There’s an xkcd book!
xkcd: volume 0 will be released in the xkcd store next week, and I’m going to some events in New York and California next weekend to celebrate the release and also help out some nonprofits.
The book contains strips chosen by me from the first 600 xkcd comics, including many of my favorites plus some which were acted out by fans or otherwise had a weird real-world effect. The project took a little longer than expected because I went back and redid the comic selection and page layout myself. I also reconstructed a lot of the old comics from scans (many high-res versions of early comics were missing, and others were lost in my 2007 laptop theft). Throughout the process, I added various marginal notes and doodles. It will be initially available in the xkcd store (and possibly later in some bookstores).
The book is being published by BreadPig, an adorable company set up by reddit founder Alexis Ohanian. A portion of the profits go toward build a school in Laos, via the charity Room to Read. There’s a possibility we’ll get to name the school; I wanted to name it ‘the xkcd school’ because of how confused it would make the kids who are trying to learn English phonetics, but I think they’re vetoing that idea.
We’ll be in New York on September 19th, San Francisco on September 21st, and Silicon Valley on September 22nd. For more information on the events, check out the BreadPig announcement. I’ll be doing some events to raise money for Room to Read and the EFF, including a Q&A where the questions are selected by reddit users. You can add questions and vote here (hey, Reddit admins — if I bribe you with free copies of the book, will you artificially vote down the terrifying Romanian question?).
I hope to see you at the events!
You made a mistake in the third paragraph (*building*).
Also, you forgot to mention when you’re coming to the Triangle…
The alt-text from the website often make the comic twice as good, and sometimes it’s what explains what the joke is. The alt-text definitely has to be in the book if it’s going to be worth buying.
I’m now having an anxiety attack that a few of my all-time favorites will be neglected….
179 has GOT to be in there.
I can’t wait to buy this. Like Sven H, I hope the alt-text is featured in the book – I still think it’s worth buying without it, but the allure would be much greater if the alt-text was present.
Consider visiting Georgia?
I’d buy this book. Any chance it will be imported to Israel?
Just for the record, I don’t think it will
I read that this book will be licensed with Creative Commons license. which one?
Hear here! By which I mean… we in Australia would love it if you came and did a talk. Promise not to force feed you vegimite.
When are you coming to Canada? We love you here, especially on the East Coast.
…and the west coast.
You should come up to Montreal!!! We love XKCD and promise to give you Poutine, infinitely better than vegemite…
You should come to Rapid City, SD! I think the entire School of Mines campus reads your comic
[...] Munroe makes XKCD, a smart and romantic stick figure webcomic. He announced his first book, xkcd: volume 0, which should be out soon and I’ll pick up a copy when it appears. For now I’ll have to [...]
well, yay!!
really looking forward to this book!
sadly, i’m pretty sure you will never come here in rome XD i mean… that would be senseless! i’ve never met anyone else here who knows about xkcd…
Even sadder that i can’t come to the other location D:
but hey! the book will be sent over italy too, right?
but wait… can we buy the books at the events?
any chance of you coming to germany?
Agreed, too delicious for words.
Absolutely cant wait.
Array joke = win
I can’t express the jealousy that is fueled by knowing people will get to see one/part/all of the creative genius (genai?) that take part in XKCD. Anticipate an order from me for sure!
Any chance of appearing in the UK at any point?
Looking forward to the book, though!
#242 is a must!
COME TO GEORGIA!!!!!!!!
[...] xkcd book, published by BreadPig, comes out mid September and xkcd creator Randall Munroe will be going on a [...]
I was in Laos earlier this year, what a beautiful country. Great to hear some of the money from the book I buy will be going there!
Do want, do want lots! It’ll be EPIC if it has the alt texts in, any possiblity of listing the strips that are going to be in the book?
Come to Chicago! You can crash at my apartment and my roommates and I will bake you cookies, feed you tasty food, and discuss all matter of nerdiness!
Forgot to mention my roommates also organize music/art fundraisers across the city (www.lethalpoetry.com) so they could probably do some booking/networking for you too!
