EVENT: Avengers vs. X-Men #1: ROUND ONE PARTY

Avengers vs. X-Men: ROUND ONE PARTY
In-Store Event @ The Beguiling

Tuesday, April 3rd, 8pm-9pm
Free To Attend

While we at The Beguiling may personally feel that The Avengers are establishment stooges, and the X-Men represent change and hope, we are nevertheless happy to hold an Avengers vs. X-Men party on Tuesday, April 3rd, from 8pm-9pm, and all are welcome, even if they are Avengers fans.

What’s going to happen at this party? Why, just EVERYTHING!

Avengers Vs. X-Men #1 will be on sale early! That’s right, if you come by Tuesday night at 8pm, we’ll be selling copies of the crossover event of the year early (regular on-sale is Wednesday morning). Get a head-start on the carnage!

Avengers Vs. X-Men #1 team variants at cover price! Marvel has produced special “Team Avengers” and “Team X-Men” variant covers for Avengers vs. X-Men #1. We will be retailing these for $6 each starting Wednesday, but if you come in on Tuesday evening they’ll be $3.99! (Limit 1 per customer, and you can’t buy both. You either gotta support the X-Men or Avengers. You can buy another one Wednesday.)

– Get a free Avengers vs. X-Men Lithograph, and an Avengers button or X-Men Button, with every purchase of Avengers vs. X-Men #1. Limit 1 of each per person.

– At the end of the evening, whichever team sells more variant covers wins. We aren’t sure what this entails yet.

20% Off Marvel Comics/Trade Paperback Sale! All regularly priced, in-print Marvel Comics and Trade Paperbacks will be 20% off regular price.

$1 Comic Spot Sale! Since the new rack will be basically empty except for Avengers vs. X-Men, we’ll be posting some special Marvel Comics that will be just $1 for your reading enjoyment.

– Cake! It’s just not a party without cake.

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Shipping March 28th, 2012

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books and Art on Wednesday March 28th, 2012. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds. Variant prices are generally accurate, but in any dispute between web price and in-store price we will defer to in-store price.

Items of Note:

NOV118181 Ultimate Spider-man Prem Comic #1 (bundle Of 25)  
Marvel is launching their new kids-comic-tie-in with a freebie first issue (free to you, not to us, but we’re cool with that). 

DEC118207 Fatale #1 Var Cvr 4th Ptg  3.50
Happy to say we’ve finally got Fatale #1 back in stock! If you haven’t checked this series out yet, this is your week.
NOV111117 Tezuka Dororo Comp TP Ed  24.95
Tezuka’s great (unfinished) masterwork Dororo went out of print a year or two back, but it has returned in a massive all-in-one edition! Great comics, if you’ve never read them. 
FEB120755 Jinx HC  16.99
FEB120756 Jinx SC  9.99
Not the Bendis series, this is Archie’s L’il Jinx all grown up in high-school, in a story written by Toronto’s own J. Torres.
DEC111139 Rohan At The Louvre HC 19.99
A bizarre and wonderful-looking side-story to the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure manga series, a full-colour graphic album that’s part of “The Louvre” graphic novel series that NBM has been publishing. Very excited for this.
DEC111157 Sharknife GN Vol 01 Stage First  11.99
DEC111158 Sharknife GN Vol 02 Sharknife Zz  11.99
Sharknife 1 debuted at TCAF 2005. Sharknife 2 in stores, March 2012. Even with the ridonculous wait, I’m looking forward to seeing how the series concludes. If you’ve never read it before, check it out.
– Chris
DEC110436 Torpedo HC Vol 05 24.99

Single Issue Comics Of Note From The Past Two Weeks

While we here at The Beguiling do try our best to get some recommendations up with the shipping list every week, sometimes that just doesn’t work out. But the last two weeks have had a bunch of new series’ of note, and a bunch of cool titles, and since I’ve got 15 minutes I thought I’d point some out to you. All of the books below are still in stock.

Adventure Time #1 (3rd Ptg)
Adventure Time #2
After a fantastic sell-out first issue, a new printing of issue #1 arrives jusssssst in time for the debut of issue #2! I really loved the first issue of this, it perfectly captures (and expands on!) of Penn Ward’s tv show, which I’m also super-digging. If you’re a fan of the show you’ve probably already picked this up, but just in case you haven’t: it’s got my personal recommendation.

