Shipping July 8th, 2009

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship to The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009. 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: /090708shipping.txt

– Parrish

The Beguiling moves into the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art

What hijinks will The Beguiling staff get up to while Mr. Butcher is out of the country? How about a Queen Street Location! That’s right, starting this Friday night we will be taking over the gallery book store at MOCCA. Independent comic’s readers are likely familiar with another MOCCA but in this case I’m talking about the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art at 952 Queen Street West (near Queen and Shaw).

Tonight (Friday June 26) from 7pm to 11pm is the grand opening of MOCCA’s new show Pulp Fiction featuring Marc Bell and Peter Thompson, who Beguiling customers will know from their books in the Petit Livre series from Drawn and Quarterly, as well as many other talented Canadian artists for you to discover. The show runs through August 23rd and we will be there every hour the museum is open offering an interesting subset of the fine books from our Markham Street store.

You can find out more about the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art at www.mocca.ca and read about the Pulp Fiction show HERE.

Admission is Pay What You Can

The Museum’s hours are:
Tuesday – Thursday 11am – 6pm
Friday 11am – 9pm
Saturday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Closed on Mondays

Hope to see you there!

The Book Club – Canada Reads Graphic Novels

Throughout June the CBC’s The Book Club has been focusing on graphic novels. This week they talked to The Beguiling owner Peter Birkemoe about his
top ten graphic novels.

Unsurprisingly local author Seth was on that list and the article also includes a short video showing some highlights of his latest book George Sprott.

I guess they must have been impressed because The Book Club will also be hosting a live moderated chat with Seth on their site tomorrow at 2 pm Eastern Time. So you should totally check that out and maybe even ask him some questions.

More exciting news about comics in Toronto is coming very soon. Plus: The smooth satisfying flavor of Beguiling Books available at a second location? Maybe so, my friends. Maybe so.

While the Chris is away…

As many regular visitors are no doubt already aware store manager and regular web page updater Chris Butcher is away for the next few weeks exploring the mysterious east or, since it’s a shorter flight across the Pacific from here, the mysterious west if you prefer. I look forward to bringing you mad, pirate radio style, replacement coverage* in the interim. That’s right, you’d best put a seat belt on your screen because it’s about to go for the ride of its life.

– Parrish

*user experience of actual madness and/or piracy may very.

Shipping June 24th, 2009

The following comics and graphic novels are scheduled to ship The Beguiling Books & Art on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009. 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: /090624shipping.txt
– Christopher

TCAF 2009 Wrap-Up

Hello folks,

I’m Christopher Butcher and I’m the Festival Director and co-founder of TCAF, The Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Co-founder Peter Birkemoe, a handful of staff, and dozens of volunteers and I present TCAF every two years in lovely downtown Toronto, Canada. A little over a month ago on May 9-10, 2009, we held our fourth Festival. It was a first at our new home, the Toronto Reference Library, the flagship of the 99-branch Toronto Public Library system (the largest library system in North America). Following tradition, we thought a nice note sent far and wide might be a good way to sum up this year’s Festival, and make a few announcements about the next one.

First and foremost, we think that TCAF 2009 was a great success. Our main goal with TCAF is to create a stage for the comics, art and graphic novels that we love, so they can really shine and find the audience that they deserve. Canada is a country that produces great cartoonists and comics and we’re proud that more than 250 creators, a dozen publishers, and more attendees than ever could participate in this year’s Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Despite economic concerns, TCAF 2009 proved that comics are still a boom medium, bursting with creativity, craft, and passion—and people want to come out and be a part of it!

Attendance at TCAF 2009 events more than doubled over our 2007 figures, with 10,500 TCAF-specific attendees visiting Toronto Reference Library across both days (official numbers, at that: from audited data provided by Toronto Public Library’s turnstile powers-that-be), and with over 14,000 attendees visiting TCAF-branded events in total. Feedback from guests, attendees, and partners has been overwhelmingly positive so far. While we did experience some growing pains this year (heat, crowds, traffic-flow) familiarizing ourselves with and settling in to the new
venue, we’re confident that moving forward we’ll be able to rectify these issues.

On that note, we’d like to thank all of the wonderful cartoonists, publishers, artists and writers who came out to exhibit this year. TCAF 2009 featured our largest and most diverse collection of guests to date, and as always these creators and their work are the reason there is a Festival in the first place. Thanks to our honored guests François Ayroles, Anke Feuchtenberger, Emmanuel Guibert, Derek Kirk Kim, Kid Koala/Eric San, Scott McCloud, Tara McPherson, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Paul Pope, Florent Ruppert, Seth, Adrian Tomine, and Craig Yoe. And a very special thanks especially to Mr. and Mrs. Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who overcame medical troubles to attend this Festival: you gave us a truly special event.

