Learning To Love Ken Penders' Stories (Archie Sonic Video Essay) 

the fact that penders just made knuckles green for awhile is goofy

Somebody appreciating Ken Penders? They’ll have your address on the internet by next week, I’m sure of it.

People think Jon Gray's art is bad? It's different for sure, but I don't think that makes it bad. Or is it just people still being upset over "The Slap"?

4:28 AINT NO WAY TRACY DREW THAT

I now listen to 3 forms of YT entertainment while I work: past O and A radio bits, Jim Cornette's podcast and your video essays. Keep up the phenomenal work, bro! PS: We all truly appreciate the shout-out at the 12:49 mark, thank you!

Penders was certainly good as an "ideas guy" and I appreciate that he took the comic beyond just one-off comedy stories, but unfortunately he was always incapable of writing dialogue or actually developing his characters to be interesting individuals. Like, if it wasn't for the speech bubbles pointing at the drawings, you literally can't tell who is talking, almost all of his characters talk in exactly the same way. It's especially bad in the Knuckles stories. And I can't believe you used M:25YL as an example of "good writing", it's widely considered one of the worst arcs in the entire comic's history for the reasons I've stated, as well as just how fucking boring it was - no one picks up a Sonic comic to read about them going to dinner parties. And this was a common opinion *at the time*, this isn't a new opinion since Penders started all his legal bullshit. I was reading the comics at the time, only the weirdos on shipping forums back then cared about that arc, I remember so many people cancelling their subscriptions because it just went on and on and on. There's also the time he took a poem about the Holocaust and changed some words to make it about Sonic characters... and his stories constantly siding with abusive parents as being in the right, because he believes children should obey their parents... and how he constantly wanted to kill off existing main characters, including Sega characters, to replace them with his OCs (even after they learned the comic would be continuing beyond 50, Penders wanted Sally to stay dead, he also wanted Robotnik to stay dead permanently).

nothing really happens in 25 years later, it's a pretty wasted opportunity for such a cool concept to see the characters in the future, and while Flynn's first return to the future wasn't all that good either at least it gave us some conflict and interest

I love how detailed you are on all of these vids

After I took a look at some Jon Gray art, he can make some stunning stuff.

No, I will not kill myself, thank you very much.

I don't think the idea was ever pushed that Ken is a completely incompetent writer. More that several of his choices weren't really good concepts for an IP like sonic.

His behavior these days is still inexcusable regarding how he "reviews" other people's art, his massive ego, and his oversexualization of characters back when he was writing Sonic was always creepy regardless.

btw your video was not bad, just have disagreements with 25YL, could you cover the weird contradicting backstory of the chaos emeralds in the comics? apparently penders didn't read anyone else's stories and didn't know that there was already an explanation for the Chaos Emeralds

14:21 Wait, that’s not Sage

Loving them ironically or unironically?

Cool.