Editor’s note: Made in Tarrant is an occasional Q&A series on small businesses started in Tarrant County. Submit your business here.
Rey Medrano and Zachary Kersis-Warner recently opened Odyssey Comics. The shop is located in Alamo Heights at the previous site of The Welman Project. Medrano and Kersis-Warner said the comic book store at 3950 W. Vickery Blvd. is the first of several small businesses that will open within the 5,000-square-foot building in spaces adjacent to Odyssey Comics.
The ultimate goal is to give local creators exposure and both creators and customers a communal space. Other services to come include a quiet lounge, a gaming room and potential makerspace.
The Fort Worth Report spoke with Kersis-Warner and Medrano about how the business formed and their goals with the comic book store. The story has been edited for length and clarity.
Ismael M. Belkoura: How did you get into this business in the first place? What made you guys decide to invest in this space?
Zachary Kersis-Warner: I have been working in comics for eight years now, I managed a comic book store in Arlington and I ran a store in Los Angeles. Whenever it came time to figure out where we wanted to open up our store, we came back to Fort Worth.
This is what I do. This is what I’m good at. So this was the only thing I wanted to do. I’ve wanted to open up a comic book store since I was in high school.
Rey Medrano: I work in film and television, so a lot of what brought Fort Worth to my attention was shooting Paramount television shows here. I just fell in love with Fort Worth. It was friendly, it was charming, it’s a big city, but with a small town feel. We also noticed several other comic book stores were closing. We did a map of the area, saw what Fort Worth had to offer. We also saw what we really loved in other places that we’ve lived in. We’re both from Texas, so it felt important that if we build a community, we start in Texas.
Odyssey Comics co-owners Zachary Kersis-Warner, left, and Rey Medrano pose with Spider-Gwen in their store on July 24, 2026. (Ismael M. Belkoura | Fort Worth Report)
Kersis-Warner: Yeah, we’ve been all around. We’ve been to different places and learned different things. We wanted to take what we’ve learned and try to apply it here.
Belkoura: How did y’all meet?
Medrano: Online. (We) have known each other for seven years.
Belkoura: You talked about the comic book side of it being the first phase. What are you envisioning for the rest of the space?
Medrano: A growing trend that we saw around the country, in bigger cities, was a third space, where you could go and hang out. It’s a little more than a library and a little less than a coffee shop. Just a place to be you and to exist in a safe space. I feel like it was incredibly important to have one of those places after the pandemic because we all just became so afraid of community or afraid of contact with other people.
As you mentioned, we are opening different portions of our very large 5,000-square-foot facility. One of them will be a gaming and entertainment room where RPG players and card gamers and people that want to bring board games can borrow a table from us in our space and play with their friends. They can play for hours on end without being expected to order food or anything like that.
Kersis-Warner: We want it to be like a communal space for a lot of things. We want to let people have a space to play games. That’s one of the bigger things that we’re trying to do here.
Medrano: That’s why we’re wanting to connect with local artists. We want to have signings and events with them. We want to promote the crap out of them.
Kersis-Warner: We want to do trivia nights and signings and work with other small businesses to do workshops here.
Medrano: The event space is the center of the building, but around the building there will be different little side businesses popping up. Our next business opening up here is an emporium. It’s called Hourglass Apothika Emporium. Its prime focus is indie books, weird gifts, quirky items with personality. We’re hoping to open that in the next month
Another phase that we’ll be opening soon too is a private library of our own collection of books. That will be housed in something we’re calling the Peacock Lounge. No, you can’t get alcohol there, but it’ll be a nice, quiet, private space so that you can hang out by yourself. You can bring friends. We’re considering letting people rent it out for game nights
Kersis-Warner: A cozy, quiet little room for reading, sipping your coffee, having a space that’s shut off from the communal space. Because if that space gets loud from all the ruckus, we can have a private room that people can just be quiet and relax in.
Medrano: There’s a lot of neurodivergent folks out there, or people who are sensitive to noise and sound, so we want to have a safe space for everybody. We want to entertain you in all the ways. We want to keep you creative in all the ways.
We do have a last portion of our building where we are considering making that like a creator and makerspace, specifically leaning towards cosplay and the cosplay community.
