Category Archives: Events

by | May 3, 2013

Free Comic Book Day – Saturday May 4th

FCBD_nodateFree Comic Book Day 
Saturday May 4th, 12pm-6pm
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
@ Little Island, 742 Bathurst Street
Free to attend

Facebook Event

The Beguiling and Little Island Comics are happily participating in industry-wide celebration FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. Drop by The Beguiling for all your teen-to-grown-up-to-arrested-development needs, and Little Island Comics for age-appropriate freebies for the little ones.

To see some of the free comic books that will be on hand, visit http://www.freecomicbookday.com/

- Chris @ The Beguiling

https://www.facebook.com/events/274830185987398/

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | April 16, 2013

TONIGHT: Keep Toronto Reading: Graphically Speaking – Dirty Comics

Manga-is-not-a-crimeKEEP TORONTO READING: GRAPHICALLY SPEAKING – DIRTY COMICS
Tuesday April 16, 2013
North York Central Library Auditorium, 5120 Yonge Street
7:00 PM • FREE

Once again, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is proud to partner with the Toronto Public Library on Keep Toronto Reading to present lively and informative graphic novel programming.

This year’s program will feature Charles Brownstein, head of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, to discusses censorship in comics. His presentation will be Followed by a Q&A moderated by Christopher Butcher; manager, The Beguiling, and festival director of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Charles Brownstein has served as the executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund since 2002.  During his years at the helm of the organization, the CBLDF has successfully managed several First Amendment cases, including a notable win in Georgia v. Gordon Lee. Brownstein has also written extensively about comics for more than fifteen years for a variety of publications including The Comics Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Wizard. His books Eisner/Miller and The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen are award-winning and award-nominated, respectively. Brownstein also serves on the Board of Directors of the Media Coalition and the Stumptown Comics Foundation, and on the Steering Committee of SPX, the Small Press Expo.

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | March 28, 2013

ANNOUNCE: Brian Wood @ The Beguiling April 13!

starwars_1_slice

Brian Wood is the writer of:
STAR WARS – THE MASSIVE – MARA – CONAN THE BARBARIAN – THE X-MEN – NORTHLANDERS – DMZ – CHANNEL ZERO – DEMO – ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN – COURIERS – FIGHT FOR TOMORROW – POUNDED – LOCAL – NEW YORK FOUR – NEW YORK FIVE – SUPERMARKET – TOURIST – WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN ALPHA & OMEGA – LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR OF THE NORTH

BRIAN WOOD @ THE BEGUILING
Saturday, April 13, 2013, 3PM
The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Free To Attend

https://www.facebook.com/events/323536931083133/

Brian Wood is the multiple-award-winning, critically acclaimed author of literally dozens of your favourite series, and he will be doing a very special signing at The Beguiling on Saturday, April 13th, at 3pm. Bring your comics along to get signed and meet Brian, and check out some of the very cool/rare comics we’ll have available for sale at the event.

BONUS: All attendees at the signing who make any purchase will receive one of two limited edition prints from THE MASSIVE absolutely free:

massive_print

 

massive_2

There is likely to be a speaking event as well, and it will be announced soon.

See you on the 13th!

- Chris @ The Beguiling

 

 

Comments Off

Filed under Events

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | February 18, 2013

UPDATED: Geneviève Castrée launches SUSCEPTIBLE @ Little Island Comics!

THE EVENT HAS BEEN MOVED TO LITTLE ISLAND COMICS (742 Bathurst). See you at 7pm!
susceptible-finalcover

SUSCEPTIBLE Book Launch & Talk
with author Geneviève Castrée
Monday, February 18th, 2013
7:00pm @ LITTLE ISLAND COMICS, 742 Bathurst
Free to attend

http://www.facebook.com/events/446235965441778/

The Beguiling is proud to present Susceptible, the important new graphic novel from Geneviève Castrée.

Susceptible is the story of Goglu, a daydreamer growing up in Quebec in the ’80s and ’90s with a single mother. From a skillful artist comes a moving, beautiful story about families, loss, and growing up. Whether she’s discussing nature versus nurture or the story of her birth, Castrée imbues her storytelling with a quiet power and a confidence in the strength of imagery.

