User:FaviFake

Score: 2,214 (2,041 pages edited and 9,498 total edits)

Hey everyone! I got in touch with Randall Munroe himself!! Here's what you need to know.

UPDATE: He answered my latest questions, so I sent him another list of questions! He hasn't replied as of 13/9

I emailed him to ask for the official release date of 36: Scientists (see the trivia for more info). Surprisingly, he got back to me! You can read the full conversation below. I'll keep you posted if I receive more messages! You can add this page to your watchlist to keep track of it. I haven't received his explicit permission to feature his messages in full, so initially i hid his messages. I've now published the contents of his emails, since he hasn't responded to my request to make them public. My emails have not been altered, but in the copy-pasting, links have been removed. These emails were all hyperlinked, I now added back only a few links.

In his second email, Randall expressed willingness to answer a few more questions, particularly simpler, administrative questions (like the one he answered already), but kindly explained he prefers to avoid too much meta-commentary. Because I didn't want to come up with every question and I wanted to hear everyone, I'll try to send him some that you want, if he agrees to receiving more! You can add your suggestions here!.

Even if he doesn't answer all these questions, we could also use this page for other things. I'm also planning to create a page on this wiki containing everything we don't know about xkcd, using these questions. So, keep posting your questions! In the future, this could become:

• A list of everything we can research extremely in-depth, if someone wants to help the wiki that way.

• A list of quick questions to ask him when someone meets him in person, at a book tour for example.

• A page for people who want to read about things we don't know and is interested in xkcd mysteries.

  CLICK HERE TO ADD NEW QUESTION (scroll to bottom)

Email thread

Question from the Explain xkcd wiki regarding one of your comics
Email thread - 4 messages — Here's a screenshot of one of the emails, if you need some sort of proof.

FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>	14 February 2025 at 19:16 CET
To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
Hi, I'm an editor at explainxkcd.com, which you probably know is the wiki that explains all your comics and provides as much info as possible on them. In pursuit of that goal, we have always had an unsolved mystery only you can solve. Comic 36: Scientists was originally posted as a duplicate of comic 10: Pi Equals. You corrected this sometime between April 23, 2006 and July 5, 2006 , when the current version showed up in the web archive (see the two links). The comic looks like one of your old drawings. So, explain xkcd thinks that when you realized your mistake (over three months after it was originally posted), you probably found an old unused drawing and posted it, to not make it stand out compared to the other comics from that time. This all means we have no date for this comic, since it could've been posted anytime between the two dates mentioned above. You can read more about this here. (If you're interested, we have a more comprehensive history of your webcomic here.) Could you kindly help us figure this out by checking when you released comic #36, so we can add an official date to it? This is one of the only official comics which we don't know the date of. Kind regards, FaviFake editor @ explain xkcd

[In the copy-pasting, links have been removed. These emails were all hyperlinked, I now added back only a few links.]

Randall Munroe [Randall's email redacted]	14 February 2025 at 22:20 CET
To: FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
FaviFake, I had totally forgotten about this! Checking my logs, I believe I swapped it in on April 28th. Thank you for your tireless documentation effort :) Warmest wishes, Randall

FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>	15 February 2025 at 17:39 CET
To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
Hello Randall, Thank you so much for your response!! I'm certain the rest of the community will be thrilled to have an official answer. Unfortunately, this is by far not the only "unsolved mystery" we have encountered in our research of your comic. Because we don't get to talk to you very often, I'd like to ask you if you can answer more of our many questions, if you're up for it. Of course, I do not want to annoy you or waste your time, so please let me know if this is something you'd enjoy! I will try to keep the questions entertaining for you. Kind regards, FaviFake

Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>	17 February 2025 at 19:02 CET
To: FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
FaviFake, You're welcome to send over questions, although I can't promise any answers so please don't put too much time into it! I've always tried to resist the temptation to do too much explaining or meta-commentary in general, partly because once you start breaking the fourth wall, it can be hard to stop, and partly because I've found those boundaries are helpful for keeping me focused. But if you want to send over some of your questions, I can see if there are at least a few of them that I can answer—at least some of the simpler, more administrative ones. And seriously, my heartfelt thanks to you and everyone there. It's such a privilege to make something that people think is worth so much effort to explain <3 —Randall

FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>	20 February 2025 at 18:07
To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
Randall, Thank you for the kind words!! I really appreciate the offer. Next time, I'm thinking of asking the community for other simple and administrative questions, because I'm sure I don't represent everyone. (Also, would it be okay to feature your responses on our wiki?) I had drafted the paragraphs below in advance and I'm not sure if they fall outside the boundaries you mentioned, but I figured I’d ask anyway since this is a topic the other editors are very curious about. Of course, no worries if you’d rather not get into the details! We have plenty of simpler questions we can't answer ourselves. Here you go: On June 17, 2009, you released Conservation (along with IBM's accompanying blog post), the first comic created with IBM for their "A Smarter Planet" blog. You used the filename conservation.png, as usual. On August 11, 2009, the second comic of the series, Prescriptions, was released (with its blog post), but this time you used an unusual filename: ibm_hc_1.png. We initially believed these were the only comics you created, mainly because they were the only ones featured on your page xkcd.com/asmarterplanet, but a little over a month ago we discovered two additional never-before-seen comics by experimenting with the image URLs for ibm_hc_2.png and ibm_hc_3.png. We believe you created these two comics as part of the IBM partnership, but for some reason they were never released publicly and were only accessible from imgs.xkcd.com. (Interestingly enough, they are still available!) Any additional info you can give us would help a ton! For example: their titles, when they were drawn or supposed to be released, or why they were never officially published. Thank you! —FaviFake

I wanted to also hear what you wanted to ask! Randall asked for simpler, administrative questions (like the one he answered), and not ones that required too much explaining. Please add your suggestions to the section below! If you have thoughts, send them to me on my talk page!

Since I still hadn't heard back, I sent another email with a few of the quickest and smaller questions below.]

FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>	13 March 2025 at 19:40
To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
Hello Randall, Hope you're doing well! I'm just following up since it’s been a little while. In the meantime, we gathered some simpler and more administrative questions from the community—ones that might be easier to answer than the previous one. Below are just a few of them—let me know if you'd be up for answering any! When did you release Blue Eyes: The Hardest Login Puzzle in the World? This is one of the comics that don't have a confirmed release date. In comic 1572: xkcd Survey, you published a Google Form and said that "everyone's responses will be posted [...] to create an interesting data set for people to play with". However, due to the large number of responses, you encountered technical problems and didn't release the results. Could you confirm the reason for the delay and whether we should expect to see the responses in the future? Up until comic #1674, you provided official transcripts for new comics in the JSON interface. In 2016, you stopped. Could you explain why? What was/is the purpose of pages such as xkcd.com/yes, xkcd.com/burlap, xkcd.com/dot, and others? Thanks again for your time, and no worries if you’re too busy! We truly appreciate any insights you can share. Kind regards, FaviFake

Four months after my last email, HE REPLIED!

Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>	9 July 2025 at 13:34
To: FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>
FaviFake, Sorry for the extremely long delay here, but I wanted to send you replies to some of these! In the meantime, we gathered some simpler and more administrative questions from the community—ones that might be easier to answer than the previous one. Below are just a few of them—let me know if you'd be up for answering any! On June 17, 2009, you released Conservation (along with IBM's accompanying blog post), the first comic created with IBM for their "A Smarter Planet" blog. You used the filename conservation.png, as usual. On August 11, 2009, the second comic of the series, Prescriptions, was released (with its blog post), but this time you used an unusual filename: ibm_hc_1.png. We initially believed these were the only comics you created, mainly because they were the only ones featured on your page xkcd.com/asmarterplanet, but a little over a month ago we discovered two additional never-before-seen comics by experimenting with the image URLs for ibm_hc_2.png and ibm_hc_3.png. We believe you created these two comics as part of the IBM partnership, but for some reason they were never released publicly and were only accessible from imgs.xkcd.com. (Interestingly enough, they are still available!) I had forgotten about these! These were other draft comics I drew for the project, and I put them in that folder to transfer them, but IIRC the project involved a lot of organizational moving parts, and for administrative reasons those comics didn't end up getting published. I believe I never gave them titles. When did you release Blue Eyes: The Hardest Login Puzzle in the World? This is one of the comics that don't have a confirmed release date. Unfortunately, I don't have an easy way to answer that one! In comic 1572: xkcd Survey, you published a Google Form and said that "everyone's responses will be posted [...] to create an interesting data set for people to play with". However, due to the large number of responses, you encountered technical problems and didn't release the results. Could you confirm the reason for the delay and whether we should expect to see the responses in the future? Haha, I got a fun message from the Google Forms administrators that day. Apparently they were in the middle of updating to a new system on the day I posted the comic, and I provided an extremely unexpected—and profoundly unwelcome—load test. But they were very nice about it and we eventually managed to recover most of the data. I haven't found a way to release it that I'm comfortable with. I tried to ask about frivolous stuff that wouldn't provide easy fodder for shoddy social science, but I found that for almost any correlation pair in the dataset, you could immediately project a half dozen intriguing, serious, and contradictory theories onto the data. People were incredibly thoughtful and detailed in their responses to my silly questions, which made me want to be very careful with how I used their data. I still might find a way to release selections from it, because it's a fascinating dataset, but only if I'm confident that I'm not enabling bad science or betraying anyone's trust. Up until comic #1674, you provided official transcripts for new comics in the JSON interface. In 2016, you stopped. Could you explain why? The transcripts were initially submitted by readers through Ryan North's OhNoRobot project, moderated and edited by some friends of mine through a custom system they set up. They eventually ended up often simply writing the transcripts themselves. It ended up being a lot of work to ask of volunteers, and eventually infrastructure updates were needed while the people involved were busy with other things, so I let them stop updating rather than trying to recruit more people. I'd love to start offering transcripts again, and hope to do so at some point soon, hopefully in a way that indicates they're from a third party without creating too much spam potential. As I'm sure you know from doing transcripts on the wiki, translating a comic to text can involve a lot of additional creative decisions—it's a different medium, after all!—so I want to make them available for accessibility while ideally clarifying that they're written from the point of view of a reader, to avoid making readers feel like they NEED to read both versions to see everything that I meant to include! What was/is the purpose of pages such as xkcd.com/yes, xkcd.com/burlap, xkcd.com/dot, and others? Most of those were inside jokes sent to friends, but xkcd.com/dot is an improvised migraine test! Since I was a kid, I've occasionally gotten the type of migraine that starts with blind spots in the vision. They can be hard to tell apart from sun glare at first, but I found I could tell whether I was having one by looking at a blinking dot to see if it disappeared—which would tell me I needed to take painkillers ASAP. I made that gif and put it on my website for easy access from wherever I was at the time. Thankfully, the migraines have gotten less frequent over the years, but I still have to use that page occasionally. I hope that's helpful! Best wishes, Randall

I replied:

FaviFake <[email redacted]@gmail.com>	3 September 2025 at 11:13
To: Randall Munroe <[Randall's email redacted]@gmail.com>
Randall, Thanks so much for responding to these! We've already added them to the wiki. I also apologise for taking so long to reply; I seem to be exceptionally skilled at involuntary procrastination. You didn’t explicitly say you wanted more questions, but I'll risk asking anyway :) 1. Before xkcd.com, you posted your comics on LiveJournal. When you launched xkcd.com, you uploaded the backlog of 41 comics from LiveJournal in a seemingly random order. Was there a reason for this? For example, did you intentionally assign number 7 to your first comic, Girl sleeping, and number 1 to your fifth comic, Barrel - Part 1? 2. Why was the xkcd warning removed? Four hours after comic Earth Temperature Timeline was released, the warning and footnote disappeared. A new footnote appeared three weeks later, but the warning never came back. We speculated it was related to the comic's sudden surge in popularity, but we're not sure why it wasn't reinstated. 3. The old LiveJournal caption for comic Godel, Escher, Kurt Halsey mentioned other comics in the series. Unfortunately, the image and link to the "full series" weren’t archived. Is there more to this comic than what’s now available, or was the LiveJournal version simply an excerpt? 4. Three years ago, Matthew Smoot said that the xkcd store was "closed indefinitely due to supply chain issues", but recently it was announced that it will be opening soon! What happened? Thank you again for your time and generosity! Kind regards, FaviFake

I'll update this page if he responds.

Your suggestions! What should I ask next?

Remember, he said only simple questions. I'm assuming he'd like questions similar to the ones he replied to (short, sweet, no explaining needed), or questions that shouldn't require him to explain his comic too much. What's something relatively important that we don't know and that only Randall can answer?

