A new crime thriller comic book with young women at an HBCU taking matters into their own hands is sure to captivate readers this spring.
The Artists Writers and Artisans (AWA) title is from writer Sheldon Allen and artist Mauricio Campetella, and it is set to be released on June 18, available online and wherever comic books are sold. The book is colored by Daniele Caramanico and lettered by Matt Bowers, with cover art by Rahzzah and Kyle Baker. After the June 18 launch, new chapters will be available monthly.
Here’s the official description:
They Choose Violence follows Laneka, Deidre, and Karen, three Black HBCU friends turned accomplished professionals who band together to form a vigilante squad that targets White Supremacists deemed to have circumvented the justice system and gotten away with protected murder. Serving up grisly justice in increasingly creative ways, the vigilante posse becomes cult heroes and front-page news, while always staying one step ahead of the law. It’s effective, it’s cathartic, it’s kinda fun—until they are forced to confront the consequences of their actions—a copycat killer whose signature contains a special message to them—and the line between hero and villain begins to blur.
In a conversation with Blavity, Allen breaks down the real-life emotions, frustrations and fire that fueled They Choose Violence. He keeps it honest about how he built three badass, HBCU-educated women who aren’t just out for revenge—they’re strategizing, calculating and coming for systems, not just people. From the gray areas of vigilante justice to a copycat killer shaking things up, Allen digs into what happens when folks decide the system doesn’t work—and take matters into their own hands. Plus, he gives flowers to artist Mauricio Campetella, whose visuals hit even harder because he truly felt the weight of the story.
What inspired you to create They Choose Violence, and how did you navigate telling a story that taps into real-world racial injustices while still making it a gripping crime thriller?
I wouldn’t say there was a specific incident or catalyst that drove me to sit down and write the book, but there’s no way I could look around at what was happening the last decade or so in terms of racial injustice and remain quiet. I mean, it’s nothing new in this country, but now it’s being captured in 4K with an instant comment section underneath. The key for me though, was I didn’t want to set out to make something that came off as sanctimonious. My primary agenda with any story I create is to entertain. Doesn’t matter what the topic is. Doesn’t matter how deep, personal, historical, or sensitive the material is. It must entertain. It’s my number one rule. Of course, you navigate that tightrope every now and then to make sure you’re not encroaching into exploitation territory, but, yeah, the entertainment factor has always been my guiding principle. With They Choose Violence, as the ideas began to percolate and occupy all this real estate upstairs, the question became: “How can I have my say on this relevant issue dominating our headlines without it coming off as preachy with mailman Keenan Ivory Wayans walking into frame saying, “Message!” – extra credit points by the way if you got that reference. I realized there was some unmined potential to make the book a bit of an unconventional crime thriller and sort of reinvent this concept of the “black trauma” story trope we’ve seen so often. But trust me when I tell you, whatever your political leanings are, or whatever you think this book is from the preview pages or description, you won’t think it is that by the final issue of the series. You have no idea where the book ends up.
Laneka, Deidre, and Karen are HBCU-educated professionals who take justice into their own hands. How did you shape their individual motivations and skill sets to make their transformation into vigilantes feel authentic?
The authenticity comes from association, including my own sister. In my experience, no one will line up faster or harder than an HBCU grad. They simply do not have time for foolishness, and a big part of that energy is rooted in capability. These folks know their s**t, and they know they know their s**t. The girls in our story would be natural vigilantes, given their proximity and familiarity with the injustice that kicks the story off, but more importantly, they’d make effective vigilantes. Not just some Punisher retreads interested in this guy over there or that guy over here, but vigilantes invested in taking down entire systems of injustice and abuse. This isn’t something they’d just sit up and say, “Hey, let’s don some masks with emoji faces and start murdering guilty people who got off.” No, they’d say, “OK, if we’re going to do this thing, it’s got to be done right. Let’s make a plan. Let’s train. Let’s game out all possible outcomes. Let’s make sure we have all our I’s dotted and T’s crossed before we embark on something wild like this.”
Vigilante justice is a theme that often blurs the lines between heroism and villainy. Given that a copycat killer emerges in the series, how does that complicate the moral questions surrounding the protagonists’ mission?
I’m interested in stories that challenge our sense of morality and take us to uncomfortable answers. I’ve often said this about some of the other books I’ve written, but there’s no such thing as a good guy or bad guy. There are characters you root for and characters you may root against. But heroes or villains will always be a matter of perspective. You have to remember, I grew up a rabid comic book fan, but my favorite Marvel characters were always guys like Green Goblin, Magneto, Thanos, and Dr. Doom. For me, the copycat killer represents one of the consequences of vigilantism. Violence isn’t something that can be contained or sanitized. It is almost always reciprocated with more violence.
One of the things that’s alarmed me lately is just how nasty and impersonal we’ve become as a society. Empathy is seen as weakness, and cruelty is rewarded. We’re a long way from Michelle Obama being celebrated for telling us to go high when they go low. Now it’s “If they go low, we go subterranean.” I was starting to notice just how casually people talked about inflicting violence on others in the name of getting their lick back or righting a perceived wrong. I’m not sure people are really thinking about what those kinds of acts truly entail. It’s something we explore with the girls in our story. What happens when someone actually does go full militant and embrace violence? How can you embark down that dark road without losing a part of who you are? Your humanity. What about collateral damage? What about the rule of law? Is due process valid only if we agree with the results? There are no easy answers, and it’s a trip to watch the girls go on this unexpected journey through an amoral wilderness where the only rules are, there are no rules.
Can you tease a specific panel or sequence in They Choose Violence where Mauricio Campetella’s visuals elevated the emotional or thematic weight of a scene?
This will be my third book with Mauricio, and it certainly won’t be my last. I joke with him all the time that he has a lifetime contract with me whether he knows it or not. What was crazy about working with him on this book was it made me realize just how far the pleas for justice travel. He’s based in Argentina, and yet, he was familiar with every name, city, shooting, beating, verdict, and protest movement going on here in the States. This is the best work of his career, and when I told him such, he said it was because he connected with the material on a human level and wanted to make sure he stepped his game up. Keep in mind, Mauricio’s a pretty humble guy, so for him to give himself props like that, you know it must be special. There’s a particular sequence in the final issue that I think is a career-high for both of us. When it was done, I was saying, “I can’t believe I wrote that,” just as he was saying, “I can’t believe I drew that.” But I can’t tell you what it is without spoiling things, so to answer the question, the entire training sequence in the first issue is when I started to think we may be cooking. I think that’s when the ladies came alive for me, and hopefully, the audience will feel the same way when they experience it.
How would you say the protagonists are forced to reckon with the unintended fallout of their actions?
It goes back to that question of morality. Sure, the guy you’re committing this horrible act of violence against may be guilty as all hell, but you’re just as guilty of murder, too. What makes you any better than the guy you’re supposedly dishing out justice to? Furthermore, what happens when you get to a point where you don’t even remember why you started in the first place? That’s just one aspect of it. The other big part of the story, which comes around issue #3, is what happens when you find out this entire time you’ve been playing right into your adversary’s hands and advancing their goals to the detriment of your own. I can’t say it enough; you guys have no idea where the book is going, and I can’t wait for readers – left, right, conservative, liberal, libertarian, whatever – to see for themselves just where we end up. It’s a twisty ride where you won’t see what’s coming next. It’s my highest recommendation, if I don’t say so myself.
