Gwar, those rascally scumdogs of the universe, walk down a New York City street and greet a doorman, offering fist bumps and advising that he stay out of the music business.

Before long, the band is behind their instruments at Chelsea Studios.

“I know you wanted me to stay, but I can’t ignore the crazy visions of me in L.A.,” intones vocalist Blöthar the Berserker. “I heard that there’s a special place where boys and girls can all be queens every single day.”

Yes, death piggies. Gwar is covering Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” In a video for The A.V. Club that went viral in January, Gwar suited up to serve a heavy metal rendition of Roan’s dance pop classic ahead of their upcoming tour that starts with a March 19 performance at The National.

Locally, the Richmond-based band has recently accomplished a lesser-known feat: establishing a permanent collection of their ephemera at Virginia Commonwealth University. Housed at VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, the materials include show flyers, posters, and clippings about the band from Style and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The collection was donated by Bob “Bonesnapper” Gorman, a longtime band member who is also Gwar’s shop foreman and band historian.

Chrystal Carpenter, head of Special Collections and Archives at VCU Libraries, says the donation came about because Gorman worked with now-retired senior research associate Ray Bonis on the 2015 book “Let There Be Gwar.” Gorman realized that he had duplicates of some materials and decided to donate them.

“We’re working to hopefully acquire some more materials to flesh out the collection,” Carpenter says.

She adds that Gwar is an important part of Richmond’s countercultural history and notes that many bandmembers attended art school at VCU, including Gorman.

“There’s that bridge between VCUarts and the local creative community,” she says of Gwar’s oeuvre. “It’s very visually interesting, very dynamic. Since the collection has been processed and the press release has gone out, we’ve just been flooded with people coming to look at the materials.”

Carpenter says that VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives is interested in other materials related to Richmond’s counterculture, including zines and flyers, but that they are pausing intake while their space at James Branch Cabell Library undergoes a renovation and expansion.

“Once that is complete, we’re going to have some more space and be more proactive around acquiring more materials like this,” she says.

Does Carpenter see the library storing non-print-based materials — say, Oderus Urungus’ Cuttlefish of Cthulhu codpiece — after the expansion? Sadly, no.

“Our repository doesn’t really have the capacity or the expertise to handle art and artifacts in that three-dimensional type of way,” Carpenter explains. “We probably wouldn’t be the best repository for the costumes and some of those artifacts, but hopefully there would be some place in Richmond that has that connection and stewards those types of materials.”

Already, the collection is proving to be one of VCU Libraries’ most popular.

“I have been really blown away with how quickly people started to come once they realized it was here,” Carpenter says. “This really fits with our collection, with our students, with the Richmond community.”

The collection is available for researchers to use at VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives at Cabell Library. For more information visit library.vcu.edu.

Gwar will play on Thursday, March 19 at The National, 708 E. Broad St. For more information, visit gwar.net.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the former job title of Ray Bonis.