Category:April fools' comics

Comics that were put up on April Fools' Day as an April Fools' Day joke.

Randall first posted an April Fool's comic on Sunday, April 1, 2007. This comic was not numbered; sequentially, it came between 242: The Difference and 243: Appropriate Term. It has not been preserved in the official xkcd archives, though it survives on a thread in the xkcd forums.

Other than this instance, Randall did not put up generally post jokes on April 1st unless it was one of the three designated comic release days (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). But from 2011, starting with 880: Headache on Friday the 1st of April, he has released a real April Fools' Day joke.

From 2012 with 1037: Umwelt he even began moving the release day - even to the weekend - Sunday for Umvelt, to get the comic out on April 1st.

Before 2011 he only had one comic ending up on April 1st: 563: Fermirotica in 2009. This is obviously not intended to make a fool out of the readers (any more than on all the other days of the year). The reason, for only one such day during the first 5 full years of xkcd, was a leap year making April 2nd a release day three years around the 2009 1st of April release.

Only exception to this before 2011 is the 404: Not Found in 2008, but this is a meta-comic, since it in fact doesn't exist.