Format your suggestions like this: '''QUESTION? --~~~~''' :Explain in more detail your question. ::Discuss it and vote --~~~~ CLICK HERE TO ADD A NEW QUESTION (scroll to bottom)

 ✓ Done ibm_hc_2 and ibm_hc_3 (newly-discovered comics) and comic 36: Scientists --FaviFake (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

I asked this one already, because I assume it's the most important one right now. You can see my question above.

 ✓ Done  Why were the first comics uploaded seemingly at random? --FaviFake (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Initially, randall posted his comics to LiveJournal (learn more here). The new xkcd website opened on January 1, 2006, and the backlog of 41 comics from LiveJournal from 1: Barrel - Part 1 to 44: Love was transferred on the same day, but in a completely different order. The only comic that has the same number on both sites is 3: Island (sketch), while all the other comics were uploaded seemingly at random. Also, only eleven of the original comic titles were reused of the new site, and even among the last eleven comics posted on both sites, only six used the same title.

 ✓ Done When was Blue Eyes released? --FaviFake (talk) 11:01, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

xkcd's Blue Eyes puzzle is a logic puzzle posted around the same time as comic 169: Words that End in GRY. Randall calls it "The Hardest Logic Puzzle in the World" on its page, but whether it really is the hardest is up to speculation. This is incorrect, as the comic was available long before October 11, 2006. The earliest date we have is October 24th, 2004 (see fourth link on the page), and the earliest version of the comic is from November 4th, 2004. Additionally, both the puzzle and the solution (here's an earlier version of the solution)were modified and updated several times since its release.

 ✓ Done What happened to the transcripts in the JSON interface? --Kynde (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

On the about page of xkcd there is a description of where:

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

Read more here Transcript. And on this page there is a description about how the json info got messed up after 1608: Hoverboard and how they completely ended after 1677: Contrails which had the transcript of 1674: Adult.

I would like to know if he noticed the messed up order of the transcript and if that was why he choose to end it completely? --Kynde (talk) 17:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

This imo is one the best questions we've gotten! Very technical and doesn't require him to explain any of his comics! Thanks Kynde! Do you have more questions like this one? --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I was frustrated about this at some time. Not any other questions right now of this kind. --Kynde (talk) 13:54, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Why has there not been any new what if since comet ice? --162.158.41.44 17:14, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Don't really see why we need to ask him this, A. This isn't related to the wiki, and B. They wanted short, administrative questions 172.71.30.168 17:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I kinda like this one! A: I think it's partially relevant, we have and entire section dedicated to analysing the release schedule of new articles. B. That's true, but at least it's shorter than most other ones. Not a terrible question imo. --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

I feel like the answer would either be unsatisfying, or unsurprising. Releasing too many articles may disincentivize people from buying the books, the YouTube page is better marketing, people aren't asking interesting questions, the increased popularity of the article has led to too many questions being asked and it becomes increasingly unfair to answer one over the other. There's a possible litany of reasons without considering other more personal reasons that Randall may not want to share. Also, (and this is my completely unfair opinion) I personally feel like any question asking "why?" is meta-commentary and out of scope. It also feels like entitlement when you ask why someone isn't giving you even more stuff for free. 172.69.23.94 19:25, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Yeah no you're right. Btw, the first part of your answer is great, you should consider adding it to the blog page! (or I can do if you don't mind) FaviFake (talk) 19:47, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I don't mind you adding it, but I also don't want to burden you with it. I'll look the page over and see where it might fit. I appreciate you fielding the brunt of the community in this matter! 172.69.22.57 21:16, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Since you didn't add it, I did! --FaviFake (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

It's because the email that the What If? suggestions go to is wrong. B for brain (talk) (youtube channel wobsite (supposed to be a blag)) 18:24, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Wait what? Please explain, I didn't know about this! What do you mean? --FaviFake (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Try submitting a "What if?" suggestion yourself – you'll get an email from whatever email service you use saying that the email "Doesn't exist". B for brain (talk) (youtube channel wobsite (supposed to be a blag)) 17:35, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't know about this. I'll add an incomplete notice. --FaviFake (talk) 17:41, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Why has the Blag stopped.? --Kynde (talk) 14:11, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Seemed like it was a good place to write extra info, but it has been removed from the links on the front page 2023 even though the page still exist.