We’ve continued to receive amazing support from both Canada’s national and Toronto’s local print and online media, with many of our guests surprised at the level of coverage that we received both as an event, and around specific guests. Of particular note is the superlative support of the Arts & Life section of Canada’s National Post newspaper, who ran over a hundred biographies and Q&As of comics creators attending TCAF, several feature articles and art pages, blog and print wraps and updates — they even live-Twittered several panels. We appreciate their support of comics and their recognition of TCAF’s prominent role in promoting the medium. These efforts, alongside coverage from TCAF Media Sponsor Eye Magazine, newspapers The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and L’Express, online coverage from BoingBoing, Torontoist, BlogTO, NOW, Publishers Weekly, Quill and Quire, Sequential, Walrus, The Comics Reporter, dozens of blogs, thousands of tweets, and the fine folks at Open Books Toronto and WHAZAMO! declaring May GRAPHIC NOVEL MONTH, created unprecedented awareness not only of TCAF, but of the hundreds of publishers and cartoonists at the event. Thank you!

Peter and I would like to thank all of our sponsors and partner organizations, and especially TCAF Presenting Sponsor, Toronto Public Library (TPL). TPL graciously donated the use of the beautiful, airy Toronto Reference Library building to act as our venue for the main exhibition and programming. Holding TCAF at Toronto Reference Library re-enforces the fact that TCAF is completely FREE for the public to attend. We’ve long maintained that making the show free removes the barriers to entry for anyone who might be interested in the medium of comics and graphic novels, and by partnering with an organization that offers free access to a fantastic, comprehensive collection of the best comics literature all year-round, we’ve found a great partner in our goals. TCAF strives to present a broad, accessible, and varied view of comics and it is with the support of TPL and their staff—particularly tireless Director of Communications Ab Velasco—that we were able to reach more people with our message than ever before. Thank you. Thanks also to our sponsors at Harbourfront Centre, Owlkids, Le Consulate General de France a Toronto, the Goethe-Institut, Eye Weekly, The Japan Foundation, Magic Pony, Teletoon Canada, and of course, The Beguiling Books and Art: You supported us with great guests, with great venues, great programming, and so much more.

As the public face of TCAF, I often get a lot of the credit and praise directed at the event (the complaints too!), but there are a number of people who help put this show together that don’t always get the credit they deserve. Foremost amongst those people is Steven Murray (aka Chip Zdarsky), who went above and beyond this year to help us put together weeks and months worth of projects related to the Festival. He is a wonderful artist, writer, designer and friend, and we are sorry for making him uncomfortable with this praise but: We literally could not have done what we did without you.

Thanks also go out to: our 2009 Festival Poster Artist Bryan Lee O’Malley; Emmanuel Guibert for lending us Sardine for our Comics Festival! comic; Professor Andrew Lesk for organizing a fantastic academic program; Jocelyne Allen for superb Japanese translation skills; our many programming hosts and moderators including: Bill Kartalopoulos, Deb Aoki, Bart Beaty, Mark Askwith, Mark D. Nevins, Mark Siegel, Douglas Wolk, Jose Villarrubia, Jason Azzopardi, Stacy E. King, Jim Zubkavich, and Robin McConnell; The hosts and staff of The 2009 Doug Wright Awards for throwing an excellent event Saturday evening; our 2009 Festival Staff including Logistics Coordinators Rob Broughton and Sean Rogers, Kids Programming Coordinators Scott Robins and Naseem Hrab, Volunteer Coordinator Andrew Woodrow-Butcher; Parrish Kilthei for his A/V assistance; the staff of The Beguiling; Kate Dickson from Teletoon Canada; Peggy Burns from Drawn & Quarterly for all of her help coordinating an incredibly busy schedule; and the shrewd advice of Nathalie Atkinson. We had an army of talented, passionate volunteers again this year who helped to ensure that things went as smoothly as they possibly could, and we greatly appreciate their contribution to making the event a success (and that they happily wore the ketchup ‘n’ mustard-coloured TCAF t-shirts). We hope that all of you will come out and be a part of next year’s event.

That’s right, the next Toronto Comic Arts Festival will be held Saturday May 8th and Sunday May 9th, 2010, at Toronto Reference Library. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. And yes, we know that’s Mother’s Day… All of the cool moms read comics.

What, so soon, you ask? Following up on feedback from our partners, our guests, our staff, and attendees, we’ve decided to build on the incredible momentum of having a new home and incredibly supportive presenting sponsor in Toronto Public Library, and produce our first annual show. This is something of an experiment for us, and I can’t say for sure that we’re “going annual” with the event, but we feel that a 2010 event is the best course of action to ensure that TCAF stays a fun, vital, and prominent festival both within the city of Toronto and in the larger comics community. That’s around the corner so we’ll be running a tight ship, and further details about TCAF 2010 (including exhibitor application & information) will be released later this summer.

Thanks again to everyone who made the 2009 Toronto Comic Arts Festival such a fantastic success. We greatly appreciate your support, your promotion of the festival through great word of mouth and online, and your attendance. We’ll do our best to keep putting together a great show.

