Category Archives: Events

ANNOUNCE: Brian Wood @ The Beguiling April 13!

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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:

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

See you on the 13th!

– Chris @ The Beguiling

 

 

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”

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.

TATSUMI – Screening at TIFF January 25th (CONTEST)

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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

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.

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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 The Beguiling: Year In Review

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

The Beguiling Holiday Hours!

Happy Holidays everyone! To make your comics-purchasing (whether for yourself or for gifts) a little easier, The Beguiling will be operating under extended hours this holiday season!

The Beguiling Holiday Hours
Mondays & Tuesdays: 11am-7pm
Wednesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays: 11am-9pm
Saturdays (except the 22nd): 11am-7pm
Sundays: 12pm-7pm

In addition, here are the adjustments to specific dates:

Wednesday, December 19th: Comics as usual
Saturday, December 22nd: 11am to 9pm
Sunday, December 23rd: 11am to at least 7pm
Monday December 24th: Open from 11am, closing early (3-4pm, depending on demand)
Tuesday, December 25th: Closed
Wednesday, December 26th: Boxing Day, Open 9am-6pm. There will be a small number of new comics this day. See below for details.
Monday December 31st: Open from 11am, closing early (3-4pm depending on demand)
Tuesday January 1st: Closed
Wednesday January 2nd: New Comics Day! No delay! 11am-9pm

Finally, here is a list of ‘new’ comics being released on December 26th:

Dark Horse
Eerie Presents: El Cid HC
Star Wars Omnibus: Clone Wars V3 TP: The Republic Falls

DC
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #4
Justice League #15
Aquaman #15

IDW
TMNT: Secret History of the Foot Clan

Image
Mara #1
Hip Flask: Ourborous

Marvel
Avenging Spider-Man #15.1
Amazing Spider-Man #700

Avatar
Crossed: Badlands #20

BOOM! Studios
Deathmatch #1

Dynamite
The Shadow Special #1

Whew! Lots of info there! Thanks for reading!

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Announce: In-store signing w/ Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel Presentation and Signing!
Author of Fun Home and Are You My Mother?
Sunday, December 2nd, 2012, 5:30pm-7:30pm
@ The Centre for Social Innovation, Annex Building
720 Bathurst Street (Just south of The Beguiling)
FREE

Facebook Event: http://on.fb.me/V6O3mo


Exciting News: Alison Bechdel is coming back to Toronto! Not seen since debuting her fantastic memoir Are You My Mother? (the follow-up to the critically acclaimed/best-seller Fun Home) at TCAF this spring! Alison Bechdel is coming back to our fair city to be part of the inaugural Elisabeth Young-Bruehl Memorial Syposium on Childism. Luckily, she also has time in her schedule to swing by our shop for a quick presentation and signing!

On December 2nd, at 5:30pm, Alison Bechdel will be giving a presentation on her work, as well as hanging out for a bit after to sign some books and meet with fans. Seating will be limited. Bechdel’s TCAF event was delivered to a packed and delighted house, so next weekend is an evening to surely not be missed!

Originally announced as “At The Beguiling”, this event will be taking place one block south of The Beguiling, at 720 Bathurst Street. It is at The Centre for Social Innovation, in the ING Direct Presentation Space. This will give us much more room to welcome Toronto’s Bechdel fans!

About the Author: Alison Bechdel began keeping a journal at the age of ten, and has been assiduously archiving her own life and times with words and pictures ever since. For twenty-five years she wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a generational chronicle considered “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” (Ms.)

Fun Home is currently taught on several syllabi across North America, including several courses at The University of Toronto. Alison Bechdel’s other various accomplishments include comics drawn for Slate, McSweeney’s, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times Book Review, and Granta, and she recently guest-edited McSweeney’s Best American Comics 2011.

Bechdel lives near Burlington, Vermont.