Marvel’s new editor-in-chief has admitted masquerading as a Japanese comic book writer.
C.B. Cebulski was a junior editor at the comic book giant when he spent around a year leading a double life as Japanese writer Akira Yoshida in the early 2000s, The Guardian reports.
The pseudonym allowed Cebulski, who is white, to get around a policy in place at the time which prohibited the company’s editors from working as artists or writers on Marvel comics.
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“Akira Yoshida” scripted more than 40 comics for well-known franchises including Thor, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, many set in Japan.
A 2005 profile of Yoshida on fan website Comic Book Resources described the writer’s supposed youth in Japan.
In the profile, Yoshida describes his latest X-Men project as “a solo series about Kitty and Lockheed that examines their relationship while sending them on an action-packed adventure in Japan”.
Bleeding Cool’s Rich Johnston, who unravelled the bizarre story, said Yoshida’s identity had long been a subject of industry speculation - not least because he disappeared around the time Cebulski signed a new contract allowing him to write for Marvel under his own name.
However, the testimony of multiple Marvel executives and editors who reported meeting Yoshida in person seemed to put the rumours to bed - until a podcast released earlier this summer reignited the rumours that Yoshida was an invention of Cebulski.
Cebulski apparently came clean to Marvel bosses earlier this year, saying he had created Yoshida in order to moonlight as a writer for other comic book companies and had then been approached by a Marvel editor, who was unaware of his true identity.
As for the Akira Yoshida whom multiple Marvel employees remembered meeting, he turned out to be “a Japanese translator who had visited the offices”, says Johnston.
In a statement to Bleeding Cool, Cebulski - who began his new role as editor-in-chief yesterday - admitted that he was Akira Yoshida, but said the incident was “old news”.
“I was young and naive and had a lot to learn back then,” he said. “As Marvel’s new editor-in-chief, I’m turning a new page and am excited to start sharing all my Marvel experiences with up-and-coming talent around the globe.”
Nonetheless, many comic book fans criticised Cebulski’s adoption of a Japanese pseudonym to write stories using Japanese themes and characters, when minorities still struggle for representation in the arts:
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