game series. That meant fan favorite characters would be introduced in the comics and given smaller spin-offs to broaden the scope of the universe, and everyone that was working on it just got picked up and moved to a different company.
01:17:45
Speaker
There was no drop-off really of like we're not they everything that you could have liked about Archie comics other than like the crazy like series admin
01:17:59
Speaker
Like, that all got moved over. And like, you know, it's weird because like, because Sonic had like 20 years of stories over at Archie Comics and those are now no longer there. But you're picking up the same creative team and starting anew. And I think that is fascinating. I also think that's like, it seems like in a way, Sega kind of started maybe improving
01:18:29
Speaker
a bit on how they treat the comic writers. In a way, have they essentially secured them a job? Essentially. Ian Flynn, who had been writing Sonic for years at this point, and who followed Sonic from Archie over to IDW,
01:18:56
Speaker
He was also hired to write the next video game. So Sonic Frontiers, which just recently came out as of recording this, that was written by Ian Flynn. Oh, wow. And multiple lines of dialogue that are in the game reference a lot of the characters that he introduced in the comics. So ones that were never in the video games. That's cool.
01:19:24
Speaker
Two of my favorites, Whisper and Tangle. Whisper is a wolf who speaks very softly and is a sniper. And Tangle is a just very exuberant, very outgoing lemur. And they are like best friends. And I love them in that comic series. Tangle gets mentioned at least once in the video game. And it's wild to me because I never would have...
01:19:51
Speaker
Prior to this, you would never have seen Sega making a video game that references Archie. Yeah.
01:20:00
Speaker
So while Sonic may have ended at Archie, the comic book stories are actually going stronger than ever at their new home. And I can tell you, I recently read a bunch of Sonic comics from IDW and some of them are just so solid. I mentioned in previous episodes that like the metal virus storyline, which is basically a zombie storyline.
01:20:21
Speaker
Last night I read a series of issues written by Evan Stanley that are just a lot of like the girl characters going on a camping trip and a fire breaks out at the campsite and it's just them
01:20:38
Speaker
trying to contain the fire, rescue people. It's very informative on what to do if there's a forest fire. Apparently, there was a note written at the end, Evan Stanley wrote it, that it's based on something that happened to him. He was caught in a forest fire when he was a kid, and this was something that he'd always wanted to write.
01:21:06
Speaker
It's a really good story, but it was also really interesting that he was able to weave in what to do in those situations. I just want to, before I gather more opinions on this, so when it was back before all of the lawsuits and things like that, were these people still writing for some, because I'm with Ken.
01:21:38
Speaker
I know he had his Knuckles series. Yeah. And did he also just like have a lot of pull on other Sonic stories at the time? Or were these people, were they all kind of equal with each other at the time? So the way that it's basically they had a series of writers and you tend to have like one main writer, not that like you're not hiring, they're not in charge of everything. It's just that like,
01:22:08
Speaker
They tend to do a lot more than everyone else. Ian Flynn gets brought up a lot because Ian Flynn writes a lot of the ones that are more... He wrote issue 50 of the new Sonic comics. He wrote several of the spin-offs and it sets up what's going on in the other books. You know what I mean?
01:22:29
Speaker
So when Penders was there, he was writing a lot of, he wrote Knuckles just basically on his own. He did that whole series, but he would occasionally pop into Sonic and write a story here or there. He left the series and a bunch of new writers came in, Ian Flynn being one of them. And there's a lot of like taking things and running with it. So there's never like a person running everything. Okay.
01:22:55
Speaker
It's just you have like a group of writers because that way you can do multiple things at a time. Exactly. Okay, that makes more sense. And I mean, that's really the entire story. We have now like so Archie lost out its contract with Sega and lost the right to publish Sonic the Hedgehog. Which honestly makes sense. Like it seems like they were really dropping the ball.
01:23:20
Speaker
Yes. So, fair. So that got picked up and moved over to IDW. IDW has been doing, I think, great work with the character. Right. And there's a huge brand cohesion now with what IDW is doing and what Sega is doing with the character, especially with Ian Flynn going back and forth. Yeah, I'm happy that it seems like finally like there is some just like neatness to it.
01:23:49
Speaker
Because that probably makes it easier for everybody. I don't know what's going on in the future. I do know that Sega announced that they were hiring someone to be in charge of Sonic Lore to try to keep that straight. Because if you ever play the video games and pay attention to the story, they contradict each other quite a bit.
01:24:14
Speaker
So this is like, they're hiring someone to like make sense of it all. Cause there is a way to make it make sense. And like, it seems like they're really trying now. I don't know. Like I can't speak for a company, but it's from the, from the outside, it looks like they're really trying to put a, a, a good, like a good foot forward and say, we are going to do this character and we are going to do it well.
01:24:43
Speaker
Yeah. It seems like they learned their lesson and are like trying to, you know, be better. Yeah. I mean, I hope so. I love the character and, uh, I am fascinated by the comic books that are put out. The video games are also really good. I do. I love the video games, but I am such a fan of having this all ages comic book be
01:25:12
Speaker
published and be written Well enough that like I can pick it up. I can recognize that it is written for all ages meaning usually for kids and I can get just as much fun out of it. Yeah, it does seem it does sound like now as opposed because we talked about like in the previous episode that like
01:25:34
Speaker
there were maybe some things that were coming up that maybe weren't for kids audiences. So it seems like maybe like they actually have like their ducks in a row on like, how are we doing this? So that's good, I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of fun.
01:25:59
Speaker
So, I mean, with that, I don't know if you have anything more to add. If not, I'm just gonna wrap everything up. I feel better about this overall. I'm still worried about some people, but you know what? People are gonna do what people are gonna do, I guess. That's true. We can't, you know, I feel bad. I feel bad. I mean, best wishes
01:26:27
Speaker
but I hope you grow from it. I said in the previous, I ended up agreeing with the reasons why Ken would do a thing. Yes. I just think that it was all done poorly. I understand the sentiment and I respect the sentiment. It was executed poorly and when something happens,
01:26:57
Speaker
And what's done is done. It seems like two of the three parties have moved on and have learned their lesson or have faced the consequences and are dealing with it. And I'm just worried that maybe he's putting too much time in something. Oh yeah, no, I agree with you. I just worry for him. I want him to do something else. Cause you know, you don't want to see people
01:27:26
Speaker
fall down and keep falling. So yeah. Anyway, everybody else is fine though.
01:27:37
Speaker
So you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypedantic at gmail.com. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question read on the air. I don't know if we are going to be getting directly back into the, I assume we're getting directly back into the clone saga next week.
01:28:08
Speaker
We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics. But until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.
01:28:33
Speaker
something's rummaging what could it be who knows maybe it's your dog brownie he's finding all the toys making noise derricates to edit this part out of the show takes so much time but here we go i'm gonna keep doing this over the noise i don't know what he's doing
01:29:04
Speaker
He's doing laps around the living room. He's literally just running in a big circle. It just sounds to me like he's digging. It's kind of like, who's that Pokemon? But what's Brownie doing?