Very few people have had as immense an impact on the Sonic the Hedgehog as Ken Penders. Sonic is a name that most people around the globe are familiar with, even those who have never touched a Sega Genesis or any other gaming console. As the popularity of this character has grown throughout the decades, the Blue Blur has been featured in comics, films, TV shows and more. Penders served as an artist and lead writer for Archie Comics’ eponymous series from issues #11 to #159 and its many spin-offs.
In 2006, Penders left Sonic to pursue other creative endeavors before he filed a lawsuit against Archie Comics to gain rights to his own characters that he created himself so that he could one day finish telling their stories. That day is fast approaching as Penders is currently collaborating with multiple professionals on a highly comprehensive seven-book project and app called The Lara-Su Chronicles, which follows the legacy of Knuckles’ daughter who he began exploring in the Sonic storyline Mobius: 25 Years Later.
As of now, Penders plans to release the finished app and the hardcover print edition of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con. The hardcover book will essentially collect all the Mobius: 25 Years Later stories published by Archie Comics in Sonic the Hedgehog #131 through #144. This will be followed by all the new material created for the app, including a sneak preview of Shattered Tomorrows. The app currently features French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish translations with more on the horizon, including Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.
Screen Rant was lucky enough to speak with Ken Penders for nearly two hours where he discussed not just The Lara-Su Chronicles, but his experience in the comic book industry and writing Sonic the Hedgehog, the latter of which will be featured in a future article. Fans are in for quite a ride, as they can expect Robo-Robotnik and other familiar characters to make an appearance in The Lara-Su Chronicles. But what they can't expect is more comic projects, especially Sonic, from Ken Penders. As a man who’s always looking to the future, Penders isn’t interested in living in the past and only wishes to finish what he started so long ago.
Let’s start with the Archie lawsuit since that was what initially led to The Lara-Su Chronicles.
First, I really appreciated your Sonic article mainly for the fairness you displayed as well as the sense of history. I’m also not bitter about Archie or our legal fight. You’ll find me anything but. I’m pretty sure there are quotes I said when the lawsuit began that may have come across as negative or sharp, but one has to understand I never in a million years ever expected that I would engage in a lengthy legal battle against a major publisher in the comics industry. In fact, when I left the book, I was interested in pursuing opportunities elsewhere. I was working as a storyboard artist in Los Angeles when I left the Sonic series. One of those opportunities was also the prospect of launching a Sonic animated film as I had the creative guiding force of FOX-TV’s animated X-Men series, producer and director Larry Houston as a partner and the support of Sega’s Licensing Manager, the late Robert Leffler.
When the animated film project fell apart due mainly to the death of Robert Leffler and the corporate upheaval SEGA was undergoing company-wide shortly after, I really thought my Sonic days were behind me. And I was fine with that, as I tend never to look back once I move onto something else. The lawsuit, however, put things in a different perspective, especially where my characters and stories were concerned. It’s been a long road since those days, but I believe I’m finally where I should be, working on a project that’s designed to complete the story my characters embarked on so many years ago.
You’ve spoken at length about how The Lara-Su Chronicles is more than a comic.
Comics are more popular than ever. It’s the 32-page format that’s no longer economically viable, which is why I’ve been designing The Lara-Su Chronicles for both a digital app format as well as a collected graphic novel in print. Period. I’ve never once promised an ongoing comic book series. At best, I may do a one-shot for the San Diego Comic-Con, but nothing beyond that.
What is the goal of this series?
I’m hoping my story inspires the next generation to do their own thing as opposed to playing in someone else’s sandbox. I never saw Sonic as playing in someone else’s sandbox because Sonic didn’t exist when I began working in comics. I didn’t grow up with the character the way today’s kids did. From my point of view, I was one of the players building the sandbox others wanted to play in.
So I look at The Lara-Su Chronicles as my effort to finish what I began. Here’s this world I had to create for Sonic and Knuckles to play in, a world so rich they’re really not necessary to complete the story. People may disagree because of my inclusion of the character K’Nox, but that was to allow for a tighter connection to what came before for the longtime readers. I couldn’t leave them hanging after all this time.
