![Good News…Sort Of With legal matters between Archie Comics and former writer Ken Penders continuing to ferment, the company that publishes the Sonic comics has taken measures to remove characters […]](http://www.tssznews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ken_penders_header.jpg "Poll: 73% Will Still Support Sonic Comics if Penders Chars Gone for Good")
Good News…Sort Of
With legal matters between Archie Comics and former writer Ken Penders continuing to ferment, the company that publishes the Sonic comics has taken measures to remove characters disputed in the battle. Current writer Ian Flynn has insisted he will not comment on the specific of the changes in progress and on the way, and has even vowed to never conduct an interview with us again over our continued questions in the matter.
Conduct like that indicates the matter is serious, and the lack of a concrete response anywhere may indicate the truth is news some fans don’t want to hear. So, for the latest @Issue poll, we asked if you will continue to support the Archie comics if the disputed Penders characters leave the series for good. On the surface, it’s good news for Archie: Out of 546 votes, 73 percent voted yes. But that means the remaining 27 percent voted no, and should those percentages hold, no business wants to lose more than a quarter of their customers in one fell swoop.
A new poll is now available to vote on The above poll results can be discussed below in the comments.
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I’m only to #130 so far so this is all a bit abstract to me but
Many of the characters listed are visually dull. Whenever you have a family based an official character, it’s the same design with weak variation, Argyle and Vector, Alicia and Sally. Even the colours are almost never changed, making it hard to tell who is who. And Sonic’s parents, particularly in robot rom, are hideous, and I was disappointed that they were so weak designs because they should be quite major characters really.
BUT there are a few chars on that list that I would properly miss, Julie-Su, yes, and Geoffrey St. John oddly enough, and a couple others.
But the series can survive with any characters it likes, and that’s the point really, if the writing is good enough then it doesn’t matter who can’t be used because a good writer can make any new character worth keeping. In Doctor Who everyone thought Series 5 would be completely terrible because the supporting cast was all removed from the show, but new characters came in and everything still worked fine.
I am baffled as to how Penders can have copyright on characters he did while freelancing. It should have been in his contract that he couldn’t do that.
@Chris: Trouble is, Archie “lost” the work for hire document that Penders signed. I put quotes on it, because there is a copy, but as far as the judge is concerned, it’s copy schmopy. Now if the original document can be found, that will turn things all on their heads. Probably found it’s way into a landfill by now I imagine though… So yeah, unless the actual original document turns up, this could end up in a disaster. Don’t ask me how it works that he can copyright characters he shouldn’t be able to, but it does. Somehow… ::Mutters something about how third party transforming robot toys makes it possible for Penders plans to go through, although for extreme risk since comics are of a higher profile than toys:: Just know that if the document can’t be found, Archie may have to work out some kind of agreement. And from the sounds of it, Penders doesn’t want to rework his characters so they don’t look like Sonic Characters. So this thing could very well end up in quite the explosion. ::Thinks on recent events:: That was a bad statement, but appropriate somehow…
@Strike Carson: thanks for the great explanation. This situation is insane…
I guess he demanded an additional rate for continuing to work with the characters, one that archie wasn’t willing to pay.
The good news is that there’s no such thing as a permanent death in a comic book, so if the situation does ever turn against Penders and he loses his copyright, I’m sure the current writers will find a way to unkill them.
Yea I would still support it. It saddens me a bit that Ian and the team took so much time to actually make a lot of Penders’ chars interesting (too bad he never actually got around to Julie-su tho) and now they are “fwash”-ed away for the time being. But like Chris said comic deaths or removals are hardly permanent so I just see it as not seeing them for awhile as anything can happen at this point. Meanwhile ill just enjoy the crossover.
Recently, on the ken penders forums (which I check for updates on the lawsuits and such) He made a reply saying he never sued Archie.
http://www.kenpenders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2525#p7249
This could mean nothing, or I could have just read it wrong, but i’m curious why he would say something, like that.
As for the characters. Julie-Su was one of my favorite characters, so i’m hoping this whole thing will get sorted out.. Even if Archie needs to pay an amount for rights to use. But I hope the case swings in their favor.
Tempered: Well…it’s because he’s right. Penders filed for the copyright protection, but it was Archie who filed the litigation.
-T
you know i actually made talk about this case in my college logic class. And my instructor told me this is probably be the most controversial issue of all time . Well when it comes to video game franchise comicsb this literally takes the cake.
Uhh…
Sorry. I don’t really understand. What contract ?and is Penders just a bowl of talking flakes?
I’ve realized that the characters were getting either killed (Tommy Turtle) or outta comic (Thrash and the Echidna tribes) and even into a capsule(Snively)!!
It must have something to do with the Sonic Reboot.