The Beguiling is a comic shop in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It specializes in underground and

alternative comics Alternative comics or independent comics cover a range of American comic book, American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alterna ...

, classic

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

reprints, and foreign comics. It has built an international reputation for focusing on and promoting non-

superhero comics Superhero comics is one of the most common genres of American comic books. The genre rose to prominence in the 1930s and became extremely popular in the 1940s and has remained the dominant form of comic book in North America since the 1960s. Supe ...

in the superhero-dominated North American comic book market. The store has made effort to promote comics culture in Toronto by organizing the annual

Toronto Comic Arts Festival The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) is a comic book festival held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Since its founding in 2003, TCAF has grown to become one of the world’s largest festivals dedicated to the promotion and appreciation of ...

(TCAF) in coöperation with the

Toronto Public Library Toronto Public Library (TPL) is a public library system in Toronto, Ontario. It is the largest public library system in Canada, and in 2023 had averaged a higher circulation per capita than any other public library system internationally, making i ...

, which also hosts Page & Panel, a nonprofit shop to support TCAF. The Beguiling also runs a sister store, Little Island Comics, the first North American comic shop aimed exclusively at children.

History

Founded in 1987 by Steve Solomos and Sean Scoffield on Harbord Street near the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, Canada, The Beguiling quickly built a reputation for the diversity of its stock, focused on art-oriented,

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

, underground and

—"anything that is even peripherally comic book-oriented", according to current owner Peter Birkemoe. In the earliest days, much of the store's income was made through

mail order Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as: * Sending an order form in the mail * Placing an order by telephone call ...

, as the material it dealt in was not mainstream. It also built a reputation for stocking the works of

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

s such as

Chester Brown Chester William David Brown (born 16 May 1960) is a Canadian cartoonist. Brown has gone through several stylistic and thematic periods. He gained notice in alternative comics circles in the 1980s for the surreal, scatological '' Ed the Happy Clo ...

and

Julie Doucet Julie Doucet (born December 31, 1965)
is a Canadian

, whose comics most stores would not handle due to the controversial nature of their contents. Well-known Toronto-based cartoonists such as the trio of Brown,

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

and

Joe Matt Joe Matt (September 3, 1963 – September 18, 2023) was an American cartoonist, best known for his autobiographical work, ''Peepshow''. Early life Joe Matt was born and raised in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, a middle-class suburb of Philadelphia. He ...

became associated with the store, and sometimes depicted it in their comics. Others such as

Jay Stephens Jay Stephens (born March 22, 1971) is a Canadian cartoonist and animator currently living in Guelph, Ontario. He is best known as the creator of the comic ''Tutenstein'', which was later adapted into the Discovery Kids animated television seri ...

made it their shop of choice. In 1998, Solomos and Scoffield decided to devote their time to creating art (and later

film production Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

), and ownership was passed to Peter Birkemoe and Shane Chung, who expanded operations. In 1992 it relocated to a two-floor

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

building in Mirvish Village in Toronto, and has since branched out into selling to

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, organizing the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and running two more locations: Little Island Comics, which caters to children; and the nonprofit Page & Panel in the

. By 2017, 50% of its sales were to libraries across Canada. Plans to redevelop Mirvish Village as condominiums pushed The Beguiling to find a new location. It moved 3 January 2017 to a location at 319 College Street, near the

. The new location has since grown to about double the floor space of the previous one.

Description and reputation

The Beguiling is "a store with an agenda", according to Birkemoe, and has been derided for some for its perceived elitism, which stems in part from its sponsoring of ''Crash'', a journal of comics criticism that mainly condemned bad comics. Others, such as comics historian Charles Hatfield, have praised the store for its sense of history, saying, "You always leave the shop with a larger sense of what comics are about." The Beguiling is patronized by an international audience. The store has made the top five retailer list in ''

The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing r ...

'', and among the awards it has received, it shared the inaugural Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award in 1993, and it won the

Joe Shuster Award The Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards (or Joe Shuster Awards) are given out annually for outstanding achievements in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, webcomics, and comics retailers and publishers by Canadians. The awards, ...

s' Harry Kremer Retailer Award in 2010.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival

In 2003, Peter Birkemoe and Chris Butcher of The Beguiling first organized the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). Unusual in the world of comics conventions, TCAF is a free-admission event. It focuses on alternative and independent comics, but includes other creative arts besides comics. Rather than being like a traditional comics convention, it is patterned after European festivals such as

Angoulême Angoulême (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Engoulaeme''; ) is a small city in the southwestern French Departments of France, department of Charente, of which it is the Prefectures of France, prefecture. Located on a plateau overlooking a meander of ...

, and the American

Small Press Expo The Small Press Expo (SPX) is an American alternative comics convention. A registered 501(c)(3) that was created in 1994, every year since its inception, SPX has put on a festival, known as The Expo, that provides a forum for artists, writers a ...

Little Island Comics

As most North American comic shops focus on teenage and adult customers, and The Beguiling itself mainly on adults, the owners wanted to fill a void by opening the first children's comic shop in North America, and possibly the world. Little Island Comics opened 6 September 2011 at 742 Bathurst Street in the Annex, close to The Beguiling. The shop was designed with children in mind, with bright colours and shelves at child-height. When Mirvish Village closed in 2017, so did Little Island; several of the staff moved to Page & Panel. Little Island Comics re-opened at 323 College Street in February 2018, next to The Beguiling's new location there.

References

External links