Thanks,

Christopher Butcher, Festival Director
Toronto Comic Arts Festival

On behalf of the executive, staff, and volunteers of TCAF

HAPPY GAY PRIDE WEEK – Sale June 20th to June 30th

The Beguiling is celebrating Gay Pride Week in Toronto by making it easier to get your comics Pride on. From Saturday June 20th to Tuesday July 30th, we’re having a big Gay sale with discounts on tons of great gay comics!
THE BEGUILING’S BIG GAY COMICS SALE:

30% off of the sticker price on all CLASS COMICS porn!
This includes some of our bestsellers like PORNOMICON, PORKY, & SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
20% off of the sticker price on all main-floor import gay comics collections from BRUNO GMUNDER VERLAG and etc.
This includes hardcover collections like STICKY, all of the Joe Phillips books, the STRIPPED anthology, and more!
20% off of Select Works by Maurice Vellekoop!
How could we leave out Toronto’s premiere gay cartoonist and illustrator! You can get 20% off the sticker price/Canadian cover price of VELLEVISION, A NUT AT THE OPERA, and PIN-UPS by Maurice Vellekoop!
20% off of SCOTT PILGRIM VOLUMES 1-5
It’s Wallace Wells-tastic. Get 20% off of the Canadian price on Scott Pilgrim. If you’ve been waiting for a chance to read it, lower-than-U.S.-cover-price is probably the best incentive you’re going to get. It’s not like it’s gonna get LESS popular. 🙂
10% off the U.S. Cover Price on any Marvel, DC Comics, Image, or Dark Horse trade paperback with a gay character in it.
We are willing to accept certain interpretations of Batman, Robin, The Legion, and Wolverine. We feel like we have a good idea what’s going on ‘between the panels’ in Wonder Woman too. Try us…!
20% off of the regular price on FUN HOME and STUCK RUBBER BABY
These are two great gay graphic novels that we think everyone should read, and so we’ll give you a bit of an incentive to do so.
Check out the big PRIDE display on the second floor for book suggestions, regardless of your taste in comics. We’re sure you’ll find something you’re interested in 🙂
– Chris @ The Beguiling

Announce: Mirror Mind Book Launch

MIRROR MIND Graphic Novel Launch Party
Featuring author Tory Woollcott
Friday, July 3rd, 2009, 5pm-8pm
@ The Central, 603 Markham Street (next to The Beguiling)
FREE

“Mirror Mind” is a brand new graphic novel written by Torontonian author Tory Woollcott. Tory uses the comic book format to recount her childhood experiences with dyslexia; a medium that perfectly translates her memories to paper. Mirror Mind is an enjoyable read accessible to all, while reaching out directly to children and parents struggling with dyslexia.

The Beguiling is very proud to present the official launch for “Mirror Mind” with author Tory Woollcott on Friday, July 3rd, from 5pm-8pm. Tory will be doing a light-hearted presentation on her graphic novel and on her experiences, which will be followed by a Q&A with The Beguiling’s Peter Birkemoe. Book signing follows.

“Mirror Mind” is in stock at The Beguiling now, and we highly recommend attending this event. It should be along the lines of our great, well-attended book launch for Dave Lapp’s DROP-IN graphic novel.

For more information, visit http://www.mirrormind.maybemumkin.com/
– Chris @ The Beguiling

Announce: Underground Classics Book Launch and Discussion

UNDERGROUND CLASSICS: The Transformation of Comics into Comix
Book Launch and Discussion with author James Danky
Sunday, June 28th, 2009, 3pm-5pm
@ The Central, 603 Markham Street (next to The Beguiling)
FREE

The Beguiling is proud to present James Danky, editor of the new book “Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix”. BoingBoing says that Underground classics is “The first [book] to really focus on the artwork of underground comics,” and it really is a gorgeous book, loaded with beautiful art reproductions and essays from historians including Paul Buhle, Trina Robins, Jay Lynch, and Patrick Rosenkranz amongst others.

Danky will be giving an audio/visual presentation on the art and history of underground comix. A moderated discussion between Danky, The Beguiling’s Peter Birkemoe will follow, including a special Underground Comix Trivia Contest and a chance to win a copy of the book! A book signing will follow.

Hope to see you there!

NOTE TO PRESS: Mr. Danky is available for advance media. Please contact Peter Birkemoe at mail@beguiling.com or 416-533-9168 for more information.

Thursday Night! JUNKO MIZUNO IN TORONTO

junko_toronto_this_week

RED TRESSES AND FRECKLES: Junko Mizuno Solo Exhibition
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 18 from 7-10pm
Artist will be in attendance

Narwhal Art Projects (Near Magic Pony Gallery)
680 Queen St. West, Toronto, ON, Canada
647.346.5317

Exhibition Dates: June 18 – July 26, 2009

For more information, including a selected gallery of pieces, please check out http://www.magic-pony.com/gallery/2009_junkomizuno.php.

See you there!

– Chris @ The Beguiling