Do you read explainxkcd.com? --172.68.174.146 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

We've probably all wondered: Does he ever read the wiki? if so, there are many directions this could go. Like: Has he ever posted anonymously (this could be asked without necessarily identifying which posts were his)? Ever find a explanation and laugh at how wrong it was? Ever find a explanation that had a funnier interpretation then he intended?

Discuss it and vote - I doubt that counts as "administrative" but by not referencing any particular comic, we definitely avoid the "questions shouldn't require him to explain his comic more than he has already done." part. Anyway, feel free to reword/add parts/delete parts/hack the question up in whatever way you want. Consider this just me posting the idea for a question, and letting you guys do whatever you want with the idea --172.68.174.146 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

I do not think we should ask this. He has at least once referred to explain xkcd, so he do know of it. But I think that for his own sake, he stays clear of it as best as he can. ;-) -- Kynde (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

 ✓ Done  24's original caption claimed to have more to it, but the link isn't archived. Is there more? youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 01:23, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

I wonder if he'd want to talk about it, since he's now deleted his LiveJournal reply regarding the broken link. But would be easy to answer if there wasn't more. --FaviFake (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

In 2256: Bad Map Projection: South America, which eleven islands are representing what I assume are the Philippines and Indonesia? --104.23.187.145 13:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Luzon, Samar, Mindanao, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea seem pretty obvious, but what are the other three islands?

In 2951: Bad Map Projection: Exterior Kansas, assuming you didn't draw the map freehand, what function did you use to convert (actual distance from center point) to (distance from center point in the projection)? --104.23.187.145 13:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

This information would be helpful for adding more states, territories, countries, and/or landmasses to the map.

Does he know that if a=1,b=2,c=3, etc. then x+k+c+d=42?Thehydraclone (talk) 19:49, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

(Answer to life, the universe, and everything)

This might be relevant, if you can find a citation for it...

Not very important question but very easy to answer and trivial, i like it. --FaviFake (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

But I think this has already been debated wildly and he has explained why he chose this name extensively, and it seems like it was not for that reason. I find it very interesting though, but it also only works for English alfabet, in Denmark we do not use W when saying the alfabet (although we have it for loan words. We also call it Weekend in Denmark. That is an official Danish word). But the X would thus be one less and the sum 41 ;-) I do realize that he of course would have used the English alfabet, so if he actually looked for this he would also get 42. -- Kynde (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

There's a hidden search box in xkcd.com's source code. --Bytesizeinfo.com

It's commented out, but you can reenable it with your browser's inspect tool, and it still seems to work. (It's in the footer, if you want to try.) Why is it commented out? It seems like a useful tool.

Interesting! I had noticed it was there on older archives but didn't know it was just commented out. --FaviFake (talk) 18:08, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

 ✓ Done What was/is the purpose of https://xkcd.com/yes/ and https://xkcd.com/no/? youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 03:32, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Wait what? I've never seen these pages before! Are there any others? --FaviFake (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

When I learnt of them, I tried various others (e.g. ".../maybe"), to no avail. But maybe there's something non-Yes/Noish that goes along with those two, thematically. So far, though, I've not worked out what they might be. 162.158.33.252 00:08, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I looked into it! There are other pages, but the xkcd forum link is broken and not archived. (See more info on the two pages, i just created, NO and YES.) --FaviFake (talk) 12:33, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

 ✓ Done Are results from the xkcd Survey ever going to be released? --172.71.254.92 01:53, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

In xkcd.com/1572 there was a survey. Randall said that he would release the data, but it crashed google forms. Is there any way to get it back, and if so, will he finally release it?

Interesting! I didn't know. Very good question, thanks! --FaviFake (talk) 12:33, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Did you know that the chatroom in xkcloud; euphoria.io is living and growing under a new domain, leet.nu? Elaine Roberts (talk) 19:21, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

What checkmate did you intend to depict in 1112: Think Logically? 162.158.167.40 07:04, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

We suspect scholar's mate, but there is at least one other possibility, specifically a variant of fool's mate (since Cueball could be moving his pawns towards Knit Cap Guy's king).

Did he really choose to depict a specific strategy? Is the assumption based on the board pieces at the end, or on the number of moves, or both? --FaviFake (talk) 15:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Is the board setup in 3045: AlphaMove based on playing AlphaMove against a specific chess engine? If so, which one? -unsigned!