Avengers Assemble #1 
It’s a new, in-continuity Kirby-Lee Avengers series by current Avengers mastermind Brian Bendis, and (for the first arc at least) drawn by Walt Simonson. It’s an Avengers series that just happens to use the cast from the upcoming movie. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d love if there weren’t like 15 Avengers series at the moment, but this one’s probably a cut above. You can also make yourself feel better about buying it by signing this petition demanding economic justice for the Kirby family, with regards to the upcoming movie: http://www.change.org/petitions/marvel-entertainment-give-credit-and-royalties-to-jack-kirby-and-his-family

Avengers X-sanction #4 (of 4)
Speaking of which, this is one of the three series that leads directly into next week’s Avengers vs. X-Men crossover/fight. If you like Ed McGuiness this has nice art and doesn’t have the problems of most of Jeph Loeb’s recent work. I know that seems like a “damning with faint praise” sort of comment, but seriously, this is the best brainless beat’em up book Marvel’s putting out, but I want you to know what you’re getting into: Cable kicks the ass of every Avenger.

Conan The Barbarian #2 Carnevale Cvr
Released last week! Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan on Conan! We had a fun signing for this one last week, and it’s really good, classic Conan stories. Of course most people think that Conan should be drawn by Buscema and noone else, and that’s going to make this book a ‘problem’ for you, but if you can get past your prejudices you’ll probably really dig this book… Plus? We’ve got signed copies of #1 and #2!

Crossed Badlands #1 
Garth Ennis returns to Crossed, and according to Alex “this is consistently the best Crossed material” so there you are! If you’re curious, we’ve got free give-away comics!

Dominique Laveau Voodoo Child #1 
The third new title in the Vertigo relaunch, Voodoo Child is… actually, I have no idea. We only put this on the rack 15 minutes ago. Here’s a write-up of it: “DOMINIQUE LAVEAU: VOODOO CHILD is the story of a half-breed, outcast and heir to the Voodoo Queenship of New Orleans, if she can live long enough to claim her birthright. New Orleans is the most haunted city in America: a town of centuries-old ghosts and newly drowned spirits; where vampires, voodoo spirits and loups-garous make their home. Ruling over this all are the powerful Voodoo Queens, whose influence stretches into politics, business and crime as they maintain a delicate balance between the mortal and supernatural worlds.”

Glory #24
I totally dug Ross Campell’s first issue on this reinvention of a Rob Liefeld concept. I know this didn’t exactly catch on the same way Brandon Graham’s Prophet did, but trust me, this is great superhero/adventure comics. Who would have ever thought that Wonder Woman would be one of the best books DC publishes, and this book that started off as a Wonder Woman “Homage” (outright theft) would be one of the best that Image publishes? Strange times, people.

Hoax Hunters #0
Cryptozoology Reality TV Show Comic Book. Preview: http://ifanboy.com/articles/preview-hoax-hunters-0/.

Infinite Vacation #4 (of 5)
The long awaited, long delayed 4th issue (of 5). Still, I know this really made a strong impression on a lot of folks when the first issue came out… I hope you managed to stick around to the end, it still looks pretty solid.

John Carter Gods Of Mars #1 (of 5)
It’s yet another John Carter series! But wait, this one is written by Sam Humphries, recently of OUR LOVE IS REAL and SACRIFICE, the hit self-pub’d comics, and drawn by Toronto’s own Ramon Perez, who’s turned in some of his nicest work on this series. Game on.

Justice League #7
“Fill-in” issue by an artist that is better than Jim Lee in pretty much every way, with all due respect to Jim Lee. Please welcome the gorgeous artistic stylings of Gene Ha to Justice League #7.

Kick-ass 2 #7 (of 7) 
Supercrooks #1 (of 4) 
And the second Kick-Ass series wraps up, just in time for Mark Millar to launch his new ongoing, SUPERCROOKS. Essentially, super villains head to London because all of the superheroes live in America for some reason. For people that love Mark Millar, this is the Mark Millarest series in a while.

Locke & Key Clockworks #1 & #2 Reprise Ed
Locke & Key Clockworks #5 (of 6)
The penultimate issue of this series of Locke & Key finally shipped, alongside a reprint of issue #1 and #2 in one handy book.

Orc Stain #7
Despite a healthy order of Orc Stain #7, we sold out pretty quick, a little over a week. We’re totally sorry. But we just managed to get in a fuckload more copies this week, still first printings, for all of your beautiful-orc-dick reading pleasure. Hurray! On the new rack.

Peter Panzerfaust #1 Var Cvr 2nd Ptg 
Peter Panzerfaust #2 
One of the recent Image sell-out-hit-spectaculars, issue #2 came out last week, and the second printing of issue #1 just made it to our shelves as well. If you’ve been curious about this series, we’ve got you covered.

Prophet #21 2nd Printing
Prophet #22 2nd Printing
Prophet #23
Easily my favourite of the recent Image comics relaunches, Prophet by Brandon Graham and Simon Roy has been pretty amazing. Having almost nothing at all to do with the Liefeld comic that spawned this series, this is a dense, dirty read, and cover-to-cover the most satisfying monthly comic I read at the moment. We’ve got second printings of the first two issues in stock right this second, and hey, look at that, issue #23 is out this week!

Ragemoor #1
New mini-series with all new art by Richard Corben. That should be all you need to know.

