Signing at Westfield East Grand Opening. Front to back: Steve Bryant, Phil Hester, Bill Reinhold, Linda Lessman, and Matthew Waite.

by Josh Crawley

I don’t have too much time for some of my more usual rambling, as the opening of our new Williamson Street store on Madison’s great near-East side has kept me pleasantly busy, but I need to say a couple of “Thank yous!”

Thank you to all the artists that joined us this past Saturday to make our first day open enjoyable! Steve Bryant, Phil Hester, Bill Reinhold, Linda Lessmann Reinhold, and Matthew Waite; it was our pleasure! They’ve all worked on some enjoyable projects. Be sure to check out Firebreather (created by Hester & Andy Kuhn) tomorrow night on Cartoon Network; Helltown (created by Bryant & Joshua Hale Fialkov) on the MTV Geek blog in March; Dark Horse’s Magnus, Robot Fighter (drawn by Reinhold, written by Jim Shooter); and Shinku (inked by Matthew Waite, written by Ron Marz, penciled by Lee Moder, colored by Michael Atiyeh), also premiering in March.

Top Cow display at Westfield East

Thank you to Ron Marz, Atom! Freeman, and everyone at Top Cow. They went above and beyond in giving us — without us asking in any way, shape, or form — some great promotional items (Ryan Sook Magdalena promotional posters signed by Ron, for example) along with the copies of Witchblade Volume 1 signed by Ron (though we did order those, and we’ve sold a copy each day we’ve been open; not sure we can keep up the pace but we’ll do our best!).

Thank you to the neighborhood, for being so welcoming. We couldn’t have asked for nicer neighbors.

But really, thank you, our customers. We absolutely could not have done this without you. Your love, passion, or even just general interest in the form is what keeps us going.

Also, if you were with us that day, please let us know if you took pictures. We have a few but want more that we can share with everyone! Contact me via email for more details; we don’t want to jam up the email servers (Alfred is too busy sweeping The ‘Cave to upgrade them)!

Follow my tweets, email me, and be sure to keep an eye out on the Westfield Comics Facebook.

Josh Crawley may or may not be the keyboardist for Everclear. He strongly suggests you not bet that he is.

Be Sociable, Share!

•