The Four Color Media Monitor

The Federalist had more to say about the manufactured controversies at least a few leftist dominated comics sites stirred up for the sake of their social justice leanings:

It didn’t take long for the gossip entertainment news to attack Cebulski, however. This week, Cebulski is the victim of manufactured identity politics outrage, in an attempt by the media to get him fired before his work as editor in chief even begins. Bleeding Cool, IO9, and the Huffington Post, outlets notorious for hyper-partisan clickbait, attacked Cebulski over the fact that 13 years ago he used a pseudonym to write a few books for Marvel. If it sounds like something not even worth mentioning, you’d be right, but it has the leftist outrage machine calling for Marvel to remove him.

Which proves they were always in the tank for men like Quesada and Alonso, because they represent all the PC visions they've never had any issues with. No doubt, the above clickbait sites never had any issues with erasing the Spider-marriage, and that's why, for the past decade, they've never had much to say in protest, if at all. On Cebulski's work as a writer in the 2000s, it's said that:

...Marvel and Cebulski really wanted some of his written work on comics. To get around this, they created a pseudonym. While perhaps it was against Marvel’s written policy at the time, various people at Marvel seemed to be aware of the pseudonym and published the books without any controversy at the time.

Akira Yoshida, Rising Star

The comic industry is very small, and it’s filled with different contract language and exclusive work clauses, predominately controlled by Marvel and DC Comics. Cebulski clearly created Akira Yoshida to get around the issues with the tricky contract language so he could further his passion in writing comics. The name references his love of Japanese culture, with Akira the name of one of the most popular manga and anime of all time, and Yoshida a nod to Shiro Yoshida, or Sunfire, one of the only Asian characters in the X-Men.

Cebulski worked on several comics under this name as a writer for Marvel, including very highly regarded “Thor: Son of Asgard,” “X-Men: Age Of Apocalypse,” and “Wolverine: Soultaker.” These comics were some of the finest produced in the mid-2000s. Marvel was happy with the work, the readers loved it, and there were no public problems.

So why is it suddenly an issue now? Does that also mean all the "critics" who praised his work before intend to disown their past opinions today? Here's how it all apparently began:

The complaints began earlier this week, when a Marvel competitor took a public swipe on Twitter to try to harm Marvel’s brand. According to Bleeding Cool, Image Comics Brand Manager David Brothers called on journalists to look into the Akira Yoshida pen name, in order to stir up controversy. Bleeding Cool obliged, as did several other left-wing clickbait sites.

If memory serves, wasn't this Brothers once a writer for the awful Comics Alliance? And now he's one of at least a few "commentators" undeservedly working in the biz as well, and I'm sure his motivations are more than just business rivalry. No doubt, he was pro-Quesada/Alonso and anti-Mary Jane Watson, to put it one way. Back in the early 90s, I know Marvel shouldn't have tried competing in desperation with Image through variant covers and other collectible merchandise, but now, in a manner of speaking, it's Image that's making the mistakes, and they're certainly allowing one of their staffers to do so. It's not good business, and who knows if Image ever really did have any?

They framed Cebulski’s pen name as an attempt to pose as a minority to get jobs because of diversity initiatives. It became an immediate identity politics issue, as even though Cebulski lives in Asia and has family there, he is Caucasian. The social justice lynch mob took to Twitter and immediately branded him a racist because of his love of Japanese culture.

Like usual in these situations, the outrage is so clearly manufactured. The paper trail comes from a business competitor incentivized to harm Marvel Comics, and the media sources amplifying the outrage are well-known for their fake news. But it also makes no sense. [...]

The non-story aspect didn’t stop some of the more extreme social justice advocates in entertainment from chiming in. Multi-award-winning author Alyssa Wong ranted on Twitter, swearing about Cebulski and accusing him of “racism,” “hurting people,” and causing “real harm.” She didn’t list specifically how he did any of this, but bizarrely followed up by saying “repeat offenders often mask their bad behavior with intentional Niceness [sic].” His crime is he’s too nice?

It’s hard to make sense of what harm he apparently perpetrated. Her rant concluded with a call to purchase work by real Asian-American authors, making her selective outrage appear to be little more than a self-promotional tool. Los Angeles Times writer Jen Yamato went on to accuse Cebulski of “cultural appropriation.” A story that never should have been in the spotlight has gone viral. [...]

It exposes a discrimination against white males. If the media is right that Cebulski had to use a minority moniker to get a job, it means white men aren’t considered for the work, or at the very least, minorities are preferred. Therefore, pro-white racism in entertainment doesn’t and didn’t exist as far back as 15 years ago. We’ve had a whole generation with no white-biased race preferences, and the media is hyping racial divisions for far more nefarious purposes than they let on.

Ironically, the people attacking Cebulski are the same ones who have no issue with white males like Dan DiDio, Bob Harras and Geoff Johns running DC, because they've all proven what side they're on, politically speaking. I've noticed how some of the SJW bunch are even content to let DiDio off the hook for tolerating Eddie Berganza when DiDio was the main editor in the 2000s (his name didn't seem to turn up in Buzzfeed's reports), and that's telling something. If the white males in question are leftist and politically correct enough, they'll accept them, but if they believe they're not, then they'll turn against them. That's evidently the case with Cebulski, quite possibly because he at least refrains from getting too political on Twitter, and they figured his appreciation for adventure tales signals he's got a more respectable view of Marvel than we think, though the jury's obviously still out on that one.

What matters is whether Cebulski's willing to take all the necessary steps to turn back the clock on much the harm done to Marvel in the past 2 decades. Again, the Spider-marriage is one example. But if he doesn't, and if he allows Quesada to interfere, then he's failed expectations for improvements.

Labels: dc comics, indie publishers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics