Everything about Xkcd totally explained
xkcd is a
webcomic created by
Randall Munroe, a former
contractor for
NASA. It calls itself "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." The site states there's no particular meaning to the name,
The subjects of the comics themselves vary. Some are statements on life and love (some love strips are random art with poetry), and some are
mathematical or
scientific in-jokes. Some strips feature simple humor or
pop-culture references. Although known for its crudely drawn cast of oddball
stick figures,), or imitations of the style of other cartoonists (as during "parody week"). Occasionally,
realism is featured.
The comic is available under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. New comics are added three times a week, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, although so far they've been updated every weekday on three occasions: parody week, the five-part 'Choices' series and the
1337 series.
History
The comic began in September 2005 when Munroe decided to scan doodles from his school notebooks and put them on his webpage. Eventually the comic was changed into a standalone website, where Munroe started selling t-shirts based on the comic. He currently "works on the comic full time," Various websites were drawn as continents, each sized according to their relative popularity and located according to their general subject matter.
xkcd isn't an
initialism, and Munroe attaches no meaning to the name, except in a joking manner within the comic. He claims that the name was originally a screen name, which he selected as a combination of letters that would be meaningless, as well as phonetically unpronounceable.
In October of 2007, a group of researchers at
University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute conducted a census of the internet and said that their data presentation was inspired by an xkcd comic.
On
April Fool's Day 2008, xkcd was part of a three-webcomic prank involving
Dinosaur Comics and
Questionable Content wherein each comic's URL displayed another comic's web page: questionablecontent.net displayed the Dinosaur Comics website, qwantz.com (the Dinosaur Comics website) displayed xkcd, and xkcd.com displayed the Questionable Content website. The prank was orchestrated by
Randall Munroe, as Jeph Jacques announced on his website on April 2nd:
Recurring themes
While there's no specific storyline to the comic, there are some recurring themes. A large number of the strips are mathematics or
computer science jokes. These jokes often feature university-level subjects, although many are written in such a way that a clear understanding of the subject isn't usually required to get the
punchline. Romance is another subject often visited in the comic, with many strips not intended to be humorous.
xkcd frequently makes reference to Munroe's "obsession" with potential
raptor attacks, the game
Guitar Hero, characters making out with themselves, and many "
your mom" jokes. There have also been several strips featuring "Red Spiders",
zeppelins,
Joss Whedon's short-lived series
Firefly,
Ender's Game and
Wikipedia. Each comic has a
tooltip, specified using the title attribute in
HTML. The text usually contains an afterthought or annotation related to that day's comic.
There are also many strips depicting "My Hobby", usually depicting the non-descript narrator character describing some type of humorous or quirky behavior often involving language games.
Recurring characters
- A man in a hat who looks like a normal stick-figure xkcd character, except for the addition of his trademark black hat. Referring to himself as a "Classhole" (classy asshole), he's intolerant of internet newbishness. He doesn't shy from pointing out the foibles in others and has at times used extreme violence in order to emphasize a point. He is closely based on the character Aram from the Men In Hats webcomic. In the January 30, 2008 comic, his hat was taken by a woman, who is, to date, the only person ever to foil one of his schemes. On April 2, 2008, in a Russian submarine he managed to track down the woman and take his hat back.
- A boy in a barrel has appeared in 5 strips. Unlike most other characters, he isn't a stick figure. He was repeatedly seen inside a barrel, floating in a large body of water. The boy in the barrel was one of many doodles in the older comics, but as of May 2008, hasn't been seen since comic #31.
- Another set of recurring characters is the nihilist and the existentialist, recognizable by their hats; the existentialist wears a beret and the nihilist wears a white top hat (or no hat at all). So far, they've only been seen together, never separately. They can first be seen in the "Nihilism" comic, and again in "Kayak", "Hypotheticals" and "Dignified."
- Munroe is often a character himself, either identified explicitly as such onscreen or narrating scenes occupied by unnamed characters or no on-screen characters at all.
- Fictionalised versions of well known real-life figures in the computing community sometimes appear, such as free software advocates Richard Stallman and Cory Doctorow. and "Help I'm Trapped In A Driver's License Factory Elaine Roberts", the protagonist of the "1337" series. Elaine's first name is a reference to "Pi Equals."
Life imitates xkcd
On several occasions, fans have been motivated by Munroe's comics to carry out, in real life, the subject of a particular drawing or sketch. Some notable examples include:
Richard Stallman was sent a katana and was confronted by students dressed as ninjas before speaking at the Yale Political Union – inspired by "Open Source"
When Cory Doctorow won the 2007 EFF Pioneer Award, the presenters gave him a red cape, goggles and a balloon – inspired by "Blagofaire"
xkcd readers sneaking chess boards onto roller coasters – inspired by "Chess Photo"
An xkcd reader created a "MBR Love Note" installation program – inspired by "Fight"
Munroe himself solicited contributions from his readers of people playing electric guitars while in the shower on wetriffs.com after posting the comic "Rule 34", in which a character registers that domain.
Image:Richard Stallman attacked by ninjas, October 17, 2007.jpg|Richard Stallman is attacked by ninjas
Inspired by "Open Source"
Image:Cory Doctorow @ eTech 2007.jpeg|Cory Doctorow wears a red cape, goggles and a balloon as he receives the 2007 EFF Pioneer Award
Inspired by "Blagofaire"
Further Information
Get more info on 'Xkcd'.
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