Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Akira Yoshida, C.B. Cebulski, darkveil, dookie hands, marvel, Sina grace

Sina Grace Doubts Darkveil Will Be Back in X-Books Until "Dookie Hands" Akira Yoshida is Gone

Back in July, after Marvel unveiled the lineup for Marauders, one of the X-Books launching as part of the Dawn of X following Jonathan Hickman's line-wide X-Men relaunch, writer Sina Grace acknowledged that the book's roster appeared very similar to the cast of his Iceman comics. This came just one month after Grace opened up on his blog about his time at Marvel and the lack of support he felt Marvel gave him while he was writing the series.

"Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards," grace wrote at the time, speaking of the online abuse he suffered as a result of the books and other issues.

This week, Marauders #1 finally hit stores, and Grace tweeted about it, seeming to enjoy the book and the idea that it would carry on the groundwork he laid. Grace had previously said that the writer of Marauders, Gerry Duggan, is the person who helped him get the gig at Marvel in the first place, so there doesn't appear to be any beef between the two writers.

However, when asked whether Darkveil might appear in the book, Grace was less positive. After all, the friction between Grace and Marvel over Darkveil seemed to be a breaking point for the writer, who said back in July:

All of the weird drama I put up with crystallized when I created a drag queen mutant, first called Shade, now called Darkveil. I told my editor that Shade would be a big deal for X-Fans, and asked how we should promote her. He said: "leave it up to the reader's interpretation." Everyone at Marvel shrugged off two years of goodwill and acted like I'd coordinated behind their backs on an announcement that made headlines. Beyond mentioning on Instagram the queens who inspired the character, I didn't coordinate shit. Of course, their head publicist can't admit that my quotes were pre-approved from an unreleased interview. At this point, I stopped believing that there'd be any more work for me. There were so many shady moves on their end that I'm still having trouble putting into language, but it all aligned with an experience I had in retail where a corrupt manager kept lying and moving the goal posts in order to keep me selling in a department I didn't want to work in. I offered to give Darkveil a proper character bio, and I walked away.

And so, answering the question, Grace responded:

Akira Yoshida, for those unfamiliar, was the name of the fictional Japanese man Marvel Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski pretended to be in order to write comics while still working in Marvel editorial over a decade ago. Despite rumors and denials, the identity of Yoshida remained unconfirmed until Cebulski admitted to masquerading as Yoshida shortly after taking the Editor-in-Chief job. Accusations that Cebulski's hands are dookie, however, are brand new, and Bleeding Cool will need to put our top reporters on substantiating them. Perhaps a sniff test? We'll let Rich Johnston handle that one.

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