What is "xkcd"

xkcd, sometimes styled XKCD, is a webcomic created by Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name of the comic is not an acronym but "just a word with no phonetic pronunciation".

The subject matter of the comic varies from statements on life and love to mathematical and scientific in-jokes. Some strips feature simple humor or pop-culture references. Although it has a cast of stick figures, the comic occasionally features landscapes and intricate mathematical patterns such as fractals, graphs and charts. New comics are added three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, although on some occasions they have been added every weekday.

Munroe has released two spinoff books from the comic. His 2014 book What If? is based on his blog of the same name which answers unusual science questions from readers in a light-hearted but scientifically grounded way. The What If column on the site is updated with new articles from time to time. His 2015 book Thing Explainer was based on comic 1133 ("Up Goer Five") and explains scientific concepts using only the one thousand most commonly used words in English.