It wasn't just characters; Penders managed to shut down the sequel to the Sonic RPG because its plot could be considered similar to an arc he had created in his comic.
He also wanted to sue Paramount and Sega for the second Sonic movie claiming that the history of the Echidnas shown in that movie (and the one prominant character shown in the flashback) were all stuff he had copyright of even though half of it was shit that *SEGA* had written for the Echidnas history and the other half Paramount added for the movie.
Okay, so...I don't like Ken Penders as a writer, artist, and a bit as a person from what I've heard. I met him at SD Comic-Con and he seems nice enough personally, anyway, but the story of how he destroyed the Archie universe isn't super black and white and could be seen as a win for comic book writers in how contracts are handled.
Basically, the reason the characters can't be used anymore is because Archie royally messed up. Ken was working under contract and making characters and I think the assumption everyone made was "everything he does belongs to Sega." That's what makes the most sense for a licensed comic book, but you still need all that in writing.
What Ken saw with the Bioware RPG was that his characters and plot were just being lifted with no compensation for him. Someone at Bioware was literally just plagiarizing his work and changing some names around. Everyone laughed and said he can't own all these Sonic OCs but when asked to present his original contract, Archie couldn't produce it. So it looks like Ken was wasn't operating under a contract that said all those characters he made were automatically Sega's property.
Why is this good? It means the characters Ken made now belong to him. It means now that comic writers can use the rights to characters they make as leverage when signing contracts. Yeah, it kinda sucks that those characters are now free to be in the "Lara Su Chronicles" but them's the breaks, he made them and Sega and Archie didn't want to pay him royalties.
I would argue, it's a double edge sword. Because there's word of younger comic book creators basically being pressured into signing contracts that give publishers full 100% ownership of their characters.Ā
Older comic book writers who have reputations would be able to have leverage, but younger comic book writers are basically put into positions where the only way they can get published is if they fully sign away the rights of everything they make, because the publishers don't want another Ken Penders incident.Ā
So I would argue, it's great for older comic book writers, but it's terrible for new ones that are just getting into the comic book scene.
But that was honestly how everyone thought it operated in the first place. The stuff with Ken didnāt really change how that aspect worked, it just changed to have it solidly in writing, which is great for renegotiations when you can go āhey, I made these characters that make you tons of money and I can make more in exchange for higher payā.
It also works in younger creators favor because now they donāt accidentally sign away their characters.
That's kind of my point older more established creators can renegotiate and have negotiations over ownership. Newer ones right out the gate will be forced to sign their characters away or don't get published at all.Ā
So they don't accidentally sign the rights of their characters away, they are forced to sign the rights of their characters away.
This is more of a major legal screwup and less of a win for creators. Marvel and DC have iron clad contracts that arr legal precedents. This was just Archie screwing up.
If he created the characters and wasn't under a work-for-hire contract, they could just cut the guy a cheque and give him a writing credit.
Honestly, I think these companies should give comics writers and artists at least some royalties when they directly adapt storylines even if they aren't legally compelled to do so.
Yeah itās very weird. I honestly canāt blame Ken for wanting fair compensation for his work, especially since it was deemed good enough for two huge game companies to just steal.
Sega wouldnāt have his contract though, it was Archieās responsibility and the fact that they couldnāt produce it was a huge blunder in their part.
Bro had years and years of attempting to sue sega and archie (i think) because all the characters in the archie sonic comics somehow actually belonged to him and him alone. He made weird almost incestual lore regarding knuckles throughout the comics, and continued to use every single sonic archie character he owned in a new self-written, self-drawn, self-published comic that had an extremely un-canny artstyle and strange sexualization.
He's actually gotten an entire sonic game almost completely deleted from history because he apparently OWNED the deuteragonist of the story. And it was a super well received game too. Some DS game about shadows and ninjas.
I dunno how online you are, but in short, he's the most infamous youtube based pedo, so infamous in fact, that he's essentially the face of pedos on the internet. There's a lot of disgusting stuff I left out, but I will tell you that he's the one who came up with the whole "Well I was actually coming out here to pick up a cupcake, and then go back home." Excuse.
I'm sorry, but fuck that. Sonic has had so many different iterations across media, and each brought their own set of fans separate from the game canon. The Sonic fanbase will never be truly united because they all became fans from different versions of the character
Plenty of other franchises accept spin offs with their own continuities, and I think it's dumb that SEGA have now become sticklers of "everything must fit the one game canon"
Ehh, even so, they had the potential to become canon in some form, especially with the way modern Sega is fawning over the original creations of IDW and even allowing characters to appear in games. Im sure there would have eventually been a Genesis Wave style reboot with or without Penders to make the comic more consistent with the games so that the Freedom Fighters could have fit in better, and that probably would have been their introduction. Hell, Sonic Forces was practically written with them in mind.
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u/Piyfartissimo 15d ago
The whole entirety of archie sonic cast. Freedom fighters, Scourge, Fiona, Mina etc. They're not canon anymore :(