Ken Penders

Penders is known for his work on the Archie Comics series Sonic the Hedgehog and its Knuckles the Echidna spin-off, which he contributed to from 1993 to 2006, and subsequent lawsuits involving them.

Archie sued Penders to retain the rights, but ultimately lost them, and in 2013 rebooted the Sonic comic to remove many comic-original characters.

[4] He served as lead writer for much of the series' early life until he switched focus to working on side-series Knuckles the Echidna, which ran from 1997 until being cancelled due to poor sales in 1999.

[12][14][15] Penders continued to work on the comic as lead writer until he left Archie in 2006,[9][4] with his final contribution being inks and lettering for the back story in issue #169.

[9][4][21] In 2002, Sonic the Hedgehog writer Ben Hurst attempted to pitch an animated film continuation of the series, proposing his idea to a Sega executive.

[24][25] According to Penders, he had the support of both X-Men director Larry Houston and Sega of America licensing manager Robert Leffer behind him, and cites the opportunity to make the film as to why he left his position as lead writer of the Sonic comic at Archie.

[9] He created four pieces of concept art and a homemade pitch video, but the project never materialised due to the death of Leffer and what Penders described as "massive corporate upheaval" at Sega sometime in 2007.

[9][4][29] The series also is set to feature many other characters created during his time at Archie, with it serving as a continuation of a story he had written for the Sonic comic, "Mobius: 25 Years Later".

[4][32] Penders stated reasons for the change were that he needed to make some adjustments to broaden the audience, that he wanted to give longtime fans answers and resolution, and because of the apparent difficulty he has seen with people pronouncing the word "echidna".

[33] Penders stated in a later interview that his goals with The Lara-Su Chronicles are to "[inspire] the next generation to do their own thing as opposed to playing in someone else's sandbox" and sees an effort to finish what he began with "Mobius: 25 Years Later".

[4][27][28] Penders planned on continuing his "Mobius: 25 Years Later" story independently of the publisher, and declared that everything using his copyrighted works since issue #160 of the main Sonic comic[b] was "essentially unauthorised".

He had been prompted to do so after fans of his had contacted him asking if he had anything to do with the release of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which he did not; Penders alleged the game used concepts and characters similar to those he had written for the comic series.

[4] As Archie were unable to produce the original copy of their contract with Penders, nor those of any other artist who had ever worked on Sonic prior, they were open for future lawsuits.

[4][5][6][7][8] While his work garnered praise during the series' run, his lawsuits against Sega and Archie are regarded as souring his standing with fans, serving as the subject of regular criticism from the fandom.