Randall Munroe

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Randall Munroe

Randall Munroe with ducks.
Born Randall Patrick Munroe
October 17, 1984 (1984-10-17) (age 24)
Easton, Pennsylvania
Nationality American
Area(s) Pen and pencil
Notable works xkcd
Official website

Randall Patrick Munroe (born 17 October 1984) is a programmer best known for creating the webcomic xkcd. He and the webcomic have developed a cult following, and he is one of a very small group of webcomic artists who are self-sufficient.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Munroe grew up in Lakeville, Massachusetts and Chesterfield, Virginia.[citation needed] He was a fan of the funny pages from an early age,[1] starting off with Calvin and Hobbes.[2] After graduating from the Chesterfield County Mathematics and Science High School at Clover Hill: A Renaissance Program, he graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2006 with a degree in Physics.[3][4] Munroe worked as an independent contractor for NASA at the Langley Research Center[5] before and after his graduation. In January 2006 his NASA contract lapsed and he began to write xkcd full-time. He now supports himself by the sale of xkcd related merchandise.[1][6] The webcomic quickly became very popular, garnering up to 70 million hits a month by October 2007.[7]

He has also toured the lecture circuit, giving speeches at such places as Google's Googleplex in Mountain View, California .[8]

Munroe lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.[1]

Munroe also has two brothers: Doug,[9] and Ricky.[10]

[edit] The comic

Main article: xkcd

xkcd is a stick figure comic with themes in computer programming, mathematics, science, and romance.

He had originally used xkcd as an instant messaging screenname because he wanted a name without a meaning so he wouldn't eventually grow tired of it. He registered the domain name, but left it idle until he started posting his drawings[6] in September 2005.[11] The comic has a very loyal fanbase. Munroe said, "I think the comic that's gotten me the most feedback is actually the one about the stoplights".[7]

Munroe licenses his creations under a Creative Commons license, stating that it isn't just about the free culture movement, but that it also makes good business sense.[6] His income derives from the sale of merchandise to his fans consisting of thousands of t-shirts a month.[1]

Munroe's cartoons often use internet culture to comment on larger social issues[citation needed]

[edit] Other projects

Munroe is the creator of the websites "BestThing", "The Funniest", "The Fairest", and "The Cutest", which present users with two options and ask them to choose one over the other.[12]

The "WetRiffs" website was started as a joke, one month after drawing the "Rule 34" comic, "lamenting the lack of guitar-in-the-shower pictures on the internet."[12][13]

LimerickDB encourages the creation of new, as well as the collection of old limericks.[14]

Most recently he started a Geohashing wiki based on one of his comics which contains an algorithm that generates pseudo-random coordinates around the world every day.[15]

Aside from maintaining his websites, Munroe also engages in kite photography, in which cameras are attached to kites and pictures are then taken of the ground or buildings.[16]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e Cohen, Noam (2008-05-26). "This Is Funny Only if You Know Unix". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/business/media/26link.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  2. ^ @Google Talks (venue). (2007-12-11). Authors@Google: Randall Munroe (Adobe Flash) [Digital video]. Mountain View, California: Google. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. Event occurs at 24:13. "...Calvin and Hobbes was the first comic that I discovered."
  3. ^ Munroe, Randall. "About". xkcd. http://xkcd.com/about/. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
  4. ^ "582 students receive diplomas from Christopher Newport University". Christopher Newport University. 2006-05-17. http://universityrelations.cnu.edu/news/2006/05_17_06grads.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-30. 
  5. ^ "Authors@Google: Randall Munroe". written at Mountain View, California. @Google Talks. Google. 2007-12-11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  6. ^ a b c Fernandez, Rebecca (2006-10-12). "xkcd: A comic strip for the computer geek". Red Hat Magazine (Raleigh, North Carolina: Red Hat). http://www.redhat.com/magazine/025nov06/features/xkcd/. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  7. ^ a b So, Adrienne (2007-11-13). "Real Geek Heart Beats in Xkcd's Stick Figures". Wired (San Francisco: Condé Nast Publications). ISSN 1059-1028. http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/11/xkcd. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  8. ^ Spertus, Ellen (2007-12-21). "Randall Munroe's visit to Google (xkcd)". Beyond Satire. http://www.beyondsatire.us/?q=node/272. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  9. ^ http://xkcd.com/32/
  10. ^ http://xkcd.com/510/ mouseover text
  11. ^ @Google Talks (venue). (2007-12-11). Authors@Google: Randall Munroe (Adobe Flash) [Digital video]. Mountain View, California: Google. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. Event occurs at 48:05. "I'm pretty sure I started in September 2005."
  12. ^ a b "Short biography of Randall Munroe". Pi-Con. http://www.pi-con.org/guests/rmunroe. Retrieved on 2008-09-25. 
  13. ^ Munroe, Randall (2008-03-18). "Home". wetriffs.com. http://wetriffs.com/. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
  14. ^ Munroe, Randall (2008-02-04). "LimerickDB.com". Blag. xkcd. http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/02/04/limerickdbcom/. Retrieved on 2008-09-26. 
  15. ^ xkcd's geohashing wiki
  16. ^ Ben Kuchera, The joys of kite photography, Ars Technica, 2007-07-02

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Randall Munroe
Sister project Wikinews has related news: Randall Munroe, writer of xkcd, talks about the comic, politics and the internet
Persondata
NAME Munroe, Randall
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION webcomic author
DATE OF BIRTH 17 October 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Easton, Pennsylvania, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Munroe"
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