Shotgun Boy is a Prequel to the horror webcomic, Sweet Home (2017). While running for his life in the woods, bullying victim Gyuhwan Han stumbles upon a shotgun and just enough shells for his classmates. It’s a recipe for disaster. But fate takes an unexpected turn when he returns to find his classmates under attack by brain-eating creatures. Now, the only thing that stands in the way of their ravenous feast is a boy with a shotgun.
It was created on March 17, 2021 by Carnby Kim.
This Webcomic provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Absent Parent: Ironically, both Gyuhwan's and Seongbin's mothers are rarely if ever mentioned, even though both their fathers appear.
- And the Adventure Continues: At the webcomic's end, Gyuhwan and his friends may have survived One, Seongbin, and the rest of the Variants, but now they have to go through a monster apocalypse that's ripping South Korea apart. They beat one hell only to wake up in another.
- Anti-Hero: Like Hyun in the beginning, Gyuhwan is not the most heroic protagonist. In the beginning, he has dreams of shooting all of his classmates.
- Artistic License – Explosives: At the end of Chapter 61, Seongbin's grenade creates a massive explosion, with a fireball taller than a tree. In Real Life, grenades create fairly small blasts, their true danger comming from their fragmentation. While it's implied that the grenade was modified, there is simply no way such a small amount of explosives generate such a blast.
- Asshole Victim:
- While it's arguable if Gyuhwan's classmates do deserve to outright die, it is hard to feel bad for some of them when they are being hunted by monsters, since they are portrayed as selfish and uncaring towards Gyuhwan.
- Director Lee gets killed by the monster Four after stealing Gyuhwan's shotgun and endangering the group. He was already a pervert before that.
- Samshik gets used as a food source by One before she is about to torture and kill Seongbin.
- Seongbin did numerous horrible things before he got killed by One.
- Chanhyeok and Mira were just annoying.
- Ax-Crazy: Almost everyone in this series is a psycho, ranging from the Variants who kill people at every turn to psychotic students like Seongbin, Mira and even Gyuhwan at first, who just enjoy want to see other people suffer.
- Bad Future: The entire series is just building up the apocalypse that occurs in Sweet Home.
- The Bad Guy Wins: One ends up causing the monster apocalypse.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The main antagonists of the story are Seongbin and One. Also beware The MM Corporation and Zero.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- On the bright side: Gyuhwan, Shinyeong and their friends and allies have survived, while Seongbin and most of the Variants have been defeated and killed. On the not-so-bright side: Zero, and several others, have died, while One has pretty much won, and is on his way to initiate the monsterization apocalypse.
- The Crossover epilogue is also this: Gyuhwan and co. have survived a full year into the outbreak (albeit by working for MM, who are also implied to have helped Gyuhwan in keeping his monsterization deep in his subconscious mind) and have met the Sweet Home (2017) survivors. However Hyuk has not yet recovered his emotions and One is implied to still be at large.
- Body Horror: The variants are often put in grotesque poses to shock the viewers.
- Broken Ace:
- Shinyeong Kang was a well-rounded student and athlete. This was changed however, when Seongbin humiliates her and turns her into an outcast.
- Seongbin is a school athlete, an academic genius, and a fairly competent survivor... and also a total sociopath whose greatest fear is being outed to the world as a cowardly murderer.
- Cliffhanger: It feels like every chapter ends with one.
- Content Warnings: The prologue has a trigger warning since it depicts a school shooting.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Prequel, but unlike the monsters from Sweet Home (2017), the "Variants" show numerous different abilities such as intelligence, human speech, identity stealing and don't cause signal interferences. They were seemingly never human to begin with and are actually a naturally born species.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Again, prequel, but Gyuhwan is pretty much this to Hyun. Both are socially withdrawn young men and victims of bullying. However:
- Hyun was suicidal while Gyuhwan was homicidal.
- Hyun had a damaged relationship with his family, while Gyuhwan visibly loves his dad.
- Hyun was a half-monster while Gyuhwan is a normal human until he is revealed to be infected, too.
- Hyun spent his experience with the monsters surrounded by strangers he learnt to care for and protect, while Gyuhwan is surrounded by people he knew but hated and desired to get killed.
- Hyun was also much more outwardly aggressive and mean-spirited than Gyuhwan, but always meant well, while Gyuhwan behaved in a defeated manner, while being extremely vindictive.
- Hyun eventually became a full monster and, later, an ubermensch by the epilogue while Gyuhwan remained a human, presumably thanks to MM's help in keeping his inner monster inside his subconscious mind.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- Gyuhwan was forced to drive his sick father to the hospital in middle school. Seongbin eventually took advantage of this and used his house to drink, beating him up in the process.
- Seongbin was ignored by his father as a child in favor of his big brother. This led to him murdering his brother in his sleep.
