Photo by Jackie Valadez
Melon Booka and Bughouse MKE retail space
Melon Books' and Bughouse MKE's shared retail space (2026).
Two curious collectors’ worlds collide at 423 W. Pierce St. in Walker’s Point, where Melon Books and Bughouse MKE cohabit a neatly curated retail space. Run by Jackie Valadez, Melon is a new and used bookseller specializing in alternative comics, religion, esoterica, spirituality and more, while Alec Dolter vends handmade furniture plus found artifacts and media by way of Bughouse. The space is open Friday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. “As a couple we shared an art studio together for several years,” Dolter says of him and Valadez. “As collectors our studio became home to many things, so the transition to co-running a shop felt natural and like an extension of what we do as artists.”
Alt comics are defined as those not published by the two big comic publishers, Marvel and DC. Valadez sources books and comics wholesale, many from authors she has met through alt comic festivals. A few of Melon’s latest titles come from Detroit-based Diskette Press, Scotland-based Charco Press and Germany-based Colorama Press as well as authors Cam Collins and Erin K. Drew. “Most of the time, if I like one book from a press then all their books are going to be very similar, so I pick stuff out from there,” Valadez explains.
The shop has also carried titles from local artists/authors like Junker Comics, BearBear and John Wenz. “I want to be intentional with what I have,” Valadez adds. “I like when people come into the shop, take a look at what we have and think their stuff would fit here.” A small selection of the shop’s inventory is for sale at the new Blue Hour Coffee (2410 N. Murray Ave.) on Milwaukee’s East Side, which Dolter had a big part in designing and building alongside John Lyman and FORM Interiors.
Mind Blowing Art
Photo by Jackie Valadez
Melon Books' selction
A display of books for sale at Melon Books (2026).
Valadez’s interest in alt comics stems from when she attended the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) in 2015. “That was just so mind blowing to me,” she recalls. “After high school I ended up going to community college for two years, but I still had a big love for art, and going to CAKE was a reignition of this love I had for illustration, traditional art and drawing.”
This helped spur her decision to attend school at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), where she graduated from in 2019 and met Dolter. An illustrator herself, Valadez has drawn comics of her own but finds it challenging. “Because I’m so enthralled by this world of people doing all these really cool things, it’s hard for me to make my own because I get in my head,” she laughs. Valadez is drawn to comics because artists are allowed significant creative liberty with storytelling. “A lot of people making comic art are doing it outside of a contemporary art canon, so they’re outside of institutional critique. They allow themselves to have more personal narratives and give themselves space for experimentation comic to comic.”
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Valadez felt there was a gap in Milwaukee in terms of spaces specializing in alt comics and other books from independent and small-press publishers. Though she initially had the idea for an online shop, Dolter found what is now the Melon-Bughouse space through his sister Andrea, who co-owns To Hell & Back Vintage (700 S. 5th St.) on the other side of the building. After acquiring the space in September 2025, Valadez and Dolter opened their collaborative shop last December. Melon is named for the organ in cetaceans they use for echolocation. “I like the idea of books transmitting information to you, both things on the page and not on the page,” Valadez remarks.
“Weird Little Guys”
Photo by Ben Slowey
Petting zoo signs by Bughouse MKE
Petting zoo sign decor by Bughouse MKE (2026).
With Bughouse, named for his cat Bug, Dolter collects a lot of “weird little guys,” sourcing quirky knick-knacks, artwork, furniture and decor from estate and rummage sales or online marketplaces. Two of his latest acquisitions are a large, psychedelic wood art piece and a collection of petting zoo signs. A carpenter by trade, Dolter built the shop’s front desk area as well as a few tables peppered in the space. Some pieces of furniture he finds on the side of the road. “A lot of things need to be repaired when I find them,” he notes. The shop has a vinyl area featuring a selection from Lilliput Records, whom Dolter has done builds for, as well as his personal collection.
“After school, one of the first jobs I got was working in an antique store called Alt’s,” Dolter remembers. “He had a lot of cool stuff and would make furniture out of antiques; that was my first insight into that world. Through that I met Jacob Johnson, a furniture maker I learned more about building from. Bughouse is a way of filtering through the things I make and collect; it’s a way to keep hunting for things while letting other things go.”
Valadez and Dolter recently started hosting live music and poetry nights out of the space. The next show is an experimental one on August 22 featuring Swim Two Birds, Boy Dirt Car, Infowars/Sean Hendley, Post Doom Romance and Unsaambl Z. The two are also part of the DK Nutz Community Art collective, who host free public drawing events across Milwaukee.