Can you elaborate? What's a board setup, what dow e exactly not know? --FaviFake (talk) 16:14, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Seems to me, it simply means "has that playing position (i.e. the current state) been reached by pitting 'the algorithm' vs. any particular genuine chess-engine". (Or otherwise. The alternative, presumably, that it was a 'hand-crafted' response on Randall's part... Or possibly a volunteer from amongst his acquaintances, either knowing something of what they'd be pitted against or not.)

I suspect the answer will be frightfully unremarkable (if available and given), but I could also see it being a useful throw-it-in. (Better than "why's there a river running through the ocean?", anyway ;) ) 141.101.99.163 16:49, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah gotcha. Doesn't seem interesting imo but is small enough. --FaviFake (talk) 15:22, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Machine details -- HyperBirbN3rd

Is Machine going to have a finalized state? If so, when?

Not sure this is easy enough to answer. He'd have to explain his intentions, which i don't think he published --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Does the hexadecimal "pointers" in 138: Pointers mean anything?--me, hi (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Why did you rename comic #786's image to exoplanets_2010.png instead of uploading comic #1071's image as exoplanets_2012.png? --Winter1760 (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Is 2638: Extended NFPA Hazard Diamond supposed to represent anything at all? me, hi (talk) 17:57, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Why were the xkcd Forums shut down for good? --FaviFake (talk) 07:25, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

What was/is the purpose of the other pages we found? --FaviFake (talk) 08:46, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

  CLICK HERE TO ADD NEW QUESTION (scroll to bottom)

---

Out-of-scope questions

These questions are more like interview questions. He said he'd answer simple questions. I'm assuming he'd like questions similar to the one he replied to (short, sweet, no explaining needed), or questions that shouldn't require him to explain his comic more than he has already done.

Why was what if? article Peptides deleted? --FaviFake (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

what if? (blog) is a blog written by Randall with entries posted occasionally. On December 5, 2016, the article Peptides was published as number 153. However, it was removed the following day and was replaced by a notice: "Whoops. This article is still in progress. An early draft was unintentionally posted here thanks to Randall's troubled approach to git, and it took a little bit to get everything sorted out and rolled back. Sorry for the mixup!". No finished version of the article was ever published, and the URL was later reused for Hide the Atmosphere.

I this this one is very interesting, but it might not be as administrative and short as Randall wants. He'd need to explain the reason why it wasn't published and why it looks like a complete article, not a "draft". Anyone agree? --FaviFake (talk) 16:34, 21 February 2025 (UTC)

Copy paste from my reply below which I wrote first: "I'm not quite sure he likes questions about things he actually wished to delete... I mean seriously he tried to hide it but we got hold of it anyway?" --Kynde (talk) 17:26, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah you're right, I didn't think about that --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

What happened to Five-Minute Comics: Part 4? --Caliban (talk) 17:49, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

A lost xkcd comic. He accidentally posted this instead of 940, and then erased all evidence of its existence by redirecting the direct image URL to a notice claiming it was a minor glitch in the universe. I'd get deleting the image outright, but just replacing it with what is essentially a sign to stop looking for it? Kinda weird. Also, how many more of these 5MCs has he made that are potentially lost media?

I like this one, but I'm not sure if it's as simple as he'd like. He'd need to explain why he created the comic, which he almost never does. But there might be a way to ask it in a way that allows him to reply without revealing too much info. Btw, you seem very active on this wiki, do you have anything else in mind? --FaviFake (talk) 20:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure he likes questions about things he actually wished to delete... I mean seriously he tried to hide it but we got hold of it anyway? Also we know why he drew these, it was a game he played with family. He just did not mean to post the fourth one. There might be more, but he only posted the three because he could not cope with the cancer of his wife and did not whish to give up his schedule. So as he could not draw three comics fast enough for that week he used these instead. Asking into this would also remind him of his wife's cancer. I vote no to this as an e-mail to Randall! Kynde (talk) 17:24, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Why was No One Was Hurt replaced? 172.68.71.112 15:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

No One Was Hurt was a comic that was replaced by Comic 2642, and while it's reasonable to assume that it's probably in response to some... unfortunate irl events, for documentation it would be nice to have an official, confirmed answer

I'm not sure he'd like it, after all, he deleted it, so he might not want to talk about it more --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Will we get more 5-part sagas? --Caliban (talk) 11:44, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Like Choices, The Race, etc.

