Comic Collectors May Want to Look Twice at This Store

The Denver Post (archive link) spoke with the owner of an online store called Wig Shop, that offers rare items, and is even working on an adaptation of a fantasy novel originally published in the early 20th century: Through Wig Shop, Alford, 42, has created a hub for fans of irreverent comics, abstract art, rare books and other printed curiosities. Many Colorado customers — myself included — have met him in person tabling at zine fests and book fairs up and down the Front Range. No two items among the 1,300 he has sold — he’s assigned a catalog number to each one — are the same. They are made by artists around the country and abroad, who Alford finds through visual platforms such as Instagram and often use online print-on-demand services to publish their work, he said. “Stylistically, I lean a little more towards silly, fancy, fantasy kind of stuff than horror or violent or sex stuff,” he said. “Sometimes it’ll dip between the two.” The artists Alford reaches out to are usually receptive when he asks to sell their books in limited quantities, he said. But he has also published his own pressings under the Wig Shop name. He recently collaborated with a Denver-area artist for the firs...