Comic series

For a list of the comic series, see Category:Comic series.

Some of the strips in xkcd are directly related to each other, rather than simply sharing a recurring topic.

Several of these series have been released in a series of five consecutively released comics using all five regular days in a week (like for instance with Secretary). This occurred several times between 2006 and 2010. But since then no series were released like this, although some series were released but with long separation between releases. That was until October 2016, when the "strange" series Time traveling Sphere were released. In the explanation for that series the strangeness of its release is discussed, relating back to how other series mentioned here have been released.

This is one of 60 incomplete explanations: This page has many issues: The goal is to transclude the description of a series from the Category of the series itself, so we don't have to maintain two different pages. Merge the two if they're different. We must clearly define what a "True series" is compared to "Other series", and we'll probably need to remove the "Other series" altogether, they seem more like a topic than a series. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

True series

This is a chronological list of all the series created by Randall. A series first becomes a series when it is clear that it will be a series, i.e. usually when the second comic in the series is released. It is thus not the first comic that determines the date for a series, but the second. This list is sorted after that date, when the second comic where released.

1 — Sketches

These are the early comics that were simply sketches and told no story.

2 — The Boy and his Barrel

"The Boy and his Barrel" is an early series of six comics, whose parts were randomly published during the first several dozen strips. The series features Barrel Boy, a character that is different from what would quickly become the xkcd stick figure style. After Randall released the full The Boy and his Barrel story on the site, it became clear that the original comic 20: Ferret was also part of the series. The last image on the what if? article Niagara Straw features Beret Guy flying inside a barrel, which may be a reference to this series. The series is probably inspired by the novella The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Randall is known to be a fan of this book.

Red Spiders

"Red spiders" is a four-comic series released from September 2005 to June 2006. The first comic was 8: Red spiders, released on the first day (as with Barrel above), but it first became a series when 43: Red Spiders 2 was released, two months later. The following month, 47: Counter-Red Spiders was released, and the last comic in the series, 126: Red Spiders Cometh, was released half a year later. Only these four comics use "Red Spiders" in the title. Red Spiders were depicted again in other comics, but these were simply callbacks to the original series rather than additional episodes. In total, they appear in seven different comics. The last comic featuring them is 1110: Click and Drag, released in 2012, in which they are black and white but can still be recognized by their six legs. Red spiders are also featured on the back cover of Randall's book xkcd: volume 0.

Opening dialogue by Scott

A three comic series released consecutive over the last part of a week. They were released the first week after xkcd comics where no longer released on LiveJournal but only released on xkcd. The first was released on January 31st 2006. The first comic released that week and only on xkcd was not part of this series. So when Randall wished to have all these three with the same title text (Opening dialogue by Scott) in the same week, the first 57: Wait For Me was released already on the Tuesday after the Monday release. This was the first time a series had been released consecutively in a week. But the three comics where not directly related.

Parody Week

This series was released on five consecutive days from Monday-Friday in August 2006, instead of the usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. It was the first time of six that this occurred. The theme was parodying other web comics, but there was no connection between the comics themselves.

Choices

The "Choices" series is a metaphorical adventure Megan goes through that celebrates, marvels, and reminds of freedom of choice. This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday to Friday) and not over the usual schedule of three comics a week.

1337

The "1337" series tells the story of the family of the best hackers in the word. The title comes from "L-eet", or "elite", using the Leet alphabet, a coding system used primarily on the Internet (and on early text messaging system), meant to provide a bit of obfuscation to plain text, both to make it harder to read and to show off in a creative way using in-group jargon. The comic 327: Exploits of a Mom was a prequel for the series where the entire family is shown for the first time. This series was released on five consecutive days (Monday to Friday) and not over the usual schedule of three comics a week.

Journal

The "Journal" series of comics chronicles the beginning of the relationship between Black Hat and Danish. It includes five comics released over about five months. The first one was released in January 2008, the second one a week later at the end of January, the third in April, and the fourth and fifth in June. Each of the first four comics was released in different weeks, but the last comic was released immediately after 432: Journal 4.

Secretary

{{::Category:Secretary}}

The Race

A five comic series released over five consecutive days from Monday-Friday at the beginning of May 2009. It was the fourth and last series released like this (as of 2025) where the five comics were directly connected in a continuation story line. But one more series were released like this the year after, but those comics stories where not related.

Five-Minute Comics

A three comic series released consecutively over a week using the normal release schedule in the middle of November 2010. This is the second time a series has been released with three in one week, following the Opening dialogue by Scott in 2006 (but that time there were four comics in the week, one not belonging to the series). It is thus the only time that a week with three comics only where all released as a series. It was the first of two weeks in a row with series. Both series were made to give Randall some time to cope with his wife’s cancer.