SO excited to have you visit SF! Do you know what time you’ll be signing? (They haven’t posted it on the site calendar.)
There’s also a Dr. Sketchy’s session going on that night (http://drsketchyssf.blogspot.com/). Hope you’ll be able to sit in on that, too.
Amanda says:
September 14, 2009 at 1:13 am
You should come to Rapid City, SD! I think the entire School of Mines campus reads your comic
^ THIS!!!
I hope you plan to deliver it out to mainstream libraries. For folks like me, outside the US, south of the equator. I believe you may have a large fan base in the broader Americas. Maybe you could pay us a visit sometime.
I would just like to point out that since September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, you should incorporate this into your program.
C’mon guys, it’s not alt-text you want, it’s the ‘title’ text. Well, it’s what I want -
I mean, “brontosaurus”? – rofl, I don’t think :-/
Oh fsck.
OK: take 1
C’mon guys, it’s not alt-text you want, it’s the ‘title’ text. Well, it’s what I want –
img src=”http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/brontosaurus.png” title=”Well, sex is like a velociraptor: despite your movie-fueled lifelong neurotic obsession, unlikely to be found in your house.” alt=”Brontosaurus”
I mean, “brontosaurus”? – rofl, I don’t think :-/
Well played, pajamapaati.
At any rate, the “title” text best be in the book. Also, is this a “only online” sale or will it be available in bookstores?
You’re already going to be in SF, why not cross the bridge and come to UCB for an hour or so?
Just a suggestion? Pop-up Text. To keep it at an approximate level of interactivity.
Why oh why are you visiting NYC on ROSH HASHANAH!!!
Hope you’ll be on the Upper West Side so I can walk to meet you during the afternoon break.
>> A portion of the profits go toward build a school in Laos
> Jeff says: You made a mistake in the third paragraph (*building*)
Jeff, I think you read that wrong. Charities don’t underwrite brick and mortar these days. The funds will go toward a *build* at the school. Almost always Ubuntu in these cases but we can hope for some custom extensions.
As MS has repeatedly tried to warned us, doing those things from scratch is not as cheap as you might think.
Huzzah! Just ordered the book
Now just have to wait forever for it to arrive in the UK….
Libro del webcomic XKCD…
(2009/9/10) "xkcd: volume 0" aparecerá la próxima semana en la xkcd store. El libro contiene tiras escogidas por el autor de entre las 600 primeras. Algunas de las tiras están redibujadas pues las versiones en alta resolución de las antiguas …
“strips CHOSEN FROM the first 600″ ?!?
humpf! What I really wanted was a 300 pages book, with ALL of them. (and I’m brazilian, the shipping would be more than the book, but I would happily pay)
Maybe in Volume 1? (please?)
I think one of the main reasons for not having all the strips is that they aren’t all easy to format onto the same page size. From what I remember, that was also one of the reasons a book was not done years ago.
I’ll be happy with what I get, but it would have been nice for some word about the page count or number of strips.
The Bay Area event was a lot of fun and raised a bunch for Room to Read.
I was seriously going to buy a VIP ticket and go. I don’t drive for environmental reasons, so I tend to miss a lot of really cool events. But there’s one of these in SF, only a bus ride away from me. I was really excited about it! Then I looked it up and found that you have to be over 21. I cried a little on the inside. ;_; You wait to become an adult so that you can do things. Afterward, you spend the next few years crying about how you’re excluded from everything for being under drinking age.
I got an e-mail from the xkcd store on the signed books issue. Quote away.
(This came today)
Hello ____,
The delay is totally our fault and I apologize, Randall took longer than
expected to get the books signed. We will be mailing out your order very
soon and will send you a confirmation e-mail with tracking information when
it ships.
Best,
Matthew Smoot
xkcd order wrangler
good post congratulations
I didn’t know there was a book, i’m sure going to buy it! The comics online are very very good, but having them on paper is a totally different game! Can’t wait to play with this book!
[...] finished I sat with Jeremy, Simon, Adrianna and Michael a bit, we looked through Jeremy’s xkcd book which was quite cool, besides having all the strips from the xkcd site, it also has lots of cool [...]