So How Did The Scott Thompson Signing Go?

I’ve been asked that question a bunch in the last few weeks, and the only answer is AWESOME. What a wonderful signing we had with Scott Thompson on January 6th! Scott was here in support of his new graphic novel DANNY HUSK: THE HOLLOW PLANET, a send-up of the fantasy genre with a lot of smart things to say. Above you can see Scott Thompson with Mark Askwith and Natasha Eloi of SPACE, who were in the shop to interview Thompson.

We set Scott up on the second floor for a throng of fans, and Parrish manned the cash where we sold tons of his new graphic novel. 

Despite some pretty crummy weather that Thursday evening, we had a fantastic turnout with more than 50 fans… and we sold every copy of the books that we had! A very successful signing.

Of course Scott posed for a number of photos with fans as well, and everyone left that evening very happy for the experience.

Scott was mic’d and filmed the whole time, and here we see a behind-the-scenes shot of Mark Askwith and Scott Thompson fiddling with the wireless mic. Chances are if you were at the signing you’ll find yourself on Space sometime in the near future.
And then the day was done. I got some incredibly juicy gossip about a future comics project from Mr. Cole, er, I mean Mr. Thompson, but I can’t go into that here.
But yes, Scott Thompson was a scholar, a gentleman, and a wonderful guest. We’d like to thank him for taking the time out to come and sign at the shop and delight so many of our customers. Scott Thompson’s next public appearance is this March at WizardWorld Toronto, and you can find out more information about what he’s up to now, check out the Scott Free Podcast at http://scottfreepodcast.com/.

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Fantastic Four #587 – Sold out

Hi there. Looking for Fantastic Four #587? We still have about 30 copies left. If you want one, I suggest getting to the store sooner than later. As a reminder, we are not holding this issue for anyone except pullfile customers, and we ask that you refrain from calling the store to ask us to do so. This issue is completely first come, first served, and limited to 2 copies per person.

We’ll post here on the blog and on our Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/thebeguiling/ when we sell out.

And we’re sold out, Friday evening around 7pm.

We do appreciate all of the phenomenal interest in this issue, and as always we thank you for your patronage.

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Shipping January 26th, 2011

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday January 26th, 2010. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds. Variant prices are generally accurate to what we will be charging in store, but all disputes between prices will defer to the stickered, in-store price.

Click here for the complete list: 110126shipping.txt

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Death and $1 Marvels: Fantastic Four #587 On Sale Today

Note: We are now sold out of FF #587.

THIS ISSUE: A MEMBER OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR DIES!

But first! Today is the LAST DAY for our sale on Marvel backstock! Thousands of Marvel backissues from the last five years are now on sale for just $1 each, as long as you pick up at least 10 comics! That’s 10 comics for 10 bucks! It’s a hell of a deal. Today until 7pm.

DEATH COMICS A’KNOCKIN’ ON THE FANTASTIC DOOR!

No, really. Fantastic Four #587, out this week, a member of the Fantastic Four is scheduled to kick the bucket. The media have caught wind of this, and the resulting FEEDING FRENZY has driven demand mad! Er, not really. But everyone involved–Marvel, Diamond, and ‘the press’ have decided that his is a big deal, and have decided that Fantastic Four #587 can now be sold one day early, today, Tuesday January 25th. The book is $3.99.

We are only too happy to make the comic book available to you, our customers, at this early date, but with the following caveats:

  1. Limit, 2 per customer. No exceptions.
  2. We are not accepting phone orders for this item, and no holds except for folks with standing pullfiles. First come, first served, in store only.
  3. We are putting half of our copies out for sale out today, and half of them Wednesday. This will accommodate folks alerted by the media as well as our regular, AWESOME Wednesday regulars. We want to make sure everyone gets a crack at the issue, if they so desire.
  4. No other “early” comics except for Fantastic Four #587 will be made available for sale. Everything else goes out Wednesday morning at 11am.

Update: Fantastic Four #587 is  sold out.

All I ask is if you’re reading this, please don’t call the store asking to have it put aside. If you’re reading this you must like us at least a little, and any time something like this happens (Obama in Amazing Spider-Man, anyone?) the phone rings off the hook all day, and if you can make our day at least a little easier, hey, we’d appreciate it.