Rebel Blood #1 (of 4) 
Yet another Image debut, this one a zombie book (I know but give it a chance) about rural isolation, and zombie wild animals. I’m gonna give it a shot.

Rocketeer Adventures 2 #1 (of 4)
The first Rocketeer Adventures series, featuring an all-star cast of creators telling stories featuring Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer, was a sell-out smash success. IDW took their time and rounded up another all-star list of talent to do 4 more issues, and this one features Marc Gugenheim, Peter David, Stan Sakai, Sandy Plunkett, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Arthur Adams. Seems like a pretty solid book!

Saga #1 
Yeah, we’ve still got copies. 1 per person.

Saucer Country #1 
Although this came out last week I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it’s getting great reviews for writer Paul Cornell and artist Ryan Kelly (Local). It’s about a handler for a politician that has apparently gone insane, claiming to have been abducted by aliens. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, I’m looking forward to it.

Secret History Of D.B. Cooper #1
As mentioned here on the blog, this was a really solid first issue. More info on this here: http://thebeguilingat.blogspot.ca/2012/02/secret-history-of-db-cooper-1-pullfile.html

Smoke And Mirrors #1 (of 5)
New IDW series about street magicians. Looking forward to reading this.

Stephen King Joe Hill Road Rage #1 (of 4) 2nd Ptg
Stephen King Joe Hill Road Rage #2 (of 4)
This is a totally strange-for-mainstream-comics mini-series about a bunch of scumbag bikers who murder some people, and then begin to turn on one another. It’s very much in the vein of Stephen King’s short stories, which honestly makes it pretty weird to read in comics format. King’s Stand and Dark Tower adaptations have been solid, but those always felt pretty fantastic. This is a different animal. Worth a look if you’re a King (or Joe Hill) fan.

Thief Of Thieves #2
Haven’t read this one yet, sorry, but I thought the first issue was pretty decent. I’ll give it a go.

Wolverine And X-men #7
Probably my favourite Marvel series at the moment. It’s a totally fun, readable X-Men book that you don’t really need to know anything about the current X-verse to enjoy. I am counting down the seconds until they completely ruin it somehow, but for now? I can definitely recommend this one.

Wonder Woman #7

Wonder Woman is probably the best book DC is publishing at the moment that isn’t Animal Man. WEIRD, EH? Seriously though, great writer, great artist, high-stakes, humans-as-disposable-to-the-Greek-Gods stuff. I expected to enjoy this, I didn’t expect to love it. If you haven’t given it a shot don’t miss out; we’ve got all 7 issues in stock.
– Chris @ The Beguiling

Nobrow 6 – Finally In Stock!

We’re very happy to announce that we’ve finally received our allotment of Nobrow Magazine’s fantastic 6th volume. Weighing in at 128 pages with flip covers by Tom Gauld and Gwenola Carrere, and interior contributions by Tom Gauld (The Gigantic Robot), Kevin Huizenga (Ganges), Blanquet (Toys in the Basement), Malachi Ward (Utu), Jon McNaught (Birchfield Close, Pebble Island), Jack Teagle (Jeff: Job Hunter) and Luke Pearson (Hildafolk) amongst many, many others.

It’s now available on both floors for $26.50.

– Chris

CONTEST: The Raid: Redemption Advance Screening Tickets

Alliance Films has been hitting us with crazy contest fodder lately, and we’re happy to pass these chances on to you. Want to see TIFF 2011 hit The Raid: Redemption before its wide release? Then enter to win!

You’re entering to win 1 of 10 passes good for two people to see THE RAID: REDEMPTION on Thursday March 22nd at 7pm. For a chance to win, send an e-mail with your name, daytime telephone number, and “ROYAL ACADEMY REDEMPTION” in the subject line to beguilingcontests@gmail.com before Tuesday March 20th, 11:39pm EST. 10 winners will be drawn and contacted on Wednesday March 21st. Their first name will be announced on the website.

RULES & REGULATIONS:
1. Subject line MUST contain entrant’s name, phone number, and “ROYAL ACADEMY REDEMPTION”, 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 on the front page of http://beguiling.com. (Seriously, we check and we disqualify people not subscribed to the mailing list.)
3. Entries must be received before Wednesday March 14th at 11:59pm.
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, etc.

ABOUT “THE RAID: REDEMPTION”

Iko Uwais stars as RAMA a member of a special team (JAKA by Joe Taslim, BOWO by Tegar Satriya, ARI by Ananda George, WAHYU by Pierre Gruno and BUDI by Verdi Solaiman) arrives at a rundown apartment block with a mission to remove its owner, a notorious drug lord named TAMA played by Ray Sahetapy. The apartment block has never been raided before, never been touched by police. Seen as a no go zone, the building has become a sanctuary to killers, gangs, rapists and thieves seeking accommodation in the one place they know they cannot be touched. Making their move in the break of dawn, they work their way up the building under the cover of silence, steadily controlling the location one floor at a time. But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover, TAMA orders a lock down on the building with all lights out and all exits blocked. Now stranded on the 6th floor with all communications cut and with TAMA sending out a call to arms, the special force team must fight their way  through every floor and every room not just to complete their mission, but to survive their bloody ordeal.

