Did you watch the matttt video about Ken Penders and his contributions and backstory about the Sonic comic?
So one thing that strikes me is that a lot of this video seems to be taking Ken Penders word at face value. Now, Ken is not really known to be a liar, but that's not what I mean. I mean this video is produced from the perspective that everything Ken did was right and good.
And let it be known that I've been the kind of person who will tell you that early Ken Penders work is fine, actually, and it only becomes a problem when he starts to take too much ownership. This video does what it can to spin all of that in the most positive light possible, focusing more on Ken's intentions rather than the end results. It gives Ken every benefit of every doubt, which is nice, and a fresh perspective compared to the (at times, undeserved) dogpile he normally gets...
...But the video ultimately frames this as Ken either being "A creator securing the rights to his work or a vindictive artist getting his revenge after being fired" and nowadays I don't think it was either of those things.
I always focus on an early interview Ken Penders gave in the late 90's where he straight up admits he's writing for a licensed book and owns nothing (I've tried finding this interview again and it's lost in all the noise of Ken's lawsuits and publishing and whatever*). But he knew the assignment, and he knew the rules of that assignment. Whether there was a contract for that or not, that is the job Ken took, and the limitations behind that job, and there was a point he understood that and knowingly worked within that space.
At some point Ken Penders changed his mind and decided he could take ownership of this stuff. That he was no longer writing for a licensed book somebody else owned, and he was writing his book that he owned. When a loophole presented itself where he could establish real legal ownership, he pounced on it and turned it into the linchpin of an entire business model.
I don't really see that as revenge, and I'll never believe Ken deserves ownership of these characters, because they only exist in connection to someone else's license, something he demonstrated an understanding of at one time in his life.
There is absolutely no interrogation of this side of Penders in this video, and very little push back on statements he makes.
What I see is a man who accidentally got too close to a license he didn't own, and now refuses to let go. He poured his heart into it, but has not been rewarded for doing that, because generally people didn't like it (another crux of what this video avoids saying). Unfortunately for the rest of us, everyone around him is too unprepared to stop him from sinking his claws in deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
We live in a world where he continues to assert himself more and louder whether anyone actually likes it or not. And even if he never wants to admit it, he is irrecoverably poisoning the thing he poured his love into.
* Oh hey, I found the source. It comes from a tumblr blog on here quoting Ken Penders from somewhere, but doesn't attribute it to anything specific. I'd assume it's probably from his personal forums, which have been wiped and reformatted several times over the last 25 years.