Not sure about this one, feels like we should be focusing on exclusively wiki data and such, this isn't an interview. 172.71.30.168 17:28, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Agree with IP, but it's not the worst question we've gotten. --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

What inspired you to make Time? 141.101.109.166 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Frankly I don't see this one either, see the one above 172.71.30.168 17:26, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

Yup, definitely out of scope. --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Are there comics you'd like to update in light of recent developments? 172.71.102.216 13:52, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Are there any existing comics you would like to update / sequel in light of recent developments (environmental, political, webtrends, demographic)? :The first thing that comes to mind is that 2024 was the first year above 1.5C over the pre-industrial average. [1].

This is an interview question, not a simple question — read the notice above --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that some geography comics might be worth asking about XKCD Teaches Science (talk) 03:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I remember browsing pages on this wiki about 6 months ago and noticing that there were many explainations of maps or map like things where editors weren't sure which small islands or small countries since comic drawing is obviously not perfect. I don't remember which comics exactly and don't have time today to investigate, but I figured this observation is worth noting.

I'm not sure i get what you're saying. What are you suggesting we ask Randall, exactly (if he answers)? --FaviFake (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Did they notice? -unsigned!

I noticed that in 1529: Bracket 'Jeff Gordan' was changed to 'Jeff Gordon' but apparently nobody noticed. When was the comic fixed?

Who knows! Good catch. This is not the correct page to talk about it, but I have mentioned it in the comic page. You can use the Wayback Machine to check when it was changed FaviFake (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Why have you drawn fewer multiple-panel comics recently? 172.70.214.113 07:38, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Why are some of the april fools' comics late? - 172.71.146.108 18:55, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure we've had this answered already ("things just weren't quite ready/more testing was needed") for some of the more technical ones, in some other place. Whether we can get more detail and for every not-on-time might be a matter of him having to remember the precise circumstances. And I also would feel uncomfortable if this turned into "why was <random non-April Fool comic> late?". Or early. (When doing Rightpondian book-tours, sometimes surprisingly early, but every now and then it seems he manages to release them from his native Leftpondia even early here in the Rightpondian day.) But this is far too much detail (and far too much expectation), of no importance so long as he continues to average out at three regular comics a week and if he wants to, and when he can, anything a bit more special.

Consider this a downvote on bothering him with this question, but that's of course only my opinion, in leiu of anything more constructive to add ("What's your favourite cheese..?") 172.69.79.190 19:42, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with the second IP on this one! Unless there's a particular comic for which the delay was very important (do you have any in mind?), I don't think this is going to be of much interest to him. --FaviFake (talk) 20:11, 22 February 2025 (UTC)

Why was there no special thing for comic 3000? DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 17:34, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

This is something major as normally he makes special comics for these types of milestones, but the comic proceeded as if nothing happened. Why?

A fair question, but a bit of a lower priority than anything else we can throw at Randall. 172.71.26.43 17:44, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

I am still curious about this, though. If no other question is deemed as important, this is a good one to ask IMO. Trogdor147 (talk) 21:32, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

In the xkcd email subscription, there is an address at the bottom, it being (68 Harrison Ave Ste 605 PMB 75312, Boston, MA, 02111-1929, US). If it something you are comfortable saying, what is this address? Little Timmy 1:26, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Seems to just be a mail drop, presumably one he uses for official xkcd business. [2] 137.25.230.78 07:19, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Also, if it weren't a mail drop, we really shouldn't know the answer to this question. --FaviFake (talk) 08:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

What was channel.html and channel.txt?

For a few years there was a hidden subdomain under xkcd.com/channel.html that provided you with about 600kb of "junk" data but seemed to be organized in some information carrying way (obeyed Zipf's law.) What was it????? this mystery is haunting me so much i wrote this on a mobile device. 2600:387:f:7716::9 00:13, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Revised comics

On comic 851, he linked to a newer version in the header, saying "I don't get do-overs," but later, in 1365 for example, mistakes were fixed and revised. Is there anything that led to this, and can 851 be replaced with the updated version?174.174.4.79 17:12, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Re: transcripts

On Randall's bluesky account, the alt-text on the comics provides a transcript. Why is this not in the api?174.174.4.79 17:12, 6 August 2025 (UTC)