Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: C.B. Cebulski, Jie Yuan, marvel, variants

Marvel Celebrates Chinese New Year the Only Way It Knows How… with Variants

Published Wed, 15 Jan 2020 13:37:59 -0600

Last updated Wed, 15 Jan 2020 13:38:32 -0600

Marvel Comics has unveiled three connecting Spider-Man variants by Chinese artist Jie Yuan, the first of a series of variants celebrating Chinese New Year. The artist was chosen as part of a talent search conducted by Marvel and Wacom last year and has produced covers for Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality #3, Amazing Spider-Man #39, and Gwen Stacy #1 which connect vertically to form a large image.

Speaking appropriately of the Year of the Rat celebration, Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski said:

It was a thrill for me to visit art schools and conventions around China last year as part of this massive talent search! We reviewed hundreds of submissions and these covers are by the artists whose unique visual styles we felt best captured the Marvel characters. We hope fans love them as much as we do as Marvel continues our global approach to discovering diverse artistic voices!

It is not made clear in the press release whether Cebulski attended the art schools and conventions under his own identity or as superstar Asian creator Akira Yoshida, so we'll have to leave it up to speculation.

Check out the press release and variants below.

Last year, Marvel joined forces with Wacom, a company popular with artists for their state-of-the-art graphic tablets, to conduct a nationwide talent search throughout China. The results of this endeavor will be our upcoming Chinese New Year variant covers—and the first of which is being revealed…right now!

First up, we have the talented artist Jie Yuan who takes over your favorite Spider-Man titles with three connecting covers, featuring a who's who of your favorite Spider-Man characters from Miles Morales to Spider-Gwen to Peter Parker himself. Take a look at these awesome variant covers below and be on the lookout for more cover reveals from other artists who Marvel and Wacom found during this exciting creative initiative!

"It was a thrill for me to visit art schools and conventions around China last year as part of this massive talent search!" says Editor-in-Chief CB Cebulski. "We reviewed hundreds of submissions and these covers are by the artists whose unique visual styles we felt best captured the Marvel characters. We hope fans love them as much as we do as Marvel continues our global approach to discovering diverse artistic voices!"

You can pick up these covers in your local comic shop on February 12—retailers, don't forget to order your copies before Monday, January 20!