Belkoura: Are all of these small businesses going to be under one name framework? Is it all Odyssey?
Medrano: Part of the idea behind that is the emporiums. You know, the gift shop, the bookshop, the candles. I feel like an emporium is so broad and vast that it will let many artists or artisans come in. We notice that Fort Worth is really good with that. Like right down the way, there’s the Montgomery Plaza Antique Mall, and they have a huge wait list. But if there’s an incredible dealer or vendor that has amazing things, it kind of fits with our vibe. We want to incorporate them as well.
Belkoura: You mentioned becoming a place where local artists can engage with y’all in some capacity. What will that look like?
Medrano: Well, it’s already starting to take form, which is great. We’ve already partnered with a local comic book artist. We’re doing our first official signing on Mexican Independence Day on Sept. 16. He is a local creator from the DFW area, and we’ll have a signing for him and tables and snacks, and people can come pick up his book.
We are collaborating with a local zine creator who is also an art teacher at a public school. He has zine workshops. His name is Owen Curtsinger and his business is Fort Worth Zine Club.
Really, it’s giving local creators exposure and community, but it’s also providing a safe space for that community. I couldn’t ask for anything better with signings and workshops. That’s exactly how we want to promote local artists. We want (to work with) pottery artists and ceramic artists as well.
Shown are examples of zines from Owen Curtsinger, an Odyssey Comics collaborator. (Ismael M. Belkoura | Fort Worth Report)
Kersis-Warner: One of the big things we want to do here is let people see themselves on the shelves. So in time, as we start to fill out our shelves with more inventory, one of the things I plan to do is have a permanent Pride section, permanent Black creator section. For Women’s History Month, for instance, we would make curated selections of books by women creators. And if you were to purchase things from that selection, proceeds would go toward a charity.
Belkoura: Why is it important for y’all to become a safe space for not just one group, but for every minority person out there and find their space within this creative hub?
Medrano: I’ve felt oppressed a number of times in my life as a Latino and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. So it felt very important to just offer that to people. And my partner Zachary has always been inclusive for as long as we’ve known each other.
Odyssey Comics co-owners are planning to convert an empty space in the building into a gaming room. (Ismael M. Belkoura | Fort Worth Report)
(We want to become the space where) being weird is okay. Being different is OK. And I think, to what Zachary said before, it’s so important that everybody see a representation of themselves on the shelves, in the art, in the space, because it’s important. We never really understand what people are going through, and we feel the safest, easiest way is through storytelling.
Kersis-Warner: Comics can be really intimidating to try to get into, especially if you don’t know where to start. We don’t want people to come in and feel dumb for not knowing this book or that book or like what terminology means. We want to try to make everybody feel like they can come in and find a comic for themselves.
Belkoura: Do you find that kind of space lacking in not just the comic community, but the creative communities that you guys have been in?
Medrano: We found it lacking here a little bit. When you’re in big cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington, Seattle, it’s artist central. Everybody’s different and everybody’s unique and nobody’s afraid to stand out because there’s so many people there. But as I mentioned before, Fort Worth is such a growing community. It’s now the 10th largest city in the country. Spending my time out here a lot for work, I noticed certain things that bigger cities had to offer that weren’t necessarily being offered here, and they’re things that we love. We think that’s really cool, and we just want to be a cool part of the community.
Belkoura: For anyone who is thinking about starting a business in whatever sector, but hasn’t made that jump yet, what would you tell them?
Kersis-Warner: Do it, but do your research and be prepared.
Medrano: I’m gonna go to the calling. If you keep being called to bring something into this world, no matter what it is, whatever the idea is, that’s your sign to do it. Just do it. Make it happen. Bring it into the world. Do your research and create it because it’s obviously needed, and that’s why you’re being called to it.
Odyssey Comics in Alamo Heights recently opened their storefront located at 3950 W. Vickery Blvd. (Ismael M. Belkoura | Fort Worth Report)
Ismael M. Belkoura is the nonprofit editor for the Fort Worth Report. His position is supported by a grant from North Texas Community Foundation. Contact him at ismael.belkoura@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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