Who are you?

I'm just this guy, you know? I'm a CNU graduate with a degree in physics. Before starting xkcd, I worked on robots at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. As of June 2007 I live in Massachusetts. In my spare time I climb things, open strange doors, and go to goth clubs dressed as a frat guy so I can stand around and look terribly uncomfortable. At frat parties I do the same thing, but the other way around.

What else do you do?

Encourage people to get out and meet each other in, hopefully, interesting places via geohashing.

Host a gallery of photos inspired by comic #249.

Write books like What If?, How To, What If? 2 and Thing Explainer.

Who else are you?

Server maintenance and most of the coding for these sites is done by my friend davean, who tries hard to remain invisible but can be reached at davean@xkcd.com. Designer Christina Gleason also helps with posters, books, and various side projects.

What does XKCD stand for?

It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation -- a treasured and carefully-guarded point in the space of four-character strings.

Where did all this start?

I was going through old math/sketching graph paper notebooks and didn't want to lose some of the work in them, so I started scanning pages. I took the more comic-y ones and put them up on a server I was testing out, and got a bunch of readers when BoingBoing linked to me. I started drawing more seriously, gained a lot more readers, started selling t-shirts on the site, and am currently shipping t-shirts and drawing this comic full-time. It's immensely fun and I really appreciate y'all's support.

Why can't I read the whole comic mouseover text in Firefox?

They can be read with extensions like Long Titles, or by right-clicking on the images and going to 'properties', then clicking and dragging to read the whole thing. This is a bug in Firefox, Mozilla Bug #45375. It has been outstanding for many years now.

Note: It looks like it's been fixed in Firefox 3.0. Now, as an added tweak, to keep the tooltips from expiring while you're reading, you can use this.

Can we print xkcd in our magazine/newspaper/other publication?

If it's a not-for-profit publication, you need no permission -- just print them with attribution to xkcd.com. You can post xkcd in your blog (whether ad-supported or not) with no need to get my permission.

How can I find the date a comic was posted?

The posting date is in the mouseover text on the archive page.

Is there an interface for automated systems to access comics and metadata?

Yes. You can get comics through the JSON interface, at URLs like https://xkcd.com/info.0.json (current comic) and https://xkcd.com/614/info.0.json (comic #614).

How do I write "xkcd"? There's nothing in Strunk and White about this.

For those of us pedantic enough to want a rule, here it is: The preferred form is "xkcd", all lower-case. In formal contexts where a lowercase word shouldn't start a sentence, "XKCD" is an okay alternative. "Xkcd" is frowned upon.

What is your favorite astronomical entity?

The Pleiades.