We think this is one of the most important graphic novel releases of the season, from an enormously talented young Canadian cartoonist. Best of all, we’ve been told her presentation from the book is excellent, so we hope you’ll be able to make it out for this.

For more information on exactly what this graphic novel is all about, please visit  the Drawn & Quarterly blog.

Praise for Geneviève Castrée

“With mesmerizing honesty Castrée resurrects the obscenely disorienting turning points of a childhood, the ones that haunt a person for a lifetime. After reading the last page I closed the book and wept a little bit about its simple, perfect ending.” –Miranda July, authorofitchoosesyouand noonebelongsheremorethanyou

“[Castrée] offers three connected minimalist fables dreamily portraying a young woman’s reactions to depression, domesticity, and mother hood in delicate watercolors that, thanks largely to her keen graphic skills, made them whimsical without being cloying.” –Booklist

“[Castrée’s work], illustrated in a delicately watercolored style that suggests Richard Scarry in the throes of an Edward Gorey obsession, is an episodic meditation on love, belonging, and personal identity. The visual metaphors for depression and home will break your heart; the care taken with their rendering will join the broken pieces back together on every page.” —The Austin Chronicle

About the Author

Geneviève Castrée was born in Québec in 1981. Sometimes interdisciplinary, she is mostly known for her work as an illustrator and cartoonist. Impatient and lazy, Geneviève never officially studied “art”. She has made a few books and has had a few exhibitions in places such as Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Geneviève Castrée lives and works in the Pacific Northwest. She also has a music project called “Ô PAON”

Comments Off

Filed under Events, Important

Tagged as ,

by | February 1, 2013

Geneviève Castrée launches SUSCEPTIBLE

GENEVIEVE.tour_TorontoSUSCEPTIBLE Book Launch & Talk
with author Geneviève Castrée
Monday, February 18th, 2013
7:00pm @ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
Free to attend

http://www.facebook.com/events/446235965441778/

susceptible-finalcoverThe Beguiling is proud to present Susceptible, the important new graphic novel from Geneviève Castrée.

Susceptible is the story of Goglu, a daydreamer growing up in Quebec in the ’80s and ’90s with a single mother. From a skillful artist comes a moving, beautiful story about families, loss, and growing up. Whether she’s discussing nature versus nurture or the story of her birth, Castrée imbues her storytelling with a quiet power and a confidence in the strength of imagery.

As you may remember, this book launch was originally scheduled for November, but we’re happy to be say it’s been rescheduled and Genevieve will be coming to town to celebrate its release and discuss this new work.

We think this is one of the most important graphic novel releases of the season, from an enormously talented young Canadian cartoonist. Best of all, we’ve been told her presentation from the book is excellent, so we hope you’ll be able to make it out for this.

For more information on exactly what this graphic novel is all about, please visit  the Drawn & Quarterly blog.

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | January 17, 2013

TATSUMI – Screening at TIFF January 25th (CONTEST)

pg_tatsumi

Good news, everyone! The critically acclaimed film TATSUMI is returning to Toronto, in a  screenings at TIFF Bell Lightbox running from Friday January 25th through Thursday January 31st. Details on the film and tickets are now available at http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiffbelllightbox/2013/2330006101.

Directed by Eric Khoo, TATSUMI is the innovative exploration of the life of comic author Yoshihiro Tatsumi, creator of Gekiga (“serious pictures” as opposed to Manga, which means “funny pictures”). Adapting his most renown period short stories, set in the time period following World War II, and incorporating elements of Tatsumi’s own life from the memoir A Drifting Life, TATSUMI is a fascinating, uniquely animated and performed film that has drawn ravesat Cannes, Dubai, Rotterdam, and around the world.

As you may remember, The Beguiling and TCAF partnered with Reel Asian Film Festival in November for a screening of this film, and I was a little disappointed to have missed it (I was in Japan for Kaigai Manga Festa at the time). I’m personally really stoked that this film is back and at TIFF, and I hope everyone who missed its previous screening will get a chance to come out for this one.

Oh, and of course, all of Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s graphic novels adapted into this film are currently available for sale at The Beguiling, including The Push Man, Abandon The Old In Tokyo, Good-Bye, A Drifting Life, and Black Blizzard. We also have his post-A Drifting Life book, Fallen Words!

Check out the trailer for TATSUMI below, and just past that look for a special contest!

