Spencer native to release newest installment in comic series

Published 1:00 am Saturday, October 10, 2026

Shequeta Smith is a Rowan County native and author of several acclaimed works.

An upcoming Kickstarter campaign will introduce the third installment of a hotly-anticipated comic from Spencer native Shequeta Smith.

On Tuesday, Smith will kick off the funding campaign for “Young Grandmaster Choi Chapter 3: Under the Chuseok Moon,” the most recent in her widely read series following the adventures of her larger-than-life character.

“Young Grandmaster Choi is actually the prequel to the graphic novel that I did between 2016 and 2021,” Smith said.

That graphic novel is Rayven Choi, a gritty tale about revenge.

“It’s about a 5-year-old girl who witnesses her parents die on a train,” Smith said. “A hitman kills her parents and she gets sent to Korea for witness protection. She spends 20 years there…and decides to come back to America to find the killer and become a bounty hunter.”

Smith said that she was encouraged by Rayven Choi readers to create another series, geared more toward a younger audience, which is what sparked the idea for Young Grandmaster Choi.

Young Grandmaster Choi tells the story of the titular character’s life in Korea, after the assassination of her parents. Smith explained that both the tone and style depart from the original.

While Rayven Choi is in the style of a graphic novel, more familiar among Western audiences, Young Grandmaster Choi is a blend of Eastern visual styles.

“I say manga all the time because most Americans know what a manga is,” Smith said about the comic style invented and popularized in Japan. “It’s actually a manhwa, which is the Korean term for manga.”

Young Grandmaster Choi takes place in Korea but uses a Japanese art style called “chibi” in which characters have a small and cute appearance. The style matches the story’s lighthearted tone and its themes of identity and finding oneself.

“I think that’s why the librarians like it because it’s still lighthearted but it tackles the real issues,” Smith said. “The second book tackles racism but it’s not…on the nose. It’s there but it’s done in a way that kids can understand.”

Smith recommends ages 7-12 for the prequel manhwas.

Smith said she wants to take the lessons from the book and apply it to real life.

“For the third chapter, we’re working on what’s called the Curly Confidence Kit,” Smith said. “It’s a book that…for little Black girls it talks about Black hair and why it’s the way it is.”

Smith said that she is working to contact youth organizations to get the book into the hands of Black girls. Smith said this was one of the motivations behind her work.

“Discrimination for Black girls starts at five years old, about their hair,” Smith said. “It actually gets worse as they get older.”

Smith is among a handful of Black storytellers in the manga and manhwa spaces offering unique perspectives. Her work has been embraced, particularly in Korea.

“When I did Rayven Choi, I went on a tour, I went to South Korea, I went to Indonesia, so I got the chance to see how people in other countries reacted to a Black female lead,” Smith said, adding that she sold out of books while on tour. “There are people that are happy to see Black people in roles and comic books.”

She said, in a way, the manhwa is representative of several cultures, from Korea and Japan to its Black American author and the Indonesian artist, Qazzran Alamry, who illustrated the work.

A lifelong comic book fan, Smith said she remembers growing up in the Salisbury area, and begging her grandmother to buy her comics, like Archie.

“She read the Salisbury Post religiously,” Smith said. “She would read the Sunday paper, so on Sunday mornings she would hand deliver the funny pages to me. So she would read the rest of the paper and the funny pages were mine. So I grew up reading the funny pages, I grew up reading Archie and Veronica.”

She didn’t expect her path to lead to manhwas. Prior to moving to California as a screenwriter, she worked as an educator in Rowan County.

“I taught for a few years after college,” Smith said. “I had a youth group that I used to run in Charlotte and then I moved here to write movies. I feel like I can teach in a bigger way, through entertainment. That’s where I’ve been in the past 20 years, building myself up in the industry to be able to do this.”