- Zero was an orphan forced to wander the streets after his awakening. Eventually, he was sheltered by horrible people who raped and abused him. This led to him despise all of humanity.
- Dysfunction Junction: Yeongchan High. That school has a little bit of everything: A Barbaric Bully, an Apathetic Teacher, a school shooter wannabe...
- Greater-Scope Villain:
- The MM Corporation, the people that abused and experimented on the Variants, driving them to their current Ax-Crazy state. As of now, they have taken center stage, as they are trying to kill both the Variants and the survivors.
- Director Lee is heavily implied to be the reason why Yeongchan High is such a Dysfunction Junction. He is also the one who had the idea of bringing everyone to the retreat.
- Mr.Yu, Seongbin's Father. While it does not justify Seongbin's horrible actions, is pretty clear his father maltreatment of him at least helped mold the horrible person he would become.
- Hate Sink:
- Director Lee is a horrible person who pushes other people so he can survive. He stalks underage girls, makes racist comments and tries to steal Gyuhwan's shotgun from him on multiple accounts.
- Seongbin is an incredibly sadistic bully who gets away with whatever he wants. It really says something that Seongbin Yu takes the most drastic measures to stop the monsters, despite being the only person who hasn't actually seen one yet. He enjoys death more than the monsters themselves. This even causes One to take an interest in him.
- Evil, Inc.: The MM Corporation who experimented on Variants, is responsible for causing their hatred for humanity.
- Healing Factor: Similarly to the monsters, the variants and Zero can heal themselves. Zero can heal other people, too.
- He's Back!: One of Sweet Home's tritagonists, Hyuk Lee, is revealed to be Gyuhwan's best friend. Characters like Eun, Jayhun and even the sequel protagonist Hyun also make a return.
- Human Shield: Four tries to use Seonyeob as a human shield against Gyuhwan Han. This doesn't work however, as Gyuhwan does not give two shits about him.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: According to Zero. This is further backed by:
- The MM Corporation who tortured the Variants, turning them into the bloodthirsty monsters they are today.
- Seongbin who takes joy in murdering other people and spreading hate for seemingly no reason. Zero calls him a monster after seeing a flashback of him murdering his brother.
- Even Gyuhwan is not entirely innocent, as he was willing to shoot up his school.
- Internal Reveal: Seongbin ends up having a nosebleed, which is the first sign of monsterization. This happens to Gyuhwan too, but is not as surprising.
- Irony: Gyuhwan originally wishes to shoot his classmates to death, but instead ends up being their savior from the monsters.
- Look Both Ways: During his childhood, Seongbin was almost killed in a truck accident, only to be saved by his brother sacrificing himself at the last second.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: The Variants are brain-eating shapeshifters. Whenever the devour someone they gain the ability to take their appearance and memories. They are fully inteligent and have their own personalities. They are immune to most threats and have a Healing Factor. And while the Monsters from Sweet Home (2017) were all former humans, the variants are a species of their own. It's heavily implied that their true form is that of a mass of purple flesh with tentacles and human body parts sticking out that they revert to when close to death.
- Poisoned Weapons:Shinyeong uses a bow and arrow coated with venom.
- R-Rated Opening: The opening consists of Gyuhwan shooting all of his classmates. This sets up Gyuhwan's view of his fellow students and teachers.
- Sanity Slippage: Seongbin goes more insane as the chapters continue; he goes from typical bully to monster-level psycho, and he starts to terrify his friends. It's glaringly obvious he's just using the monster attack to act out his darker impulses that he's been keeping under wraps for so long.
- Sequel Hook: Gyuhwan and co. have met the survivors of Green Home Apartment, Hyuk has evolved but has not yet regained his human emotions, monsters still lurk the city, and One is at large.
- Sibling Murder: Seongbin murdered his little brother in the past.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- People don't just change from a second to the other, and, when pressed, people will act out instinctively. For example, when Gyuhwan has a bout of courage and stands up for himself against Seongbin, his newfound courage lasts until Seongbin goes into a rage a few seconds later, upon which Gyuhwan turns tail.
- Contrary to similar actions scenes in other works, when Shinyeong is Blown Across the Room and into a tree by Zero, she is severely injured and would have either died or become paralyzed if Zero had not had a change of heart and cured her.
- Despite being build-up as the ultimate enemy after being infected with monsterization, Seongbin was a mentally unstable teenage bully who had his monster powers for a few hours at most. Both his fights against Gyuhwan (who has similar abillites to him and a monster-killing shotgun) and One (who greatly outclasses him) result in him losing. Seongbin getting himself killed is almost a Foregone Conclusion.
- Wham Shot: Chapter 28 ends with Seongbin bleeding from his nose, marking his eventual transformation into a monster.
