On Tuesday, his first day as Marvel Comics‘ new editor-in-chief, C.B. Cebulski admitted that he once wrote comics for a year under the Japanese pseudonym “Akira Yoshida” 13 years ago.
The news came to light after Image Comics brand manager David Brothers posted a tweet calling for journalists to ask “Marvel and new EiC CB Cebulski on why he chose to use the pen name Akira Yoshida in the early 2000s to write a bunch of ‘Japanese-y’ books for them.”
Hey comics journo friends: we should definitely be asking Marvel and new EiC CB Cebulski on why he chose to use the pen name Akira Yoshida in the early 2000s to write a bunch of "Japanese-y" books for them. https://t.co/jXGKZdmyD4
— d a v i d b (@hermanos) November 27, 2017
“I stopped writing under the pseudonym Akira Yoshida after about a year,” Cebulski told Bleeding Cool on Tuesday. “It wasn’t transparent, but it taught me a lot about writing, communication and pressure. I was young and naïve and had a lot to learn back then. But this is all old news that has been dealt with, and now 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.”
Cebulski, who was appointed editor-in-chief on Nov. 17, wrote under the pseudonym of Yoshida from 2005 to 2006. He even created an elaborate backstory for the fictional Japanese man, and in interviews said that he was a Japanese man who grew up reading manga and had lived in the U.S. for a period of time because his father was an international businessman, leading to his introduction to American comics.
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With his pen name, Cebulski, who has family in Japan and lives in China, wrote stories that featured popular characters like Thor, the X-Men, and Wolverine and that were set in Japan and featured martial arts. He abruptly stopped publishing under Yoshida’s name after a year, and despite many questions by reporters over time, Cebulski maintained that he was not Akira Yoshida, who was in fact a real person who had visited the Marvel offices.
Marvel did eventually find out the truth about Yoshida and reportedly dealt with the problem years ago. The company confirmed to Variety that they are aware of the situation and that Cebulski did publish under the Yoshida name, but do not currently have an official statement.
