The Cannibals
Writer/Artist: Tinguu
Publisher: Fieldmouse Press
Publication Date: Summer 2026
Somewhere in the far future, vampire Olive Yo is a sex worker struggling to make enough money to buy expired, synthesized blood from her local convenience store to survive. Her routine consists of Peloton workouts and trips above ground to watch celebrity chef Chamomile butcher “ethically-sourced parasites”—AKA other vamps.
In Olive’s world, humans deride or fetishize vampires, but hold no respect for them. Even knowing this and seeing Chamomile work, showing off her butchery skills for bloodthirsty onlookers, Olive develops an ill-advised crush on the woman. When the two share cigarettes in an alley and Chamomile invites Olive over to “bloodbag,” which is ostensibly a sex thing, they both leave the encounter completely transformed.
Writer and illustrator Tinguu crafts a short but powerful narrative in The Cannibals, an expanded version of a mini comic he previously published with Fieldmouse Press. This mature dystopian yuri presents consumption as an act of intimacy more passionate than sex, ending in the ultimate satisfaction of absorbing a person’s entire life—including all of the skeletons in their mental closet…
…and all of their significant social stature.
In less than 100 pages, Tinguu establishes Olive as scrappy and self-sufficient, capable of compartmentalizing what she must do to survive and what she wants to do to live. Simultaneously, he paints a vivid portrait of Chamomile as a vicious and vain killer whose body count illuminates a history so rife with cruelty, it’s nauseating.
Yet when these characters meet for the first time, their chemistry is immediate and electrifying. This may be because the public (including Olive) doesn’t know the truth of who Chamomile is—not at first. What happens next is quick, ruthless, without foreplay of any kind; Tinguu pulls the reader into the scene and asks them to follow Olive into the dark, unsure of what’s on the other side.
Chamomile’s past is dark, but her future is so bright. Olive is happy to claim it for herself and bedazzle the humans who once gawked at the sight of her kind being systematically broken down for meat.
Despite its brutally fast pace and reliance on onomatopoeia over dialogue or exposition, The Cannibals doesn’t lead its reader astray. The writing is clear, sharp, and evocative, with Easter eggs, inspiration, and lore revealed in the back matter adding even more context to second, third, and fourth reads.
Tinguu dedicates the majority of his page space to his stunning art, which dips into metatext and multimedia just often enough to keep things interesting. Occasionally, Tingu’s hand and pencil can be seen sketching the characters or creating dialogue that directly parallels in-universe dialogue, but in “real life.” Instead of disrupting the flow, these interjections make The Cannibals feel that much more a product of actual (future) history than fantasy. It’s a clever trick that’s hard to pull off, but Tinguu manages it here.
Tricks aside, Tinguu’s traditional art is as breathtaking as it is horrifying. His environmental designs are particularly interesting, and the reference photos he includes in the back matter reinforce how much thought went into world-building in The Cannibals. And his character designs, as seen in the pages included here, are so detailed and framed so perfectly so as to evoke the strongest possible emotions at every turn.
The Cannibals starts strong and Tinguu never takes his foot off the gas. Even as the tone shifts in its final pages, they still feel propulsive. The urge to immediately start the story over from page one after reading the back matter is intense, and there’s something new to discover with each re-read—which is particularly impressive for such a compact tale.
Final Verdict: Buy