Guest Week

A five comic series released over five consecutive days from Monday-Friday at the end of November 2010. It is so far (as of 2016) the last time of six that this occurred. The theme was the same, with five web comic artist making guest appearances on xkcd, so there were no connections between the comics themselves. It is the second time this happened, the first time was the first five day series in August 2006. It was the second of two weeks in a row with series. Both series were made to give Randall some time to cope with his wife’s cancer. Since this comic there has never been released more than three comics in a week. Also until October 2016 with the Time traveling Sphere there were never two comics directly related which were released as two consecutive comic in the same week (see below). But the next series Etymology-Man from 2012 also had two comics released in the same week, but they where not released consecutively and also there where no continued story from the first to the second.

xkcd Phones

A nine comic series (as of 2025) released over more than nine years between the first 1363: xkcd Phone in May 2014 and the latest 2831: xkcd Phone Flip, from September 2023. It was first with the release of the second 1465: xkcd Phone 2 in December 2014 with the same title and a number 2. This is the first series to progress beyond 2, all the way to 6. Only in Journal (that went to 5) did the numbering without including "part" progress beyond 2, and that was a true series where the story was connected. This is also what makes this a special type of series in xkcd not seen before, as it is clear that these are a series, but they are not connected as a story.

Since then a few other comics have used the same system and reached at least 3, also where the comics are not part of a directly continued story. These are the Substitution series, where there as here are no relation except concept, Stargazing, where there is a bit more connection but no continuation and Code Quality, that reached three and then continued with different titles in the same series, thus reminding about the phone series. There where also other comics that progressed to getting a 2 after the name of the first. But that has already been seen before.

After number six the number did not just go one up (2-6 for the second to sixth), but used 2000 to coincide with it being comic 2000 on xkcd. But then the next, number eight, used the number 12 as it was released near the release of iPhone 12. Finally the ninth was called xkcd Phone Flip, not even using a number to make fun of phones where the screen can be folded.

This is by now the longest series with most comics connected to it (9 vs 8 in the Bad Map Projection series) and also the longest time span, with more than 9 years vs. close to eight years for the map series. However, the Stargazing series also had a new comic in 2025 that took that series to over 9 years with the fourth installment.

Exoplanet Names

A two comic series released with almost a year between the first 1253: Exoplanet Names in August 2013, and the second 1555: Exoplanet Names 2 from July 2014. This is the reason it is first listed chronologically here, as it was not a series in 2013. The two comics are not connected as a story, rather the second is an update to the list made in the first, even including most of the first list. this made this into a special type of series, in someway related to the xkcd phone series above. The first of these two comics came out before the first phone comic, but the second phone comic came before the second of these, thus explaining the chronology. And as opposed to the phone series this has not continued beyond 2.

Substitution series

A three comic series (as of 2016) released over almost three years between the first 1288: Substitutions in November 2013 to the third 1679: Substitutions 3 from May 2016, It first became a series with the second comic 1625: Substitutions 2 released in January 2016, explaining why it is placed after the two above.

It is not a continuing series, but rather the same concept used again, more related to the xkcd Phone or Exoplanet names above, than to a comic series like Well. It was for long the only series, with numbers added, released like this over long time, that was at only three releases. But in February 2020 the Stargazing series also got a third installment.

Code Quality

A five comic series (so far as of April 2019) released with exactly four years years between the first and so far last in the series. When the first comic 1513: Code Quality was released on the 17th of April 2015 it was not a series. That was first obvious when 1695: Code Quality 2 was released in June 2016. This series reminds of Well and Android, but with much longer time between the two releases.

The series continued with 1833: Code Quality 3 in May 2017. It then changed the naming in 1926: Bad Code, which clearly belonged to the other three. This was released in December 2017. And has so far the series ended with yet another comic that changed the name again, this time to 2138: Wanna See the Code? released on the 17th of April 2019, on the four year anniversary of the first in the series.

Time traveling Sphere

A two comic series released over two consecutive but normal release day in the same week (a Monday and a Wednesday) in the middle of October 2016. This was a very strange release in many ways, and that has been described in great detail in the series category. Since then the same happened with Alien Visitors but on the last two days of the week not the first two. It was first clear that this was a series with the Wednesday release 1748: Future Archaeology but not from the title which has very little direct relation to the first title 1747: Spider Paleontology, but the plot was clearly a continuation of the first comic. The series could in principle continue later, but it did not fill out the entire week, and stopped at those two.

Bad Map Projections

So far four comics have been released over more than four years, but given the Map projections have numbers between 45 and 358 there could be many more to come.

