UPDATE 10/23/2018 8:37AM: ever since ive posted this journal i have gathered more evidence over time in defense of penders, feel free to have a look: docs.google.com/document/d/1eO…

**authors notes: I was debating on if I should make this post with my worries of what my audience would think of any further content on Ken Penders, as noted here: .But people in the comments assured me to continue what I'm doing such as (thanks for being a good friend onm Twitter and Discord), (I'm still looking forward to seeing the finished version of the poster of my sonic fan film), , and (thank you for being a huge help in the art department for "Super Mario Quest" and eventually "Doctor Who: The Sol Adventures). As well as the kind words of my good friends telling me not to succumb to the critics, fanbrats, and haters and just keep posting the content I enjoy.A special huge thanks to , while I'm aware you're not a fan of ken Penders yourself, I wanna thank you for being a huge inspiration for everything I do in the sonic community, whether it be my memes, fanfiction, YouTube videos, other creations of mine like DW:TSA, SMQ, and S:SoTCE. As well as your influence inspiring other users like my good friend , and others like . Hopefully down the lone voices of ours will be heard and bring sonic back to an era close to or similar to the era of Sonic Adventure to Sonic & The Black Knight(or alternatively as I call it, "The Drummond to Griffith" era). #truesonicspirit Anywho, the reason why I'm posting this journal is to show why I defend ken as much as I do. As well as break the misconception that Penders ruined the comics, and stop him from getting the blame every time something happens to sonic the hedgehog in comic form(like when everyone was blaming him for Archie-Sonic ending, when in actuality Sega simply wanted to take a different direction. It was Sega's choice) as well as express the true story as to what went down behind the scenes before during and after the lawsuit between Penders and Archie.P.s. thus article is always subjected to change if/when new info comes out**If you been around in the fandom for long enough, the modern Archie-Sonic fans(specifically fans of the reboot of fans of ian Flynn) will say Ken Penders sued Archie and stole his characters cuz he's a greedy asshole. But no. There's a lot more too it than that. I've done the research, but most people just look at the cover of the book without looking at the pages inside and in depth....I have, and I have discovered, that a lot went on behind the scenes at Archie. What started this whole drama was originally the editor of the sonic book at the time, Scott Fulop, left the company (its unclear whether he was fired or quit on his own volition), and was replaced by a new editor named Mike Pellerito(who is now currently the president of Archie Comics), another person left too, a friend of Penders and former Archie-Sonic writer Karl Bollers, he had submitted his final story for sonic and moved on to other things, so ken felt he should do the same, so he started drafting his final story, "Mobius: 25 Years Later", he had it all planned out, Pellerito seemed to like what Penders had....at first, he then was extremely persistent on Penders adding Shadow into the story(which is why out of nowhere "25 Years Later"(and "30 Years Later" to an extent) suddenly changed to the whole King Shadow plot with no rhyme or reason), which bugged Penders Cuz he felt Shadow didn't fit in what he was going for with M25L, but there was really nothing he could do to stop Pellerito's executive meddling(more on executive meddling in conic books here: allthetropes.org/wiki/Executiv… ) so the story was submitted and published with the king shadow sub-arc and Penders left....or...he was ago to leave when he found out Archie was reprinting old stories of his in graphic novels and tradepaperbacks, and he wasn't recieveing any money for the reprints of his past work as welp as other freelance artists and writers not getting paid for reprints of their work. So in a bit of a haste, Penders starting filling paperwork at a copyright building claiming ownership of the characters, locations, and overall stories that he had created for the Archie-Sonic over the years. Now normally what Penders did for the sonic comics would be labeled under "Work For Hire"(more on work for hire here: www.copylaw.com/new_articles/w… ) and on top of that Ken was a freelancer(more on freelancers here: www.dictionary.com/browse/free… ) and because he was a freelance writer in a work for hire contract, that would mean that anything ken had created for the sonic books, everything would legally be owned by SEGA, meaning his