REVIEW: Madwoman of the Sacred Heart

Madwoman of the Sacred Heart
Writer: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Artist: Moebius
Publisher: Humanoids

Review by John Anderson

“Insanity, divine madness, is the only way to salvation.”

I guess I’ve been reviewing a lot of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s books lately. There’s a reason for this: Humanoids has been releasing a lot of them, and they’re wonderful. The latest is the softcover edition of Madwoman of the Sacred Heart.

Alan Mangel is a successful and popular philosophy professor whose students treat him like a rock star: female students wear purple, his favourite colour, to show how much they admire him. Anyway, things start to go wrong for Alan when his wife divorces him on his birthday. Then one of his female students, Elisabeth, announces that they will have a child together, a second John the Baptist who will lead the world to a new saviour. Although he thinks Elisabeth is mad, Alan lets his animal instincts take over and is drawn into her insanity. Soon Elisabeth is pregnant, and she takes Alan on a quest to find Joseph and Mary – who turn out to be nothing like Alan expects. But by then it’s too late to turn back. Alan keeps trying to appeal to reason, but reason becomes less and less useful in this world of prophets and mystical revelations.

Madwoman has some interesting similarities with Jodorowsky’s and Moebius’s most famous work, The Incal: in both stories the protagonist keeps getting drawn into faith, but his cowardice or skepticism keeps preventing him from taking part fully. This book is much more mundane in setting than Incal: it’s set in France, not outer space, after all. But the earthly setting lets Moebius concentrate on the characters. This book shows off Moebius’s fantastic talent for depicting the characters’ inner lives. In every panel, Alan looks different – frustrated, angry, joyful, doubtful – rarely have I seen such an incredibly wide and constantly changing range of emotions expressed in comic art.

There are changes in the artwork over the course of the story. The detailed dark reds and purples in the first volume are replaced by a looser, more cartoony style and bright yellows and golds in the second volume, as the characters move to sunny southern France. The leisurely pace of the first two volumes gives way to the hectic, crammed pace of the third, with many small panels crammed into each page, as the story moves to South America and gets weirder and weirder. The end of the last volume draws on Moebius’s interest in Native American art and iconography.

In terms of the plot, Madwoman, like Incal, is completely mad. Mad as in constantly surprising the reader with dramatic changes in plot and character. By the end of the story all of the characters have changed utterly, both physically and spiritually. Some readers will like how Alan looks a lot like Jodorowsky himself, and how Alan’s journey echoes so many of Jodorowsky’s spiritual interests. If you’re of a more skeptical bent, you’ll like the story for Jodorowsky’s constant mad ideas.

Madwoman of the Sacred Heart is what comics should be: unapologetically outrageous and beautiful.

Shipping March 14th, 2012

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books and Art on Wednesday March 14th, 2012. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds. Variant prices are generally accurate, but in any dispute between web price and in-store price we will defer to in-store price.

Click here for the Complete List: http://www.beguiling.com/120314shipping.txt

We’ll talk a little bit about the releases if we’ve got time later tonight or tomorrow, there’s a ton of stuff out this week!

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Jean Giraud / Moebius, 1938-2012

We at The Beguiling were very sorry to hear the news that the artist Jean Giraud, best known under the name “Moebius”, passed away this weekend. We have long been fans and supporters of his work here at The Beguiling, and we have long carried as much of his work as we could get his hands on. It is truly unfortunate that there is so little available in English by this talented creator, in either of his artistic identities.

We have taken the opportunity to prominently feature all of Moebius’ work on our main table downstairs, and we have dozens of back-issues of Heavy Metal magazine that feature his work on the second floor. Please ask at the main counter if you’d like a recommendation on where to start enjoying his work.

– Peter and Chris, The Beguiling

ANNOUNCE: Becky Cloonan Signs CONAN #2 this Wednesday!

Becky Cloonan In-Store!
Artist of Conan signs issue #2!
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
From 5pm-7pm
http://www.facebook.com/events/204454639656097/

Long-time friend of The Beguiling Becky Cloonan will be in-store this Wednesday, March 14th to celebrate the release of the brand-new CONAN THE BARBARIAN #2, which she illustrated! She will be signing and sketching from 5pm-7pm on the second floor.

The Beguiling will also have a bunch of Becky’s original artwork on display and for sale from her past series’ including DEMO, DRACULA, AMERICAN VIRGIN, and much more!

See you this Wednesday…

– Chris @ The Beguiling