There’s an xkcd book!

xkcd: volume 0 will be released in the xkcd store next week, and I’m going to some events in New York and California next weekend to celebrate the release and also help out some nonprofits.

The book contains strips chosen by me from the first 600 xkcd comics, including many of my favorites plus some which were acted out by fans or otherwise had a weird real-world effect.  The project took a little longer than expected because I went back and redid the comic selection and page layout myself.  I also reconstructed a lot of the old comics from scans (many high-res versions of early comics were missing, and others were lost in my 2007 laptop theft).  Throughout the process, I added various marginal notes and doodles.  It will be initially available in the xkcd store (and possibly later in some bookstores).

The book is being published by BreadPig, an adorable company set up by reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.  A portion of the profits go toward build a school in Laos, via the charity Room to Read.  There’s a possibility we’ll get to name the school; I wanted to name it ‘the xkcd school’ because of how confused it would make the kids who are trying to learn English phonetics, but I think they’re vetoing that idea.

We’ll be in New York on September 19th, San Francisco on September 21st, and Silicon Valley on September 22nd.  For more information on the events, check out the BreadPig announcement.  I’ll be doing some events to raise money for Room to Read and the EFF, including a Q&A where the questions are selected by reddit users.  You can add questions and vote here (hey, Reddit admins — if I bribe you with free copies of the book, will you artificially vote down the terrifying Romanian question?).

I hope to see you at the events!