From fan to owner: Reinventing Boulder's iconic comic book shop
By Joseph Cacciatore
The bell of the book shop’s front door jingles softly as behind the counter, owner Kelly Cooke greets arriving customers with a smile. The place smells of old paper and cardboard, and the walls are covered with brightly colored comic book covers.
“This is the absolute thing that I’ve always wanted to do,” Cooke said. “It’s my life dream.”
Once a kid immersed in the comic book world, Cooke transformed from a long-time customer to owner of Time Warp Comics & Games. He’s reinvented the store in his own way, moving it to a bigger location and modernizing the space while still honoring the legacy of Wayne Winsett, the previous owner who introduced Cooke to comics.
Cooke remembers the day he first walked into Time Warp Comics & Games.
“That was my entry point into the community,” Cooke said. “I definitely look back on coming in here as some of the more happy times of my childhood.”
The idea of buying a comic book shop started as a joke. Cooke recalled the day he pitched the idea to his wife Dottie, co-owner of the store.
“We both laughed because it’s like who the heck does that, especially in this day in age,” Cooke said.
In the morning of Jan. 1, 2025, Winsett had denied multiple offers to buy his store. The same day, the Cookes happened to show up.
“Me and Dottie walked in and talked to him that day,” Cooke said. “And he said he went home that night, and he was just like, this is it. I found the people that I can sell my shop to.”
After the Cookes bought the shop, they made some significant changes. The first was the location. In April 2025, the Cookes moved the store from 28th Street to Arapahoe Avenue. Cooke said the new location is bigger and has attracted more customers.
“We back up to a huge community over here,” Cooke said. “We regularly see kids riding their bikes and scooters all over the place. Sunday afternoons, generally, we get just inundated by parents and their kids.”
Longtime customers notice the benefits of the new space. Logan Hancock has been shopping at the comic book shop for more than five years.
“It’s definitely more open, like the visibility itself used to have higher shelves,” Hancock said. “This one’s more spread out; lets you look around a bit easier. You can also get to a lot more of the books.”
Griffin Hursh is the store manager. He has worked at the shop for four years– several of those with the previous owner, Winsett. Hursh says the Cookes are carrying on Winsett’s legacy.
“They’ve just done a great job carrying on Wayne’s love of comics and the industry and everything that goes around with this hobby,” Hursh said.
Hursh added that the Cookes have improved the speed of the store’s operations.
“They’ve done a really good job at using technology and stuff like that in order to streamline our processes,” Hursh said. “We used to do all of our inventory stuff by hand.”
Dottie Cooke says her husband gets along great with the customers.
“He’s definitely the face of the operation,” she said. “He’s very good at greeting people, pushing new programs and thinking of ways to take the business not just from where we are but where we can be.”
Edited by Linus Loughry
