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Caught these on Twitter, ED & on FB here! the paper is off the windows, the new location for The Beguiling is up and running, just in time for holiday rush shopping! The old location will be open a bit longer, until about January 28th. They plan to host their  Boxing Week sale there.

It’s been ages since I could browse there on the regular [moved to MTL in ’97], but The Beguiling has been one of my favorite comics shops since I first checked it out with a group of fellow aspiring cartoonists in High School when I was 17 in 1987. It had just opened at its first location, 185 Harbord.

Like some kind of magic spell in the otherwise hot Toronto real estate market that building has not hosted another business since they left, it stands a ghost of their presence today for my aging nostalgic brain. It was definitely a magic place, I spent about half an hour maybe browsing there on my first visit before getting a store membership and making it a regular stop.

Toronto even then already had some really good comics shops, but no one stocked as much serious art and lit in comics form as they did from the start. The original owners Steve Solomos and Sean Scoffield also organized a great ‘alt’ comics event that probably was a partial model for TCAF too. I’ve seen it change hands, and moved twice now. But it’s remained one of the best comics shops I’ve even visited.

Not to mention given birth to two other comics stores and a world famous comics festival. I’ll miss the crowded house at 601 Markham St, but glad it’ll continue on and more or less in the same part of town too.

15253407_10156285789157228_5673147763504796843_nReally symbolic of nothing much probably but as it happens, the new location, as the crow flies from the last one, takes you right over the roof of the first! A nerdy factoid for future tourists of Toronto’s street level comics history. Perk for me, I visit Kensington market every time I’m back in town, more reliably than I make it up to Bloor, so it’ll be a lot easier for me to make a stop at The New Beguiling now!

Drop in and get someone a great comics gift, at any one of the fine establishments spawned by this business.

The [new] Beguiling @ 319 College St

The [old] Beguiling @ 601 Markham Street until late January.

Little Island Comics @ 742 Bathurst until late January.

Page & Panel @ 789 Yonge Street

-max