ARC FESTIVAL 2026! When we announced this year’s Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ back in January I spoke in more depth about why alt-style comics artist Francis Todd had been chosen, saying of his self-published series Caribou: “its off-centre approach to oddball characters, darkly enticing comics shorts, and unashamed experimental storytelling made Francis a definite pick for this year’s list. An artist with a distinct voice, working in a narrative space that seems to have rapidly declined in recent years in UK self-publishing circles.”
The fourth issue of Caribou debuts at this weekend’s first ARC Festival but there’s such a significant shift in presentation, theme and approach between the third issue and the first to be published under Todd’s new Blue Funnel Books micropublishing venture that it makes sense to cover the first three issues in a separate review. Expect a look at Caribou #4 in the not too distant future.
The series contains one ongoing serial ‘Stamen’ alongside a number of accompanying shorts of varying length and theme. At face value ‘Stamen’ is the story of schoolboy Isaac’s relationship with the more confident and dominating Paris whose friendship is slowly revealed to be something more controlling and sinister. The strip, though, is far more layered than that. There’s also an ongoing exploration of art and our relationship with it, and frequent forays into surreal abstract sequences with recurring motifs that symbolically play into the main storyline. There are hints of Clowes and Burns here as visual influences but ‘Stamen’ is still very much also its own thing too.
Caribou has something of a nightmarish quality to it. Shorter strips like ‘The Church’ for example where reality and the more ethereal and intangible grasp at the corners of our imagination. Or the bleak meta existentialism of ‘The Dreamer’ where an audience with God brings comfort through something almost nihilistic. Similarly there’s a dream logic to the strip ‘Fairview’ with a character seemingly ensnared in the futility of their own existence.
These three issues were produced over a period of a few years and also show an artist willing to experiment with his craft, to hone his storytelling skills, and to establish a voice. That sense of continuing evolution is very much in evidence in Caribou #4 which we shall return to in the near future at BF.
Francis Todd (W/A) • Self-published, £6.50/£7.00 per issue
Review by Andy Oliver
Francis Todd and Blue Funnel Books will be at ARC Festival comics fair on July 11th-12th. For the full details on everything ARC has to offer check out their website here.
Poster by Lando