The first was released on January 11th 2017, it was ; 107: 1784: Bad Map Projection: Liquid Resize. And it became a series with the second comic released just a little more than a month later on February 15th with ; 79: 1799: Bad Map Projection: Time Zones. The third, came almost three years later, and had ; 358: 2256: Bad Map Projection: South America. It was released in January 2020. And one and a half year later the fourth ; 299 2489: Bad Map Projection: The Greenland Special came out in July 2021. This was followed by ; 248: Madagascator in April 2022, then ; 152: ABS(Longitude) in Jyly 2023, ; 45: 2951: Exterior Kansas in June 2024 and finally so far with the 8th ; 102: The United Stralia in October 2024. The series seems to be something Randall will return to infrequently, having released comics in the series over a period of almost 8 years. At the moment it is only the xkcd phone series that has more entries with nine comics. also the only series to run over a longer time-span, with more than nine years between first and last release. It is similar to the later comic series Cursed Connectors.

ISS Solar Transit

Two comics was released Monday and Friday in the same week. So in the same week as with the Time Traveling Sphere mentioned above. But having two comics in a series released in the same week with an unrelated comic in between was similar to Etymology-Man from 2012. So this was the second time this release schedule was used.

The first comic, 1828: ISS Solar Transit, was released on Monday April 24, 2017 and the second, 1830: ISS Solar Transit 2, four days later on Friday April 28, 2017.

X Years

A three comic series (as of 2020) released over eight years between the first 1141: Two Years from November 2012 to the third 2386: Ten Years from November 2020.

It first became a series with the second comic 1928: Seven Years released in December 2017, five years later, duh! This is the date that is used to arrange it in this list.

The series is about how many years it has been since Randall's wife's cancer diagnosis.

Stargazing

The Stargazing series was released over just a bit more than 9 years between the first 1644: Stargazing in 2016 to the fourth 3072: Stargazing 4 in 2025. It first became a series with the second comic 2017: Stargazing 2 released in July 2018, one and a half year after the first, explaining why it is placed after the three above. There was a gap of more than five years between the third and the fourth, which was even longer than between the first and the third release as, 2274: Stargazing 3 came out in February 2020, almost exactly four years after the first. 1291: Shoot for the Moon may have been a prelude to this series, as it also consists of Megan giving strangely opinionated lectures about celestial objects.

Scale World

This "Scale World" series is composed of three comics with different sizes of models of the Earth, which people can experience as if they were a real world. The first two came out as two comics in a row, while the third came about two weeks later. They did not come out in order of scale, as evident with the third release.

Cursed Connectors

So far seven comics have been released over two and half year, but given the connectors have numbers from 46 to 280 there could be many more to come.

The first was released on July 23rd 2021, it was ; 187: 2493: Dual USB-C. And it became a series with the second comic released just two comics later the next week on July 28th with ; 65: 2495: Universal Seat Belt.

Since then there have been ; 102: Memo Spike Connector and ; 280: USV-C both in August 2021, ; 78: Outlet Denier in March 2022, ; 120: Meta-Alternating Current i July 2022 and finally ; 46: Sheet Bend in January 2024.

It is thus similar to the Bad Map Projections series. And is now just one short of the number of bad maps on a much shorter time span.

Home Inspections

A two comic series (so far) released with a bit less than two months between the first two. The first comic 3037: Radon was released 2025-01-13.

It was first clear that this was going to be a series with the release of 3059: Water Damage on 2025-03-05.

The names where not related but Ponytail inspects Cueball's house with the same device and finds something lacking, which has to do with the planet the house was build on (Earth) rather than with the building it self.

This was the first new series since July 2021, a span of more than 3,5 years with out a new series. But older series has been continuing during that time span though.

Other series

Here is a list of the (13 as of 2025) other types of series that has been used for explaining certain aspects of xkcd without being a series in any clear way on xkcd:

A Smarter Planet

A two comic series from the summer of 2009 made specially for IBM's blog A Smarter Planet, and thus not part of the regular xkcd comics. Although the obviously have been made as a set, their stories are not related in any way, and their titles Conservation and Prescriptions are also not related. So they would only make a series because they were made for the same specific reason. 2 unreleased comics included: ibm hc 2 and ibm hc 3.

April Fools' Day comics

The xkcd April Fools' Day comics are special releases that commemorate April Fools' Day, often using experimental formats and interactive features. They have been posted almost yearly since 2007, starting with the unnumbered comic Syndication. The most recent April Fools' Day comics are often interactive and engage readers through collaborative editing, voting systems, or games. Several comics have been significantly delayed, sometimes by weeks, due to their complex features, with the most delayed being 2765: Escape Speed in 2023, which arrived 18 days late. However, with the exception of 2009 and 2017, an April Fools' Day comic has been released every year since 2007.

Comics sharing name

This category lists comics that share name with another comic, or almost shares name. So many series would be here. But there are also some series like comics that are not directly related in a series, like the new years comics released under the title of the new year. (2012, 2014 and 2016 so far). Many of the comics that share name or almost share name is not in any way part of the same series. The category is mainly used for explaining comics with similar name.

COVID-19

These comics are inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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