CONTEST: WIN TICKETS TO SEE TATSUMI AT TIFF!

The Beguiling and TIFF Bell Lightbox are teaming up to give three lucky people run-of-engagement passes for two to see TATSUMI between January 25th and 31st.

Want to win? Here’s what you need to do:

For a chance to win, make sure you’re subscribed to The Beguiling Mailing List and send an e-mail with your name, daytime telephone number, and “BLACK BLIZZARD” in the subject line to beguilingcontests@gmail.com before Friday, January 25th at 11am. 3 winners will be drawn and contacted from all valid entries at that time. Their first name may be announced on the website.

RULES & REGULATIONS:

  1. Subject line MUST contain entrant’s name, phone number, and “BLACK BLIZZARD” and must be sent to beguilingcontests@gmail.com.
  2. Entries must be made from an e-mail address subscribed to The Beguiling’s mailing list. Signup in the upper-right-corner of this on the front page of beguiling dot com. (Seriously, we check and we disqualify people not subscribed to the mailing list.)
  3. Entries must be received before Friday, January 25th, at 11am.
  4. Employees and family members of The Beguiling are not eligible to win.
  5. One entry per household/phone number.
  6. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited, no cash value, odds of winning depend on total number of entries received, etc.

Good luck!

- Chris @ The Beguiling

Comments Off

Filed under Events, Important

Tagged as , ,

by | January 17, 2013

Event: Lemony Snicket & Seth at Toronto Public Library!

AWQ1 cover final.rLemony Snicket and Seth
Signing “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”
Thursday, February 14th, 2013
@ Toronto Reference Library Bram & Bluma Appel Salon
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Tickets are free, advance registration required

Bestselling author Lemony Snicket invites the general public to a top secret meeting, which includes the reading of a private note, the presentation of a coded song, and the unveiling of various alarming evidence that there’s more going on than you think.

Snicket will be joined by renowned cartoonist Seth, illustrator of Snicket’s latest book, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, for a signing following the event.

Interested participants can book two free tickets at the TPL website beginning 10 a.m. on Thursday, January 17, 2013.

***

Doors open at 6 p.m.

Tickets are required for admission to all Appel Salon events. Tickets are free and are available starting four weeks before the event. As most Appel Salon events are free of charge, it is our policy to overbook. In the case of a full program, your free reservation may not guarantee admission. Unclaimed reservations will be released to standby customers ten minutes prior to the start of the program. We recommend that you arrive early.

***

 

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | December 21, 2012

The Beguiling: Year In Review

As we continue the celebration of The Beguiling’s 25th year in existence, we thought we’d take a second to look back at what we feel has been an amazing year for comics and graphic novels in the city, and a banner year for us at The Beguiling, Little Island, and TCAF.

What follows is a list of our special events held throughout 2012. There are 50 of them, which is a big number, but frankly it felt a lot busier than that when I think back on it. (Also, if you want to get invited to or otherwise be made aware of these events, make sure to sign up for our mailing list! Sign up is in the upper-right corner of this page.)

Of course there’s always stuff going on at The Beguiling and Little Island that wouldn’t be listed here–great creators like Jeff Lemire, Jim Zub, Matt Fraction, Kelly-Sue Deconnick, Mo Willems, Seth, Chester Brown, Dave Lapp, and dozens more fine folks stopped by the stores to sign their books this year without an ‘official’ event. Little Island also runs comics making classes and crafts every Saturday, and none of those are included either.  But this is the stuff that we made a big deal of, and that our customers seemed to make a big deal out of too…!

January and February

2012-02-11-AdventureTimeJanuary started out with a month long rotating series of Boxing Day sales at The Beguiling and Little Island… We only do one real sale a year, so we try to make it a doozy. We found our feet and started doing events in February, and our February 11th event for Adventure Time ended up being one of the biggest of the year! We also made the initial announcements for TCAF 2012…

Jan 30  - Welcomed Marco Rudy to the Beguiling Art Store
Feb 11 – Adventure Time #1 Signing with Ryan North & Steve Wolfhard
Feb 19 – Jinchalo, Comics Class, My Name Is Elizabeth Launch with Matt Forsythe
Feb 29 – Bill Everett Archives v1 launch with Blake Bell

March

2012-03-14-BECKY_CLOONANThe amazing Studio Ghibli film retrospective ran this month at TIFF, and we had our biggest mailing list contest of all time, giving away passes to The Hunger Games movie premiere.

