Diana R.
Yelp
I'm going to throw out the currently most overused word in the American vernacular in reference to this amazing TO gem - EPIC. If you are a comic fan who leans towards non- Big Two (read: Marvel and DC) publishers, a la myself, this is the Holy Grail for all your comic needs. The downstairs boasts a ridiculous collection of titles from all your favorites, alphabetized largely by author (Jhonen Vasquez, Adrian Tomine, Los Bros Hernandez, etc). You can find everything from their most notable works to super obscure early stuff that may be very limited edition. Prices are pretty reasonable for this harder to find stuff, IMHO, especially when a lot of it isn't even track-down-able online. The owner is usually behind the counter and he may give off an unapproachably, cooler than thou vibe but he's actually very helpful, laid back and concerned that you have the best experience as a customer.
The upstairs caters more to general, less niche tastes. They have several large racks of the current issues, both mainstream and independent, along with trades, manga, a massive back stock of individual issues and magazines. I can only deduct a star (it would only be half a star if I was allowed) because the store is just TOO stuffed, especially the back issues. The promise of obscure, hard to find back issues at a place with such varied stock as The Beguiling is quickly ruined by how crammed and stacked on each other the back issues are. There is no real space to pull boxes out and the stuff is so tight in the boxes you have to pull 20 issues out just to have room to flip through. The staff has zero idea of what is in the boxes either (which is pretty common for a comic shop) so there is no way to discern if they have what you need except to look through- a daunting task I usually give up on after 20 minutes. Aside from this, the staff has always been super helpful and knowledgable about the stock.
They also have a decent selection of interesting merch - buttons, posters, figurines, etc - that are reasonably priced. The much-beloved Scott Pilgrim is heavily represented and the shop has some very cool posters for the manga-style graphic novel series - if you see something on the wall you like, ask about it. Chances are it is for sale or they have another copy they will sell you cheap (for instance, a medium-ish poster in the stairwell featuring a variety of full-color Ramona's from SP is available for only $10). A huge mix of free flyers, cards, pamphlets and low-cost local indie comics, some hand drawn versus photocopy, also crows the front of the store.
I LOVE this place and make a point to stop every time I'm in TO to stock up on hard-to-find and unique items, along with recent issues local stores are sold out of due to their smaller ordering volume.