About

Bookstore café and art space in Milwaukee
Zines, prints, small press books and comics

Lion's Tooth is a bookstore café and art space in the beautiful Bay View neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We specialize in zines, prints, small press books and comics for kids and adults. Our mission-driven shop works to support local artists and authors and bring quality underground and radical publications to our community. We've been active since 2019 but our storefront opened officially to the public on March 19 2021.
Join our community by attending our events, getting a book or graphic novel subscription and shopping our online store. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Shelly McClone-Carriere is one of the founders of the Riverwest Co-Op Grocery & Café. She was a board member from 2002-2012, manager from 2001-2018 and bookkeeper since 2003. More recently she was School Café coordinator at Highland Community School, working with middle schoolers to develop skills that include planning the menu, budgeting and preparing meals for students, teachers and family members. Shelly's passion for books and community is at the heart of what Lion's Tooth stands for.

Cris Siqueira is a Brazilian-born artist and 2023/25 Ruth Arts Mary Nohl Alumni Fellow. She has earned Master's Degrees in Film and History from UW-Milwaukee and is working on her first long-form comic. Before moving to Milwaukee in 2004, Cris owned a small bookstore specialized in graphic novels in her native city of São Paulo, where she also covered comics as a journalist and continues to translate graphic novels to Portuguese. Cris loves curating comics and zines for Lion's Tooth and collaborating with local artists in special projects and exhibitions.

The name Lion's Tooth is a reference to dandelions, those stubborn masters of survival (from the French dent-de-lion). We want the books and art we love to thrive and multiply like they do. The dandelion regenerates even when you cut off the yellow flower, just like bookstores, which have survived the big-box "retail apocalypse", the wreath of Beelzebezos, and now a global pandemic, and continue to spread love across the land.

In-store exhibitions

NOW SHOWING

2024 | New work by Lion's Tooth co-owner Cris Siqueira
Inspired by the story "May You Get What You Want", published in her mini Cicada Comics