Manhwa's Best Thriller Duo Returns with Mind-Bending Horror Mystery

Few names spark as much excitement in the manhwa world as Carnby Kim and Youngchan Hwang, whose work on Webtoon's Thriller category speaks volumes. Praised as the duo behind Bastard and the apocalyptic horror thriller masterpiece Sweet Home, their names reappearing on Webtoon's Top Picks for You section on April 14, 2026, was a welcome sight for fans of the genre. Often divergent from other manhwa authors with a firm grip on what makes a thriller addicting, clever, and deeply subversive, Kim's individual works on the platform alone include other hits like Shotgun and Pigpen, the latter of which is next in line to get a K-drama from Studio N.

But now, the duo behind some of the most chilling, ominous horror and thriller masterpieces in the medium returns with Copycat, a series about a Suchan Kim, a struggling art instructor who suddenly finds himself inextricably linked to a serial killer. The killer, brazenly staging his kills as elaborate art installations, dismembering, reassembling and posing corpses on display, used Suchan's failed 2020 art exhibit as inspiration while selling his artwork for ungodly sums of money. But Suchan's biggest problem isn't the horrific murder: it's that the killer plagiarized his work.

Carnby Kim and Youngchan Hwang Return for Copycat Manhwa on Webtoon

Eagerly anticipated by fans for months, Copycat dropped 10 brand-new chapters as of its April 14, 2026 debut, with new installments promised every Wednesday on Webtoon. The series focuses on a grounded yet horrifying premise of a killer known only as Jahak, a Korean word for self-destruction, in which the bodies are staged like grotesque mannequins, indefinitely kept in a cooled display. Each kill is posed as if the victim is being murdered by another version of themselves, with its heinous murderer sitting nicely alongside other Carnby Kim creations like Pigpen and Bastard's villains.

Suchan is a characteristically flawed protagonist, wrapped up in his own failings in life, disrespected as instructor at the Dragon Art Academy with bills piling up. His big break was supposed to happen six years ago at an elaborate art exhibit using live models for his art installations, but the COVID-19 pandemic's outbreak killed all hope of the event's success, with only 32 guests attending. But now, as Suchan hears news of an "art serial killer" dubbed Jahak with an eerily familiar MO, he looks into it only to find his kills blatantly and grotesquely mimic Suchan's work featured at the gallery, while boldly selling them on the dark web and backroom auctions for tens of millions of dollars.

Suchan, instead of being horrified that his work is inspiring murders with no end in sight, is furious at this would-be artist who stole his ideas. He sets out to track down and confront this "plagiarist", starting with his primary lead, names from his guestbook of the attendees at his gallery who'd have seen his work. With such a series, it's not hard to see the commentary throughout so far.

Copycat's Thriller Premise Makes Plagiarism the Villain

Jahak has yet to be identified aside from shady, surreal glimpses of a slender, shrouded figure hanging their dismembered victims to drain their blood like an avant-garde Ice Truck Killer. With news quickly reaching Suchan about how this work is continuing and profiting enormously, it's not hard to see multiple connections that can be drawn by the reader, especially with Webtoon's recent plagiarism scandal regarding its Wind Breaker series.

Whether or not this connection is intentional, or the possible, more subtle interpretation of Kim and Hwang putting generative AI in the crosshairs as it similarly emerged to prominence after the pandemic, is up to readers' interpretation for now. To warp the concept of art plagiarism into grisly murder tableaux is perfect for a Carnby Kim thriller manhwa. As Suchan continues to investigate his leads, though, he finds a circle of friends who, while sometimes either grossly flawed individuals or deeply traumatized, may present as highly believable Jahak suspects until proven innocent.

But investigating Jahak in Copycat, Suchan finds himself risking his life without the help of police, on his obsessive quest to confront the killer not for justice, but for his own self-centered reasons. Not only that, but as Suchan dives into the lives of those who attended his gallery, he finds multiple of them have airtight alibis, while frequently drawing suspicion on himself due to Jahak's unfortunate inspiration. While Suchan shows potential to empathize with old classmates and connections, especially as they wrestle with issues of their own, it'll be interesting just how deep into the abyss he searches while seeking Jahak in this dark new thriller on Webtoon.