Thank you for your attention! Excelsior true believers, we’ll see you soon!

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Sketchkreig’s PAPER TRAIL – February 3rd

Toronto cartooning and illustration collective SKETCHKREIG are getting together for a group show on February 3rd, and you’re invited! It’s called PAPER TRAIL, and features comics, illustration, painting and more! See you there:

Paper Trail
featuring the work of the SketchKrieg! illustration collective
February 3 – 5, 2011
Opening Party: Friday, February 3, 2011 @ 7 p.m.
XPACE Cultural Centre, 58 Ossington Ave.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131516590246287

Early this February, the XPACE Cultural Centre exhibits ‘Paper Trail,’ an art project that takes the Surrealists’ ‘exquisite corpse’ technique and runs it through a pop art meat grinder of comic illustration. Showcasing the work of Toronto-based illustration collective SketchKrieg!, ‘Paper Trail’ is a collaborative comic book narrative intended for gallery viewing.

In 2010, the seven illustrators in SketchKrieg! embarked on a collaborative comic panel project. One illustrator would create one comic panel – any size, any format. That panel would be passed along to a second illustrator, who was then instructed to illustrate a new panel within the next four days. That illustrator would pass that new panel (and the original) to a third illustrator, and the cycle would continue. The sequence was illustrated one panel at a time, each illustrator unaware how the previous illustrator intended the story to progress. No plot or outline was devised before committing ink to paper. Everything was intended to be surprising and improvised. And no dialogue was allowed.

The resultant story (currently still in progress) is full of bizarre twists and turns as the paper chain progresses. In-between gutters, genres flip from post-apocalyptic saga to romantic comedy to political thriller. Characters die and are reborn, their motives change as often as the illustration style. The exhibit, showcasing the entire 63-panel sequence, features work from SketchKrieg! illustrators Brian Hoang (Medicine), Jason Loo (G.I. Joe Comicon), Alana McCarthy (OWL Kids), Tyrone McCarthy (Corduroy High), Evan Munday (Quarter-Life Crisis), Gillian Newland (A Chanukah Noel) and Zen Rankin (Action Satisfaction Supreme).

For more information or media requests, please contact Tyrone McCarthy at tyrone@guerillaprinting.ca

Save the Date: Graphically Speaking at Keep Toronto Reading April 16

The Beguiling and The Toronto Comic Arts Festival will once-again be partnering with Toronto Public Library this April for KEEP TORONTO READING, the month-long celebration of the written word! Featuring dozens of author events across the 99 branches of the TPL, it’s an amazing opportunity to meet and greet authors, editors, publishers and more.

We’ve been partnering with TPL since 2006 I think, to develop and provide graphic novel programming as part of the KTR experience, under the heading “Graphically Speaking!”. Just for fun I thought I’d remind myself (and all of you) about our past programs:

2010 – Jeffrey Brown’s Undeleted Scenes launch and discussion
2009 – Webcomics! Featuring Kate Beaton, Willow Dawson, Emily Horne, Brian McLachlan, Ryan North
2008 – Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet and Kean Soo’s Jellaby
2007 – Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim
2006 – T.O. Comics Scene: Seth (Wimbledon Green), Chester Brown (Louis Riel), Matthew Blackett (M@B)

A pretty amazing array of comics talent, and our 2011 event will be no exception. We’ll be bringing together Scott Chantler (Two Generals, Northwest Passage), Diana Tamblyn (Gerald Bull, The Frederick Banting Story), and Zach Worton (The Klondike) to talk about history, historical fiction, and biography in comics. A full description and more details are forthcoming, but we’re excited and wanted to put out a little bit of a heads-up on this fantastic event.

Look for further details next month. Thanks, and we hope to see you there!

– Chris
(Landscape from Zach Worton’s The Klondike, coming this spring.)

