Bastard vs. Sweet Home: Which Webtoon Should You Read First?

Start with Bastard if you want a psychological thriller about a terrifying family secret. Choose Sweet Home if you prefer monster horror, survival, and an escalating disaster.

Both are completed Korean webtoons written by Carnby Kim and illustrated by Youngchan Hwang. They share a creative team, but they tell different stories. You do not need to finish one before starting the other.

That is the short answer. The more interesting difference is how they use horror to explore what people do under extreme pressure.

If you discovered Sweet Home through its Netflix adaptation, Bastard may be an unfamiliar title. But in the Korean webtoon publishing timeline, Bastard came first.

Spoiler level: Premise only. No major twists or endings from either webtoon.

Content note: Bastard involves serial murder, family abuse, coercion, and bullying. Sweet Home involves violence, disturbing transformations, grief, and psychological distress.

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Bastard vs. Sweet Home at a Glance

Comparing the original Bastard and Sweet Home webtoons
Question	Bastard	Sweet Home
Original Korean title	후레자식	스위트홈
Korean serialization	2014–2016	2017–2020
Central threat	A serial killer within the protagonist’s family	A monster outbreak threatening the wider community
Main setting	Everyday home and school life	An apartment building during a catastrophe
Main source of tension	Family coercion, secrecy, and resistance	Survival, transformation, and cooperation
Story scale	Intimate psychological thriller	Community-centered apocalyptic horror
Original webtoon status	Completed	Completed
Official English webtoon	WEBTOON	WEBTOON

The publication dates and creative histories are documented in the Korea Foundation’s feature on Korean webtoon creators. Completion status and original premises can be checked on the official Bastard and Sweet Home WEBTOON pages.

The table compares the central premises, not every event or theme in the completed stories.

Same Creators, Different Types of Fear

The shared creative team is the clearest connection between the two series.

Carnby Kim wrote both webtoons, and Youngchan Hwang provided the artwork.

According to the Korea Foundation’s Koreana feature, Bastard was the pair’s first collaboration, with Sweet Home following later.

That chronology makes the comparison useful for another reason.

Rather than treating Bastard as an extra story attached to the more internationally visible Sweet Home, readers can approach it as a substantial earlier work with its own central conflict.

The most obvious distinction is the scale of danger.

In Bastard, a teenager lives with someone who should be responsible for his safety but instead threatens it.

In Sweet Home, a teenager and other residents face an outside world transformed by monsters.

Both stories involve fear and vulnerability. But knowing where the danger comes from changes the questions each premise raises.

The first is about living under another person’s control.

The second is about surviving when ordinary social life breaks down.

Bastard: Horror Inside the Family

Bastard centers on Jin, a schoolboy whose father is a serial killer.

The official Seven Seas description introduces his vulnerability, the bullying he faces, and the terrible secret inside his home.

The Korea Foundation’s account adds that Jin is coerced into assisting his father.

This makes the story’s premise more morally difficult than a simple confrontation between an innocent witness and a dangerous stranger.

Jin’s position within the family limits his freedom to choose how to respond.

A father can control access to security, resources, and emotional approval. In Bastard, the familial power relationship becomes the setting for psychological terror.

That is an analysis of the premise, not a claim that every parent-child relationship operates this way.

The question raised by this kind of horror is not only whether someone can recognize evil.

It is what resistance means when the threatening person holds power over your everyday life.

The setting matters because the home is not an unfamiliar haunted location. It is the place where the protagonist is expected to live.

There is no need for a monster transformation to make that situation frightening.

Sweet Home: Horror Across an Entire Community

Sweet Home begins with Cha Hyun-su, a withdrawn teenager who moves into an apartment building after a family tragedy.

Then people begin turning into monsters.

The official WEBTOON introduction presents a story in which Hyun-su must face the catastrophe alongside other residents.

Instead of one dangerous family member controlling the situation, the threat spreads through the community.

That changes the role of the setting.

An apartment building contains people with separate routines, private spaces, and different relationships. A large-scale emergency forces them to make decisions that affect others.

Survival is not only a question of physical strength. Residents must decide whom to trust, how to cooperate, and what to do when fear shapes their treatment of one another.

The monsters are central to the premise, but the relationships among the survivors give the threat an additional human dimension.

Carnby Kim discussed the work’s growth-story element in a creator interview published by WEBTOONGUIDE.

That context helps explain why Sweet Home cannot be described only as a sequence of creature attacks.

Its premise creates room for a story about human change under extreme circumstances.

For more on the monster concept itself, see Sweet Home Monsters Explained: Desire, Monsterization & Humanity.

What the Korean Titles Suggest

The two titles are an interesting contrast, especially when read in Korean.

Bastard is titled 후레자식 (hurejasik).

The National Institute of Korean Language defines the expression as a disparaging term applied to someone regarded as badly brought up or lacking proper manners.

It is an insult, not a neutral description of someone’s legal family status.

That distinction matters when approaching a story about a boy whose father is responsible for much of the danger around him.

