Bakstenen en bloed

A gritty, poetic crime saga set in the hardscrabble Belgian housing projects of the 1990s, Bakstenen en bloed (Bricks and Blood) is a collaboration between writers James Vandermeersch and Régis Hautière, illustrated by David François. Launched in 2025 by Lauwert, this series uses the claustrophobic architecture of its setting to explore the simmering tensions and violent undercurrents of a community trapped by poverty and neglect. With only its first issue released, the series has already established a stark, atmospheric visual language that grounds its social realism in a noir sensibility. It matters as a distinctive European crime comic that refuses to romanticize its milieu, instead offering a raw, humanist portrait of lives shaped by concrete and desperation.