Back In Stock: MEANWHILE, by Jason Shiga

One of the cool things I did this year was head to GAMERCAMP, a fledgling festival in its third year devoted to indie video game development and developers. There’s a lot of conceptual overlap between independent video game creation and independent comic book creation, and I was asked to participate in a panel on the development of narrative in indie video games, and what gaming could learn from comics (and maybe what comics could learn from video games!).

One of the things I think that games do really well is create an immersive experience almost immediately–when we encounter games and gaming, we’re trained to think of the rules of the game as being distinct from the rules of our everyday lives. We immediately give ourselves over to the games, and their experience, as compared to comics where a writer/artist need to work pretty hard to truly immerse us in their world. One of the works I mentioned in my panel was Meanwhile, a graphic novel by Jason Shiga. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel, a story with 3856 possibilities. It’s a graphic novel, no doubt, with an interesting and compelling narrative, but it asks you to approach the work as a game, with its own distinct rules. It’s an interesting hybrid, and a great book, and in mentioning it on panel a LOT of people seemed to want to check out that graphic novel…!

A look at the interior of the book, and its many branching pathways. Photo from http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/04/take-your-pick-with-meanwhile-by-jason-shiga/.

So of course we immediately sold out after Gamercamp. Err, sorry folks.

Which is a very long-winded way of saying that we got the book back in-stock recently! It’s now available on the main floor for just $19.95. And if you did happen to pick up Meanwhile in the last little while, I’d strongly recommend you pick up Jason’s other works in stock: Double Happiness, a truly disturbing little book that is not what you think it is; FLEEP, a math-and-problem-solving terrorist plot; BOOKHUNTER, the story of a library-services agent who doesn’t play by the rules! Seriously, Shiga is a serious talent, all of his work is totally worth owning. Don’t miss out!

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Shipping January 19th, 2011

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday January 19th, 2010. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds. Variant prices are generally accurate to what we will be charging in store, but all disputes between prices will defer to the stickered, in-store price.

Click here for the complete list: http://www.beguiling.com/110119shipping.txt

The Beguiling Recommends

OCT101018 Stigmata HC 19.99
– A new work by Lorenzo Mattotti! Little else needs to be said, but just in case that doesn’t convince you check out the review at
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/cr_reviews/30271/

NOV100629 Casanova TP Luxuria Vol 01 14.99
– Collected the recoloured, relettered, mindfuck spy series by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba.

SEP101024 King Of Flies HC Vol 02 18.99
– A surprising and disturbing rumination on sex and violence by a dude who really, really likes Charles Burns.

– Chris @ The Beguiling

Shipping January 12th, 2011

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday January 12th, 2010. All Prices listed in U.S. Funds. Variant prices are generally accurate to what we will be charging in store, but all disputes between prices will defer to the stickered, in-store price.

Click here for the complete list: http://www.beguiling.com/110112shipping.txt

Beguiling recommends:
Summit of the Gods v2, by Jiro Taniguchi
Casanova: Gula #1, by Fraction & Moon
Dodgem Logic Magazine #6, by Alan Moore & Co.
Sixth Gun TP, by Bunn and Hurtt

– Chris @ The Beguiling

REMINDER: Scott Thompson In-Store Signing Tonight! (Thursday)

Scott Thompson In-Store Signing
For the new graphic novel THE HOLLOW PLANET
Thursday, January 6th, 2010, 6pm-7pm
@ The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street
FREE

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139938259394128

The Beguiling is thrilled to announce that Kids In The Hall co-founder Scott Thompson will be joining us in-store for a book signing for his new graphic novel!

That’s right, Scott Thompson wrote a graphic novel featuring his “Danny Husk” character from Kids In The Hall, and it’s called THE HOLLOW PLANET. What happens when one average salesman for AT and Love travels to a fantastic and exotic and surprisingly erotic world? The ordinary becomes extraordinary, and more!

Scott Thompson will be signing from 6pm-7pm on Thursday, January 6th, 2011. He will be signing other items than The Hollow Planet, though a signing limit may need to be enforced, details tbd on site.

DANNY HUSK: THE HOLLOW PLANET is available in store now, for $19.99. Copies of the book will also be available at the event.

For media inquiries, please contact us at The Beguiling.

– Chris @ The Beguiling