The expression carries judgment about upbringing, while the premise raises questions about the behavior of the parent himself.

The irony is worth considering, although it should be understood as an interpretation rather than an official explanation from the creators.

Sweet Home, by contrast, uses 스위트홈, a Hangul rendering of the English phrase.

Its title evokes a place of comfort and security.

Yet the story takes place in a building where the idea of safety is challenged by monsters, fear, and the need to cooperate.

The two titles therefore approach home from different directions.

One begins with an insulting expression connected to upbringing and family. The other begins with a reassuring phrase associated with shelter.

Both become uncomfortable when placed beside their respective premises.

That doesn’t mean the creators deliberately designed the titles as a pair. It means the contrast is useful for understanding the kinds of horror these stories explore.

What Do Both Stories Have in Common?

Although their threats look very different, the works share an interest in characters whose choices become difficult under extreme pressure.

In Bastard, the central pressure comes from a deeply unequal family relationship.

In Sweet Home, it comes from a crisis in which people must survive without being able to rely on their usual routines.

The Korea Foundation’s analysis of Carnby Kim’s work identifies moral dilemmas and the brutality of human behavior as recurring concerns in his stories.

This is a more meaningful connection than assuming every work by the same writer belongs to a single fictional universe.

Consider the questions the premises invite.

Can someone resist a person who has controlled their life?

What happens to trust when survival is uncertain?

How do people respond when doing the right thing becomes dangerous?

The questions aren’t identical, but they place human behavior at the center of horror.

And that is why the creator connection matters even without a crossover character or a shared monster mythology.

Are Bastard and Sweet Home in the Same Universe?

There is no required reading order between them.

Official publisher and platform descriptions introduce Bastard and Sweet Home as separate stories with different protagonists and central threats.

The shared credits establish a creative connection. They do not, by themselves, establish a shared fictional universe.

Readers should therefore not assume that Bastard explains the origin of Sweet Home’s monsters or that finishing Sweet Home is necessary to understand Jin’s family.

This is especially worth clarifying because Carnby Kim has another work connected to Sweet Home: Shotgun Boy.

Shotgun Boy is presented as a prequel within the Sweet Home story world.

That relationship is discussed separately in our Sweet Home and Shotgun Boy reading-order guide.

Bastard should not be inserted into that reading order simply because it shares the same writer.

If you want to explore all three, treat Bastard as an independent thriller and follow the separately documented relationship between Sweet Home and Shotgun Boy.

Which Should You Read First?

There isn’t one correct answer for every reader.

Start with Bastard if you prefer psychological thrillers

Choose Bastard if you’re more interested in a story built around a threatening human relationship than a large-scale supernatural disaster.

Its premise is especially relevant to readers looking for family-centered psychological horror, questions of coercion and responsibility, and an intimate central conflict.

But be aware that its domestic setting doesn’t make the subject matter less disturbing.

For some readers, a realistic family threat may be harder to approach than fictional monsters.

Start with Sweet Home if you prefer survival horror

Choose Sweet Home if you want the danger to expand beyond one household into a community-wide crisis.

Its premise involves monsters, a threatened apartment building, and the challenge of surviving alongside people who don’t necessarily know or trust one another.

If you discovered the story through Netflix, the original comic is also an opportunity to encounter the work in its initial webtoon form.

The Sweet Home webtoon vs. Netflix comparison explains why the comic and television series shouldn’t be treated as identical.

Read both if you’re interested in the creators

Reading both can be useful if your main interest is how Carnby Kim and Youngchan Hwang approach suspense through different settings.

You can begin with Bastard to follow their earlier collaboration, then move to Sweet Home.

Or you can start with Sweet Home if its monster-survival premise is more appealing and return to Bastard afterward.

Neither route requires a crossover explanation.

The publication chronology is useful context, but it isn’t a mandatory story sequence.

Where to Read Bastard and Sweet Home Officially

Both original webtoons are complete and have official English editions.

Both listings may direct readers to the WEBTOON app for additional episodes or access options. Completion status does not mean every episode is necessarily available without an unlocking requirement.

There is also a confirmed English print collection of Bastard.

Seven Seas Entertainment’s Bastard catalog lists five volumes. Its Volume 5 product page identifies the September 2026 release as the final volume.

The digital series and printed volumes contain the illustrated comic, not an original prose novel.

Check the platform or publisher for current availability rather than relying on old price or access information.

Final Answer: Choose the Kind of Fear That Interests You

Bastard and Sweet Home share creators, but the reason to choose between them is not their publication order.

It’s the experience their premises offer.

Bastard places danger inside a family relationship. Its horror grows from secrecy, control, and the possibility of resistance.

Sweet Home places people inside a spreading catastrophe. Its horror grows from survival, transformation, and decisions made under collective pressure.

Both provide ways to explore human behavior through Korean thriller storytelling.

Neither requires you to read the other first.

For more background on the Korean title and English editions, visit the Bastard hub. For the monster concept, adaptations, and related reading, explore the Sweet Home hub.

Start with the story that raises the question you’re most interested in.

You can always visit the other one afterward.