xkcd To Be Released In Book Form

History's Coming To writes "xkcd creator Randall Munroe has revealed on his blag that the acclaimed stick-figure comic will be produced in real dead-tree book form. Fantastic news for all fans of comedy, maths, science, and relationship screw-ups — especially given that the book will be sold in aid of the charity 'Room To Read.' Rumors that the book contains a joke in the ISBN remain unconfirmed." The NY Times article that Munroe links (registration may be required) is from April of this year, and I am amazed that this community didn't note the story at that time. The book will be published by breadpig, which was created by Alexis Ohanian, one of the founders of reddit.

I might buy this book...

[Aeternitas827]

I'm not a big fan of actually buying books--my tax money, to some degree, goes to finance my public library (and free library card), so I usually just check out books that I want--but I think this is one I might actually buy. If a Questionable Content compilation would come available at some later point, I'd probably buy it too. I'd venture to guess that webcomics are low-reward thingers, and those out there that are enjoyable, well, the creators should be able to get something out of it.

Re:I might buy this book...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmmm, libraries. Better than mom's basement could ever be. And cleaner.

Re:I might buy this book...

[laejoh]

Hey, me too, I'm not a sheep [xkcd.com] either!

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[sortius_nod]

Before I didn't like the negativity being pointed squarely at kdawson, but now I'm 100% in the anti-kdawson camp.

Don't shit on your readers mate.

All the people tagging this article

[Omnifarious]

I think they must just be suffering from the curse of hating things just because they're popular. I know I have a tendency to do the same thing, but I generally actually do a bit of investigation to find out if it's popular for a reason I can appreciate first.

The other possibility is hating something just because everybody else discovered it and now you can't be cool for knowing about this obscure but fantastic thing that nobody else knows about. Considering this crowd, I expect that's the more likely scenario.

Re:Is XKCD Shitty Today?

[ettlz]

But that sounds way too difficult for me. You must be so clever!

Which sums up the impression I get reading your average xkcd strip, if I'm not about to hurl at Munroe's insipid melancholy. It turns out you don't need to be that clever; nevertheless I am in xkcd's presumed target audience, and despite getting many of the gags still don't find them that funny. Moreover, I cannot see what the hell my peers think is so great about it. Seriously, do they need a bunch of mathsier-than-thou stick drawings to reaffirm their abilities? Roughly speaking, xkcd is to geeks what The Mighty Boosh is to trendy undergrads. As far as I can see, they're both guilty of flattering their respective audiences to the point where the latter forgets that anything comic should, at least once in a while, make one laugh.

Re:The Fans DID Notice It Though

[mmontour]

Maybe it's going to be a pop-up book? Pull the slider, see the alt text?

When I was a kid, there were puzzle books that used invisible ink and a special highlighter pen that made it visible. [googles] Like this [kellisgifts.com]. I'm sure it would add a lot to the cost, but it would be the perfect way to do web-comic "alt text" in a printed book.

Um, excuse me. I have to go file a patent application...