As you’ve been writing, it’s clear that the process has evolved. For example, when introducing book five on Twitter, you mentioned that you realized during the writing process that your main plot line needed to be resolved had you stayed with Archie. Have you reached a point where everything has already been planned and just needs to be created?
When I did the Mobius: 25 Years Later story, I looked at each individual segment as a chapter of a complete graphic novel. I always had a goal of where the story was going, I had an overall destination. And if you look at my Knuckle stories, most of them are three issues long. I had a sense of what the journey was, like the beginning, middle and end. What I didn’t know was all of the details. And as I would start filling in the details, I would see what I would have to address in order to make the story satisfying for readers. There are times when you get a better idea later on or when you realize this needs to happen to tie everything together.
It’s the same with The Lara-Su Chronicles. I’m also drawing it, and as I do this, I’m thinking, ‘Here’s the print version. How can I take advantage of the digital format?’ I just didn’t want to do digital comics as usual like how you can go to ComiXology and download them. It’s digital, but it’s still like reading a comic. You can enlarge the panels and swipe to the next page. But it’s still like reading a paper comic. And I wanted to do something that took advantage of the fact that it was digital as opposed to print so you have two different experiences. You have digital and print, so as I’m working on the art, it can affect each page’s layout where I go, 'Hey, I can do this with this story.’ It’s always an evolution.
I’ve seen you mention up to five books or parts. Without giving too much away, would it be possible to briefly discuss what each book covers? I know that the fifth book will cover the battle for Mobius between the forces of the Cyberdark Colony and the forces of Robo-Robotnik.
This was always going to be a seven book series. This is a completely mapped story. I may not know the details but I know there’s a journey and an end. Like they said in Endgame, part of the journey is the end, and I essentially look at this as my last comic project.
Book one establishes the world that people are going to be experiencing. Part of that was, ‘Okay, for the older readers, how does this connect to the older stories because there is an audience that loves the older stories and they want to know what happened to these characters, so I can’t ignore that. Many fans were upset that these characters were taken out by Archie as a result of the lawsuit. But at the same time, I want to make it accessible, so the new readers don’t have to buy the back issues to know what’s going on. So if you’re a long-time reader, you’re going to recognize the callbacks to the past. And if you’re a new reader, there’s enough there. Here’s the beginning of the story and we’re moving on. That’s the whole point of the first book. It’s the jumping-off point.
Book two focuses on Lara-Su’s family, their history, their traditions, and the Brotherhood of the Guardians. In terms of the Brotherhood, I’m not sure if that term is going to stick. There’s a couple of female members and this is the 21st century. I haven’t reached that point yet to address that, but when it comes, it comes.
Book three focuses on their opposite number known as the Dark Legion. These are the antagonists, and you learn that they actually had a more positive effect on society than we gave them credit for.
Book four gets us back to Lara-Su’s journey and where she’s going.
Book five is basically my resolution to what happens to the Sonic cast of characters that I created, like Geoffrey St. John, Queen Alicia and Prince Elias.
Book six is more or less leading to the climax of the story.
And book seven deals more with the legacy. Lara-Su’s journey has come to an end. Is there an after? There is a lot more to it, but I don’t want to say because there are some characters who are introduced in the beginning, and you find out they are tied to Lara-Su in some manner. You don’t get the full scope of how they’re tied together until you get to the later books. As a matter of fact, I just came up with a resolution for that aspect of the story because I've been kind of bouncing back and forth because it’s definitely not a situation anyone has ever seen in the Sonic comics. There is a lot that people will experience that I never could have done in Sonic. It’s not like it’s rated R.
Although you created a multitude of characters, the Echidnas are definitely the most important to you, so it’s understandable why you would have chosen an Echidna to be the main focal point of this final chapter. But why Lara-Su? What is it about her character that made you want the focus to be on her as opposed to the other Echidnas?