characters, locations, etc......provided Archie did the paperwork properly.... Which they did not, because a lot of the contracts Penders signed were missing/misplaced which caused Archie to make counterfits/forgeries(which bit them in the ass during the lawsuit, but I'll get to that.).Eventually Archie caught on to what Penders was doing in copywriting and trying to take legal ownership of the content he had created for the book, which made Archie sue Penders(yes, Archie sued Penders, meaning Archie shot first), but Ken was not about to go down without a fight, so Ken Countersued Archie right back. One pre-trial lawsuit later, and they ended up in a draw. Penders now has legal ownership of everything he created in the Archie-Sonic series. BUT! Archie was also still allowed to use ken's creations as long as they pay him royalties.....which they didnt do, instead of simply paying the man the money he rightfully deserves, Archie simply said "fuck it!" And hit the big glowing reset button on the sonic comics just to keep a quick buck.And ever since the reboot things have gone down hill.The sales of the comics declining: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d… Several plotholes in their lackluster stories: docs.google.com/a/sbstudents.o… And Archie gets sued again but this time by Scott Fulop: theamazingsallyhogan.tumblr.co… And I'm pretty sure after all this mismanagement and lack of care Archie has had for the sonic license, Sega decided to take sonic away from their library: twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/sta… And then transfer the rights to IDW: twitter.com/sonic_hedgehog/sta… There's another misconception going around that i wanna break. that if you use any of Ken Penders creations in a fan project, that he'll sue you on the spot. Which is not true. As long as you ask Penders for permission, whether it be on his twitter:Or at his email: KenPenders@KenPenders.comAnd if he says yes, all you have to do is credit him as the creator of his characters like this for example: "Julie-Su, Locke, Lara-Su, and other related characters are ™ and ©Ken Penders"Then you should be good to go. I would know cuz my friendshave his permission to use his characters to make avatar player models for their game/server called "Mobius Grid"() : twitter.com/Mobius_Team/status… Andhas full permission to use his characters in his sonic fan comic, "Sonic Odyssey": Now with all that out of the way Heres my proof/sources I use to defend Ken Penders:(I highly recommend that you listen to this full article in a text to speech program if you're too lazy to read the full thing)(watch this video specifically from 6:53 to 8:54 but feel free to watch the full video if you feel like doing so)(Watch this from 2:34 to 5:47. (Also while using Linkara as an example I suggest you look at this video by him:cuz he talks about a case similar to what happened with Doctor Who from 0:26 to 3:45 where characters were taken from a Doctor Who miniseries called "Death Comes To Time"( www.youtube.com/playlist?list=… ) and then repurposed for an original franchise called "The Minister of Chance"( [link] ) or what happened with the blue beetle according to linkara at 19:41 to 21:44 of this video:(he's a very nice person to chat with on twitter if you aren't insulting him directly) www.plainsite.org/dockets/nf69… (here are the legal documents for the lawsuits Penders has been a part of)Bonus: www.pacermonitor.com/public/ca… www.plainsite.org/dockets/32pn… (more legal jargan, but still in relation to the legal issues of Archie-Sonic, but this time with an ex-editor and writer named Scott Fulop who was good friends with Penders)Bonus #2: I had a conversation on twitter with Penders in regards to the return of his creations to the new IDW-Sonic comics as well as reprints of his old Archie-Sonic stories and this is what he had to say: twitter.com/KenPenders/status/… And knowing IDW they definitely have enough money to pay Penders the money cuz look at how many licensed properties they have under their belt: readcomiconline.to/Publisher/I… And after sending a tweet to Chris Ryall(this guy: www.idwpublishing.com/about/ch… ) he seems to not mind negotiating and having talks with penders in regards to his content: twitter.com/chris_ryall/status… .....I'm really sorry if that's a lot. I just wanna prove/show I know what I'm talking about.Now if you're a Penders fan, share this around to anyone who blames Penders for ruining the comics as well as any of these hashtags. #penderDome (credit tofor that one)Anywho that's all I have to say. Hopefully soon the misconception on Penders will be broken soon.I hope you guys have a fantastic reat of your day.-Alex "" Hedgefox