Editing 2575: What If? 2

This comic is [[Randall]]'s way of announcing and [[:Category:Book promotion|promoting]] his new book, ''[[What If? 2]]'', based on his ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' blog and following his first what if book.

The entire comic (including the [[Header text#2022-01-31_-_What_if.3F_2|xkcd Header text]]) is a link to a [https://xkcd.com/what-if-2/ what if? 2: the book] page on {{xkcd}}.

Apart from promoting the book, the comic also explains why he ended up writing a sequel. After the first book came out Randall was flooded with ''what if?'' questions. Presumable mainly from his readers via e-mail, but his friends and families also started texting him with these questions. Some of these texts are displayed in the comic, but only partially, so none of the six question texts can be read. But where one might think that this would become tiresome, Randall instead tells the readers the opposite: "Honestly, I love it."

He also states that a few of his favorites from the [https://what-if.xkcd.com/ ''What If?'' site] site have been included, so it is not all new material. He includes his very last online ''What If?'' ({{what if|157|Earth-Moon Fire Pole}}) for instance, which was released on 2018-05-21, almost four years before this comic was released. Also, by the time the book is released, it will be almost four years and four months since the last article on ''What If?''

The final part of the comic is a picture of the book that both makes it clear when the book is released and how to preorder it.

Randall ensured the maximum possible attention to his announcement by placing a [[Countdown in header text|countdown]] in the [[Header text#2022-01-10_-_Standard_text_with_countdown|header]] about three weeks prior to the announcement. This has caused a lot of speculation as to what would be revealed on the day of this comic's release 2022-01-31. The timer was inside a panel at the top right of the xkcd header text next to the standard header text: ''xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday''. Inside the panel a picture began emerging after the first day, but the picture only changed approximately once every four hours. After a few weeks was it certain that it was a plane that was being revealed. And on the second to last day, around day twenty, it was clear that it featured a ''T. rex''-like dinosaur ''en silhouette'' standing on top of the aircraft, apparently trying to eat its way into the fuselage, and it might have been possible to guess the relation to the ''What If?'' sequel. On the day before the announcement on xkcd, however, [[Countdown_in_header_text#Blow_up_by_Amazon|Amazon made visible a preorder page for the book]], so the answer was made clear about a day before Randall had intended. This clearly annoyed users of this page as can be seen in the [[Talk:Countdown_in_header_text|talk page for the countdown]].

Until then, however, there were numerous [[Countdown_in_header_text#Theories|theories]] about the [[Countdown_in_header_text#Countdown|countdown]] and what the [[Countdown_in_header_text#The_picture|image would reveal]] as the image gradually changed throughout the eventual [[Countdown_in_header_text/images|136 frames]].

In the title text, Randall feels that he must clarify the release day (as in [[2562: Formatting Meeting]]), since he has often joked about the way different countries (and people) write dates. He did not use the one version he himself had promoted in earlier comics. He does however give two different versions of the release date: the first is "9/13" in the first panel, which is at least (usually — see below) only readable one way; harder to misinterpret is the more expansive "Sep 13, 2022" in the final panel. A format that he could have used to avoid any confusion is: "the book is released on 2022-09-13," using the international standard as defined in the {{W|ISO 8601}} standard and shown in [[1179: ISO 8601]].

Since there are only 12 months in the year, 9/13 actually cannot be mistaken, while 9/12 might be. So there was really no need for this clarification, especially with the last text in the last panel. So this is of course just a title text joke, where he can manage to make a [[:Category:Portmanteau|portmanteau]] of January and December ("Jancember") and then then call this a cursed month as it would be the 13th month if it came before New Year. This comic came out at the end of January, so it could have been at the end of Jancember instead. The number thirteen is seen by many as an unlucky number, so a thirteenth month would be considered cursed by some, or at least unlucky.

At the release of this comic, the header changed to promote the website, the [[Design_of_xkcd.com#xkcd_links|xkcd links]] in the top left section of xkcd was changed to promote the book and he made his first [[Blag]] post in more than two years with the [https://blog.xkcd.com/2022/01/31/what-if-2/ What If 2] post.  

The [https://what-if.xkcd.com/ what if?] header was also changed to accommodate promotion of the new book; not so strange, seeming as it was based on that blog. A picture is displayed at the top with the book at both ends and this text in between, with the first line taking up the top and the two other lines below, the first in a frame:

:What If? 2

:Text 1: <font color="gray">Hey, could s.. ele</font>

:Text 4: <font color="gray">Could my ca… or…</font>

[[Category:Portmanteau]] <!-- Title text -->

[[Category:Calendar]]  <!-- Title text -->