‘Revenge Served Cold’: How MCR Inspired a Charity Cookbook

Have you ever thought about throwing a My Chemical Romance-themed dinner party? If so, you’re in luck. Available for preorder until midnight on August 10, the gorgeously illustrated fanzine Revenge Served Cold: My Chemical Romance Cookbook Zine compiles 36 My Chem-inspired recipes, all sure to get any MCR fan’s mouth watering. The artwork for this zine has been beautifying The Fringe’s Instagram feed for months, so naturally, I had to find out who’s behind this gorgeous effort.

It turns out, the fan in question would be Paiton, a 27-year-old MCR fan based in Texas, who organized the entire effort for charity. Once the zine’s costs are covered, all profits will benefit Focus Congo, a non-profit based in the Democratic Republic of Congo that supports local education, medical relief, orphan care, hunger and disaster relief, and more. 

“I knew I wanted it to be a charity project because I got sick of feeling powerless to help others,” Paiton told The Fringe via DM. That feeling started years ago, as she watched the devastation in Palestine unfold from afar, and it worsened as she realized that civilians in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan are facing similar atrocities but receiving far less international attention. In vetting charities, Paiton wanted to find an organization that provides direct support to those on the ground. “Hence how I found Focus Congo, which was not only founded by a Congolese person (Pappy Orion), but also run by the Congolese people,” Paiton wrote. “That was also very important to me.”

Once Revenge Served Cold wraps, Paiton plans to create two additional zines — one to benefit Sudan and another supporting a trans-centered charity in the UK in light of J.K. Rowling’s attacks on the trans community. The latter is especially personal to Paiton and her team, as the zine’s finance moderators, Cam, who is trans, lives in Scotland.

As seen in Revenge Served Cold’s Instagram previews, all of the recipes featured in Revenge Served Cold come with whimsically ghoulish titles like “Foundations of Paté,” “Kill All Your Friends Coffin Cake,” and “Blood!(y) Good Strawberry Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast.” Alongside them, you’ll also find MCR-themed art and writing, as well as digital and physical merch. Prices start at £10 for the digital bundle and run up to £65 for the Bloody Buffet, which also includes items like charms, mini prints, stickers, acrylic pins, a grocery list memo pad, and more.

The zine runs for 200+ pages, with recipes for sweet and savory foods as well as non-alcoholic beverages. It also includes a food allergy guide to help those with dietary restrictions safely navigate the recipes. “I was very adamant about that from [the] jump,” Paiton wrote, “and also the inclusion of vegan and vegetarian recipes or vegan and vegetarian substitutes for recipes.” Twenty-five artists in total contributed, along with 10 chefs (including Paiton), five writers, seven merch artists, and five moderators, who help run the project.

Although it might sound like I was paid to say this, I can promise that The Fringe has received zero sponsorship dollars to tell you that the artwork in this book is just stunning.

MCR had been on Paiton’s radar for years before she became a fan in 2024; she still remembers texting several friends “IMMEDIATELY” after hearing about the group’s reunion in 2019. Still, it wasn’t until she saw a video from YouTuber STRANGE ÆONS analyzing the band’s return, as well as Gerard Way’s reunion tour outfits, that she got truly hooked. Fan-favorite MCR historian Franniestein got her up to speed on the lore, and from there, she was drawn to the music itself — specifically, the candid, stigma-free, and uplifting way the band sings about “the ugliness of messy human emotions like grief, trauma, depression, hopelessness.” 

Since then, Paiton has found herself inspired by the community and creativity she’s found within the MCRmy. “I've met so many wonderful, supportive, and passionate people,” she wrote, “who believe in these ideas of a better world and using art as the weapon to make that happen and they definitely brought that energy when word of the zine started spreading.” Why not combine that with her lifelong love of cooking, and especially baking? 

“I've been cooking ever since I could hold a spoon in my hand,” Paiton wrote. “Basically just as long as I've been drawing and doing art! But If I'm given the choice between cooking normal food and baking? I'm a baker all the way.” She spent a lot of time growing up helping her mother in the kitchen, and she watched shows like Cake Boss and Cupcake Wars religiously. Her specific love of baking stems, in part, from her experience as an autistic person with aversions to certain foods, flavors, and textures; the dessert table was always a safe place at catered events, she said, because “I know what everything is made of and how it's gonna taste.” The culinary passion that she and her team share comes through every layer of the zine, from the versatile recipe ideas, to the creative names, to the joyful illustrations.

Some of that flair also comes from experience. Although Paiton had never run a publication before, she’d previously developed two recipes for How To Not Die: Camp Half-Blood Edition, a fanzine inspired by Percy Jackson and the Olympians. She’s also supported zines for properties like Princess Tutu and Sailor Moon as both a cosplayer and artist. Even with that previous experience, however, she felt some hesitation in setting out to start her own project. “I still had that little voice in my head telling me I wasn’t ready,” she recalled. “That it’s waaaay too big of a project for me to handle, and I should probably wait.” 

Thankfully for food-loving MCR fans everywhere, inspiration ultimately conquered. “I said y'know what? fuck it. I'm doing it,” Paiton recalled. “And so for the next week and a half getting everything ready, from Google forms to graphics, it was me doing everything I could to outrun that voice in my head saying I shouldn’t do this. I’m glad I ran and kept running.” After all, as Paiton herself acknowledged, that’s what the MCR fandom, and the punk scene the band grew out of, is all about: “Doing it now and doing it loud.”

Preorders for Revenge Served Cold run through Aug. 10 and will not reopen, so if you want to indulge in such sumptuous treats as Vampire Steak Kebabs and Drowning Lessons Soup Dumplings, head over to the shop now before it’s too late.