Meet Richard Fairgray | Comic Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Richard Fairgray and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Richard, how does your business help the community?
I’ve always tried to write stories about people or ideas that weren’t being explored enough. When I wrote kids books I wrote the things I wish I’d had to read growing up. Now that I write/draw for adults, I’m telling stories for and about the people I want to spend my time with. Messy, complicated people who say the wrong things but mean the right ones. I describe my publishing line as ‘grown-up comics for dirtbags, gays and ladies,’ which is mostly shorthand for ‘anyone at a convention who doesn’t think there’s a book here for them.’ I don’t know what this means, but I have had 5 people now tell me they have left unhappy marriages after reading my first memoir.

Most of us know what it feels like to be pushed out of a treehouse, and still we go on to build new treehouses with even stricer rules for entry. I try to tell stories for the people who know they’re the wrong kind of weird for the weird place they’ve been put.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I self-published my first comic (through blackmailing a librarian for free photocopying) when I was 7 and used the profits to buy a bunch of Power Rangers. After that I just kind of never stopped. I got lucky right out of college when someone found my 100th book on the set of a film and emailed me to ask if I wanted to fly to Australia to take some meetings. While all of that fell apart (cut to me crying in a Comic Con bathroom because Santa was following me and a wrestler had stolen my starfish toys), but it was the sign I needed that I could do this for real.

So, I just never had another job. I made more comics, I did all the conventions and then looked around at 30 and realized I couldn’t do anything bigger unless I moved somewhere new (I was still living in New Zealand back then). My booth at the con was 60 feet wide. I had 10 staff selling books. I had 207 titles, a video game and an action figure. So, the next day I brought basically everything I owned to the show floor, reduced all books to $1 and gave away a personal item with every sale. The day after the show I went to the airport with a plastic crate containing $27,000 in cash, a plastic skeleton and a laptop, and I flew to Los Angeles.

I worked on a monthly book about a crime-fighting dinosaur until a Youtuber sued the publisher and they crumbled. I had pitch meetings on my second honeymoon and sold a middle-grade horror series that took 3 years of my life. I got stuck away from my husband during COVID and started writing a memoir (what better time to get introspective than when you’re lonely and scared of dying). I got told that if I ever showed it to anyone that my career would be over, so I finished it and put it in a drawer. Two years later, my best friend Jim (a genuinely unhinged man) died and I felt truly awful that he had never seen his part in that memoir comic, so I released it.

I launched an imprint called ‘Richard Sux’ and since then I’ve put out 20 more books. My workload is so much higher than it has ever been and every day is a new struggle to carve out a place for weird, mature-themed, challenging comics, especially as the world gets more terrifying and seeks comfort in the familiar. But, I’m happier with the work than I have ever been, and I get to continue making a living by writing and drawing whatever I want.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I don’t drive, so most of what I look at is within a 10 block radius. I would talk them to Kettle Glazed on Franklin in Hollywood for donuts. I would walk them down to ixlb on the corner of Sunset and Bronson, not for the food but to appreciate the weird dumpling mural where the tongue is on the wrong side of the teeth. I would show them the bizarre architecture and poorly thought out fish fountain at Crossroads of the World. I would take them to the old zoo in Griffith Park and let them climb around in the cages. I would take them to my favorite chicken place (RoRo’s) and for the next meal walk them the 30 feet to Luv2Eat because that’s still the best Thai food in the city.

Days would be spent riding trains (I just like a good tunnel, regardless of quality of schedules or routes) and see movies in all my favorite theaters. I love The Vista, LF3, The Egyptian…I’d show them the Cinerama Dome and then stare longingly at it willing it to reopen for me.

The true wonder of LA for me is just to walk aimlessly and watch the world. This is a place where something is always happening if you pay attention.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are too many people to list (Lucy, Michele, Indira, Barbra, Nicole, Alice), but the person who puts up with the most and never asks me to be anything easier to understand is my husband Ray. Most of the romantic relationships in my life have been with people fascinated by my energy and ideas, but the they start to wonder when I will slow down. Ray has never assumed that the person he met on day one was a performance, because the person he showed me was’t either. That’s rare.

Website: http://richardfairgray.com http://kickrichard.com

Instagram: @richardfairgrayauthor

Facebook: https://facebook.com/richardfairgray

Other: https://richardfairgray.bsky.social