Randall Munroe
Randall Munroe | |
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Randall speaking at re:publica in 2016 | |
First appearance | 120: Dating Service |
Appearances | 31 |
- For a list of comics, see Comics featuring Randall Munroe.
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.—Randall Munroe, Source
Randall Munroe is the creator, writer, and artist of xkcd. He has a degree in physics from the Christopher Newport University and, prior to his career as a professional webcomic artist, was a roboticist independently contracted with NASA. Since his contract was not renewed in 2006 as they ran out of money to rehire him, he has supported himself primarily through xkcd, selling books and merchandise among other income streams. In his what if? blog, he occasionally posts "scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions", while on his personal blog, called Blag, he posts announcements related to his projects, comics, and books.
The content of xkcd tends to stem from Randall's thoughts, experiences, and his physics background. He sometimes writes comics in the first-person and even uses Cueball to represent himself (such as in 541: TED Talk). That said it is likely that many of these strips are not factually based on Randall's real life; for example, the My Hobby series appears to be written about Randall's own hobbies, although it is likely that few if any are things Randall has ever done himself. Based on his what if? blog, he wrote two books called What If? and What If? 2. He also published Thing Explainer, where he explains complex topics using only the 1,000 most common words, and How To, where he gives "absurd scientific advice for common real-world problems". His first book, xkcd: volume 0, is a collection of his favourite comics published in 2009.
In June 2011, Randall announced that his then-fiancée had been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. They married in September of that year. As with other events of his real life, the cancer diagnosis was the subject of many future xkcd comics.
Timeline[edit]
Date | Event |
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October 17, 1984 | Is born. |
September 30, 2005 | Launches xkcd.com. |
2006 | Graduates from Christopher Newport University with degree in Physics. |
October 2006 | Starts working on xkcd full time after NASA stops renewing his contract. |
May 2008 | Moves to Somerville, Massachusetts. |
2008 | Gets nominated for "Outstanding Use of the Medium", "Outstanding Short Form Comic", and "Outstanding Comedic Comic", and wins "Outstanding Single Panel Comic" in the 2008 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. |
September 2009 | Releases xkcd: volume 0. |
June 2011 | Announces his fiancée was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. |
August 2011 | Gets nominated for "Best Fan Artist" in the 2011 Hugo Awards. |
September 2011 | Marries his fiancée. |
August 2012 | Gets nominated for "Best Fan Artist" in the 2012 Hugo Awards. |
September 2013 | The asteroid 4942 Munroe is named after him. |
August 2014 | Wins the 2014 Hugo Awards for "Best Graphic Story" thanks to 1190: Time. |
September 2014 | Releases What If?. |
November 2015 | Releases Thing Explainer. |
September 2019 | Releases How To. |
September 2022 | Releases What If? 2. |
Speeches and interviews[edit]
- MIT Talk (3 minutes) – May 14, 2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- Talks at Google: xkcd (58 minutes) – December 7, 2007, Googleplex, Mountain View, CA
- XKCD Comes to Dartmouth! (86 minutes) – Fall 2008, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
- Randall Munroe at MIT (excerpt, 7 minutes) – December 17, 2009, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Randall Munroe (50 minutes) – February 15, 2013, MS Freedom of the Seas cruise ship, Caribbean Sea
- Øredev developer conference 2013: Art & Code with xkcd (47 minutes) – November 7, 2013, Slagthuset, Malmö, Sweden
- TED 2014: Comics that ask "what if?" (9 minutes) – March 20, 2014, Vancouver Convention Centre, Vancouver, Canada
- Live Talks Los Angeles: Randall Munroe in conversation with Wil Wheaton (90 minutes) – September 14, 2014, Aero Theatre, Santa Monica, CA
- Talks at Google: What If? (60 minutes) – September 24, 2014, Googleplex, Mountain View, CA
- World Economic Forum: Simplicity In Complexity (13 minutes) – June 27, 2016, Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center, Tianjin, China
- World Economic Forum: Education for a New Age, with Justine Cassell, R. May Lee, and Andrew Fursman (52 minutes) – June 28, 2016, Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center, Tianjin, China
- BookCon 2019: Randall Munroe in conversation with Adam Savage (34 minutes) – June 2, 2019, Javits Center, New York, NY
- This Week in Tech: Triangulation, hosted by Leo Laporte (75 minutes) – August 30, 2019, podcast
- Maximum Fun: My Brother, My Brother and Me, by Justin, Travis, and Griffin McElroy (59 minutes) – September 2, 2019, podcast
- Politics and Prose: How To by Randall Munroe, with Alexandra Petri (72 minutes) – September 4, 2019, Sidwell Friends School, Washington, DC
- Conan: Randall Munroe’s Comics Inspired Fans To Bring Chess Boards On Coasters (4 minutes) – December 12, 2019, Stage 15, Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, CA
- Conan: How Chris Hadfield & Serena Williams Helped Randall Munroe With His New Book (10 minutes) – December 12, 2019, Stage 15, Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, CA
- KPFA Radio 94.1 FM: Randall Munroe: How To with Adam Savage (from MythBusters) (59 minutes) – September 10, 2019, First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA
- Grist Magazine: How to power your house, with xkcd's Randall Munroe (5 minutes) – October 16, 2019, Grist Headquarters, Seattle, WA
- Tableau Conference 2019: Overthinking Things with Randall Munroe (62 minutes) – November 14, 2019, Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV
Absence from explain xkcd[edit]
xkcd has inspired a wiki of its own, Explain xkcd, where fans dissect every comic and share their theories, including about Munroe himself. On the talk page for the "Randall Munroe" entry, one user speculated that Munroe pranked Wikipedia editors into putting the fact that he was raised as a Quaker in his bio to illustrate the fake-news cycle of "citogenesis", a concept perhaps explained best by Munroe himself. "No, I was really raised Quaker", he said bemusedly, when I asked him about the speculation. (He hasn’t spent much time on Explain xkcd, believing instead in "the death of the author".)—Marissa Martinelli, xkcd Creator Randall Munroe on the Joys of Overthinking Everything, Slate
See also[edit]
- The About page on xkcd.
- The Randall Munroe article on Wikipedia.
- The comics made for A Smarter Planet, an IBM corporate blog
- The science columns for Good Question
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