The way Knuckles was set up, he had this long history. He was the guardian of the Floating Island. And when I did Mobius: 25 Years Later, one of the subplots of that story was Knuckles establishing his legacy, which was Lara-Su hadn’t decided whether Knuckles makes it to the end of the story. Does Lara-Su take over for him? And essentially when I began thinking about what I was going to do with these characters, I recognized that unless Sega gave me access, Knuckles would no longer be the focus. How do I continue that story? And as I gave it more thought, that’s what evolved into Knuckles becoming K’Nox and shifting the focus. Whatever I intended as an ending for Mobius: 25 Years Later, it’s now the beginning. And now Lara-Su is the legacy, and she has to figure out where things go.
There were elements of the original ending from Mobius: 25 Years Later that I retained for the beginning of the story. At the time, I had set up three separate issues in Sonic: 50, 125 and 144. I didn’t know where I was going but they establish that by Sonic disrupting the space-time continuum on three separate occasions, it would lead to cataclysmic event. And once I had those elements in place, that’s when my story came to form much more coherently.
Probably one of your Tweets that resonated with me most about The Lara-Su Chronicles was your thread about autism and how you wanted to create a character with autism. Why did you choose Salma to fill this role as opposed to others?
I felt going with an established character that hadn’t been fully fleshed out was better than creating a new character and saying they're autistic. This is due to the fact that a lot of Sonic fans are autistic and they interact with others to varying degrees but we don’t necessarily know they’re autistic until we spend time getting to know them. I've interacted with several autistic fans for many years and the common attraction for them regarding Sonic are the bright colors and fast action. Some interact with other fans to varying degrees of success or lack thereof, while others prefer to stay on the sidelines and not get caught up in the online arguments. I see it all. What I haven’t figured out is whether other fans recognize they might be dealing with someone who has a disability versus someone they think is just being disagreeable. By establishing Salma as autistic, we get to learn the parts of her she kept hidden, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, disastrously so. It also adds a dimension to her friendship with Lara-Su that defines Lara-Su’s character.
After this project ends, will you ever come back to the comic book industry?
When I decided to leave the Sonic series, I wasn’t looking for another comic book project. I was already making a transition into animation, doing storyboards for a couple of episodes of King of the Hill in its 11th season, illustrating a Sonic DVD Boxset cover and creating the concept art for the series of Motorola Razr ads. After that came a life-altering lawsuit. It was as a result of that lawsuit that my family encouraged me not to create anything others could lay a claim to owning, such as Archie tried to with my work.
At this time, as I work on developing my Lara-Su app and The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows graphic novel, I’ve come to recognize this could possibly be my last comics project. If not this, then my Lost Ones project. With The Lara-Su Chronicles, I see myself defining the story and art for the remaining six books I envision for the series as something that will be finished by others based on the material I’ve established. With The Lost Ones, I’m not sure if that will be a film, a prose novel or a graphic novel. It’s whatever shape opportunity presents to me.
Likewise, I’d like to work on more film projects as well as just paint pictures. I’m currently looking to present a project I produced and directed titled The Republic, which stars Sean Young and Marc Singer at various film festivals and see where that goes. And I have my own novel in the works that I turn to whenever the mood strikes me.
As far as Lara-Su’s legacy continuing, my son will do something, but I’m not sure what that will look like because they want to see what I do first before they do anything in particular. They look at it as my baby, as something they will be responsible for at some point down the road, but they haven’t given any thought to it yet. I also have two grandchildren, and you don’t know what steps they will take. I thought I could license, for example, the Sonic cast of characters like Geoffrey St. John, Prince Elias, Queen Alicia and Doctor Quack that I added to the Sonic story but I”m not quite there yet. If somebody came up to me and was serious about licensing, I would consider that. In terms of the characters that are going to be used in book five of The Lara-Su Chronicles, we say goodbye to those characters, not that they die, but they’re no longer part of the storyline.