This month also marked the passing of a legend in the comics industry, Jean Giraud (Moebius).

Mar 14 – Crossed Day
Mar 14 – Conan signing with Becky Cloonan
Mar 31 – Mal & Lot Comics Making Party, with Chris Leung and Sondang Sianipar

Continue reading →

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | December 18, 2012

Fun times @ The Dinosaur Comics Holiday Party!

secretsanta

Thanks to everyone who came out for The Dinosaur Comics & Friends Holiday Party, a hoot was officially had.

Thanks also to our mighty assemblage of authors, Kate Beaton, Joey Comeau, Emily Horne, and Ryan North, for being fun peeps and sharing their secrets with the world.

You can see a full gallery of photos from the event over at our Facebook page.

- Chris @ The Beguiling

Comments Off

Filed under Events

by | December 6, 2012

IT’S THE BEGUILING, DINOSAUR COMICS, ADVENTURE TIME, HARK, A VAGRANT!, BRAVEST WARRIORS, A SOFTER WORLD, HOLIDAY PARTY!

THE (third annual) BEGUILING, DINOSAUR COMICS, ADVENTURE TIME, HARK, A VAGRANT!, BRAVEST WARRIORS, A SOFTER WORLD, HOLIDAY PARTY!
Featuring Ryan North, Kate Beaton, Joey Comeau, and friends!
Monday, December 17th, 2012
7:30-10pm, doors at 7pm
@ Pauper’s Pub, 539 Bloor St. W., 2nd Floor
FREE TO ATTEND
Facebook Event Page

Woo-hoo! Come one, come all, to the 3rd annual Dinosaur Comics & The Beguiling holiday party and book launch, featuring Ryan North! This year we’ll be welcoming some new friends into the holiday fold, including Joey Comeau (Bravest Warriors, A Softer World), and Kate Beaton (Hark, A Vagrant!), and celebrating Ryan’s stint on the New York Times Bestselling ADVENTURE TIME comic book series! There’s nothing better to do on a Monday night!

Ryan, Joey, Kate, and even more buddies to be announced will be getting together to hoist a mug of holiday cheer, interview each other in front of an audience, and maybe if everyone’s been nice instead of naughty, sign some books. :) We’ll also have a Secret Santa, and all of our creators’ work will be available for sale at the event including comics, books, calendars, shirts, and more!

All of this is happening Monday, December 17th, at Pauper’s Pub (539 Bloor St W, near Bathurst TTC), on the second floor. We hope we’ll see you there…!

SECRET SANTA RULES:
We’re holding a SECRET SANTA at this event! Everyone is welcome to participate, but no one has to if they don’t want to because choice is important!
If you would like to participate:
- Please bring a wrapped gift with a monetary value of no more than $5.
- Go to the book sales table and trade your gift for a numbered ticket.
- At 8:30pm, we’ll call out the numbers, and when your number is called you’ll have your choice of the available gifts!
- Please mark on the outside of the gift if your item contains food and especially if it contains common allergens including peanuts, gluten, etc., so that people with allergies will be able to make an informed Secret Santa Selection.

ABOUT
The Beguiling is Canada’s premier retailer of comics, graphic novels, manga and more, and has been for for 25 years! You are on their site right now!

Kate Beaton is the creator of the webcomic Hark, A Vagrant!, which has a book collection of the same name which spent a whole lot of time on the New York Times Bestseller List. Beaton has also done work for The Walrus, The New Yorker, and many other outlets. http://www.harkavagrant.com/ 

Joey Comeau is the author of many fine prose books including Lockpick Pornography and One Bloody Thing After Another. He is half of the team who creates the webcomic A Softer World, and is currently writing the comic book series Bravest Warriors, based on the cartoon by Pendleton Ward. http://www.asofterworld.com/

Ryan North is a cool dude. He creates the comic strip Dinosaur Comics, writes the comic Adventure Time based on the cartoon series by Pendleton Ward, runs the internet advertising company Project Wonderful, and is currently 1000% over budget on his Kickstarter for To Be Or Not To Be: The Is The Adventure, which is pretty keen. http://qwantz.com

Comments Off

Filed under Events, General