Double Feature: A Pair of Bastards

This week I’m reviewing two books called Bastard. Each book features a young protagonist and how they navigate relationships with their criminal parents in criminal situations. Under such pressure cooker situations, will the central relationships survive? 

Two minor programming notes: For the first time I decided to just use the plot description from the publisher and put all the information about the book in a header at the start of the review instead of summarizing in the review. The second Bastard review is a 2025 release. I’m working on a large round-up post of 2025 releases that will probably run in a few weeks. Until that guide is ready to go, I’m going to review some of the 2025 titles I’ve read as a lead up to that round-up post. If you have any thoughts on either of these programming notes or if you want to make sure a 2025 crime comic title is on my radar screen, shoot me a message!

Title: Bastard
Writer(s): Max de Radiguès
Artist(s): Max de Radiguès
Availability: Print, digital, digital library services
Plot Summary: After taking part in a historic heist — 52 simultaneous robberies at the same time, in the same city — May and Eugene, a young mother and her preteen son, are on the run not only from the law and double-crossed former accomplices, but also their violent past. They crisscross the United States, encountering mysterious truckers, ambitious bandits, and senior citizens living off the grid — while flashbacks show the reader how they got into this deadly situation.
Review: After” is the keyword in the plot summary. If you are interested in the plot mechanics of a gang pulling off a “historic heist”, this ain’t for you. All great heist stories have at least two main components, the heist and the aftermath. Bastard is concerned with the latter. Its pov is vigorously rooted in that of a mother and young son who participated in the heist. They are on the run and it’s unclear what the current lay of the land is. They are trying to stay safe, gather intel, and not attract any unwanted attention. This breaks down early on in the opening moments when a customer at a store, a civilian, recognizes May and calls her by a different name. She exits the situation quickly and goes to the hotel where the boy is waiting and tells him what happened. Here we get to see an important dynamic of their relationship. Yes, May is a criminal on the run, but there are no secrets here. Who they are, what they’re about, and what they did is all out in the open between the two of them. And they’re pretty good at what they do. So when May tosses her underage child the keys he knows what needs to be done and kicks into gear. He’s been in this situation before.

Bastard is a masterpiece of pov. The initial pov is the combo of May and Eugene. When the reader is in the car with them, we are in the car with them. So when a sudden intrusion, like a police roadblock, startles them, it startles us too because we are right there in that space with them. Without getting into specifics, some character and plot stuff happens and May and Eugene are separated and we get two stories running parallel but the story is more interested in Eugene in the home stretch. As he fades out of the criminal life, the crime story, May’s story, fades into the background. When word reaches Eugene about May’s exploits, it turns out some real gangster shit played out in the background. Eugene’s story has a heartwarming conclusion and there are just enough teases to May’s story to see her for the criminal badass she is. 

Elsewhere I’ve extolled the virtues and sung the praises of my favorite crime comic and, arguably, one of the best crime comics ever, Stray Bullets. Let me say here that Bastard is, in a number of ways, a spiritual descendant of Stray Bullets. First, there is the art style with its clear lines, bright spaces, and a clean sense of what’s going on at all times. Second, there is the respect for children’s pov who are brought up in this criminal life. Third, there are the simple panel grid layouts and how they are used to keep the story moving (basically, a simple grid panel with a consistent presentation that mimics frames in a film allows the story to unfold easier and faster for the reader who doesn’t have to think about panels because it’s a form they are instinctively familiar with.)

Bastard is a warm, deeply empathetic, thoroughly effective, and highly entertaining crime comic.

Title: Bastard Vol. 1
Writer(s): Carnby Kim
Artist(s): Youngchan Hwang
Publisher: Webtoons/Seven Seas
Availability: Print, digital on WEBTOONS 
Plot Summary: High school life is hard enough, but it’s even harder for Seon Jin. A sickly disabled boy, Jin might as well be invisible. No one ever pays attention to him, except for the bullies who prey on him for being weak. Jin, however, keeps a very dark secret—there’s a serial killer in his house…and it’s his father!
Review:

Mean as a killer, instinct that's within ya, you're a bastard.

Laughs like a drain and it messes up my brain
You twist me til I'm lame, then you spin the coin again, you're such a bastard

You're so naturally perverse, you ain't even gotta rehearse, you're such a bastard

My prison is your brain, your prisoner's insane
Forgot all the keys, you can break the chains
But you don't even take the blame you bastard. 

-Selection of lyrics from “Bastard” by Ian Hunter

Bastard introduces us to a couple of new ideas for this project: webtoon and manhwa. Manhwa are Korean comics. In the early aughts, the majority of South Korean comics moved online and webtoons are a type of digital comics that utilize vertical scrolling (instead of pages) that allow for an easier reading experience on tablets and especially smartphones. Popular webtoons can be licensed by publishers for print. Webtoons the format should not be confused with Webtoons the platform. The Webtoons platform utilizes the characteristics of the webtoons format but has content from other countries in addition to its South Korean content. Webtoons, both the format and platform, have a long history of encouraging users to upload their own content and self-publish their comics and making that process more accessible.  (self-published crime comics could be a good future topic, I’ve written about one already, Freddy Reno Went Missing).

Carnby Kim is a well known comics creator. He is probably best known for Sweet Home and Shotgun Boy. Sweet Home was adapted as a series and is available on Netflix. Bastard started in June 2015 and concluded in May 2017 and is complete at 94 chapters. Seven Seas Entertainment started releasing Bastard in print in English in 2025. Vol. 1 was released May 2025, Vol. 2 was released August 2025, and Vol. 3 will be released December 2025. Kim is probably one of the best manhwa writers out there. So one of his works is going to be a great place for readers new to manhwa to start. I haven’t yet read all of his world but Bastard is firmly in crime fiction territory (while spending a lot of time in psychological horror).

Vol. 1 contains the first 23 chapters. The publisher’s synopsis lays out that the main character’s father is a serial killer and the story isn’t coy with that info. Some stories may have led up to that reveal but Bastard only does that for the first chapter. The reader is immersed in the main character’s horrific life right from the jump. From that point on Kim does a nice job of expanding the horizons of the story. The cast of supporting characters around the main character fill out, new relationship dynamics open up for the main character as his world expands, and longer term story arcs are set up. There are moments of derangement and violence but much of the story is about the inner turmoil of the main character and his extreme home life and him starting to finally expand the boundaries of his limited life experience by starting by becoming closer to those around him who aren’t his father. Each of these new relationships also operate on different levels. He befriends the school bully but he really wants to get stronger so he can stand up to his father. He befriends the new girl at school but he really wants to protect her from his father who has set his sights on her. An ulterior motive may initiate these relationships; they help change who he is also and make him stronger and better for the larger confrontations that will likely come later in the series. 

Bastard, so far, is a great crime and psychological horror story. Through the main character, the reader is inserted into a horrific situation and is forced to grapple with what they might do in such a situation. We want him and his friends to come through this ok but there’s a good chance they all won’t make it. Great characters and a great premise.