Comics Creator Richard Fairgray Opens Up His Mailbox For Tube-Formed Processed Meat

I have seen some truly bizarre promotions related to comics and nerd culture. This is, by far, the strangest I’ve seen to date. To celebrate the first story arc of his surrealist soap opera comic Haunted Hill, creator Richard Fairgray wants you to send him a hotdog. If you do, he’ll send you a very rare comic.

Haunted Hill is aliens, trampolines, deeply flawed people and the grime of day to day life in Hollywood. It’s a life Richard knows well and what keeps him going is in that big sloppy mess is his other favorite big sloppy mess -a hotdog.In a world of clean-cut, family-friendly queer representation, comes a story for the tired, middle-aged dirtbags from a nearly blind comics creator. 

Eva’s wife got a job she couldn’t turn down. Now back in Haunted Hill (the lowest part of Hollywood that can still claim “Hill” status), Eva must navigate feeling out of place—balancing exhaustion with the desire to be vibrant and adventurous.

So why a hot dog?

“Eva is a hotdog,” said Fairgray. “She’s a big appealing mess who seems out of place on the streets of Hollywood, but somehow she is always there. She is a hotdog, I am a hotdog, we are all hotdogs. But Hollywood is changing, all my regular hotdog spots are now gone, so getting people to mail them to me seems like the best option.”

Years ago, when Richard was living on the other side of the world, Coca-Cola started their ‘Share a Coke with’ campaign and Richard noticed that none of the bottles said Richard Fairgray on them, so he started making stickers and putting them on bottles to fix the problem. It worked. Readers started showing up to conventions with bottles of coke with his name on them. 

Last year Richard posted a picture of himself “eating a hotdog really well,” and a few weeks later a soggy envelope turned up at his office door. Inside was a magical meat tube and a mustard wet bun, and Richard knew he was onto something.

But Richard isn’t going overboard, he’s no Joey Chestnut, he’ll never be able to eat 75 of those bad boys in 10 minutes, he added, “I’ll never be the hotdog champ for eating the most, but I might be the champ for eating one hotdog the best.”

The first 25 people to send Richard a hotdog will get a very limited physical copy of Haunted Hill issue 1, with a beautiful hotdog themed sketch on the back.