xkcd: volume 0

I received my signed copy of xkcd: volume 0 yesterday. It contains lots of tidbits, commentary, sketches and a bunch of puzzles. (I still haven’t figured out the page numbering scheme. It looks to be base 3, but certain numbers are missing from the series.) My biggest complaint is, for the price, I assumed it would be hardcover. It’s not, but the production quality is nonetheless very, very excellent.

A few months ago, Randall came to myself and a few others, looking for ideas for a title. Here’s what was thrown around:

• xkcd’); DROP TABLE Library;–
• xkcd: volume 0 (This one was obviously chosen.)
• xkcd: Think of subtitle before going to print -R
• xkcd: volume 2
• xkcd: ☃ (Randall liked this, “if only because it would annoy database operators”.)

So that was the general theme: confuse the users, annoy the indexers, or at best, destroy Amazon’s database. I approve.

The current title leads to the next title logically being xkcd: volume 1, which will create some fun confusion (“xkcd: volume 1 is coming out soon!” “Wait, isn’t there already an xkcd book?”), but I wanted to take the anarchy to the next level. xkcd: volume 3 should work well for the second book.