When was the last time you read a good cannibal story set behind the Red Curtain?
Look no further than this new webcomic from Steve Ekstrom, Cannibal Island.
FOG!: Thanks for joining us today! Why are you inspired to do a webcomic based on the Nazino affair, and for the readers, just what is that?
Steve Ekstrom: The “Nazino affair” was an unfortunate set of circumstances that occurred during early 1930’s in the Soviet Union where Stalin and friends came up with something called the “grandiose plan” where various “undesirables” (vagrants, prisoners, people who left their passports at home on accident, affluent land-owners from rural areas, political activists) were all taken to the undeveloped eastern areas of Russia and placed into “Labor Villages” and basically told “build yourself some shelter and start cultivating this land…or die.”
Around 4000 “undesirables” were being sent to an area of Russia known as Tomsk and the local officials, when they learned how many criminals were mixed into their body of 4000 laborers, they panicked and decided to move their Labor Village to the island of Nazino which just happened to be about 2 miles long and half a mile wide.
Because rations and resources were stretched to their absolute maximum through poorly planned efficiency, the Labor Village on Nazino was only given about 20 Tons of flour dumped right on the shore of the island, right out in the open.
Before the prisoners ever arrived, people were dying of exposure and starvation.
The criminally minded laborers began to form loose gangs. Within weeks of arriving, numerous reports of cannibalism had already been reported.
So the cannibalism is very real - in fact based on real events?
Cannibalism was already occurring in the outlying regions of the Soviet Union because of widespread famine and ecological issues of the time that were similar to what happened in the U.S. with the whole “Dust Bowl” famine. Couple that with the fact that the Communist government was seizing every bit of grain and/ or viable crop for the formation of rations for their labor camps and to feed their growing army and there you have it.
[READ MORE AT FORCES OF GEEK]
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Dean Haspiel’s latest original comics creation lands on the scrolling pages of the Line Webtoon (browser and app) and introduces a new superhero universe in New Brooklyn. The Red Hook takes elements of Silver and Golden Age heroes, borrows from modern art and takes cues from Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics. 
By releasing content weekly, the webcomic is not like anything you may have seen before. The pages tell their story by scrolling continuously from top to bottom on your screen (tablet/phone/computer screen), stopping at the chapter markers.
