LiveJournal

The list of all comics posted on LiveJournal can be found here.

Before Randall acquired the xkcd website, he started by posting comics on LiveJournal (specifically http://xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com/).
The comics posted on LiveJournal were reposted on the xkcd site, although not always in the same order, and almost never with the same number.

First and last on LiveJournal

The first comic posted on LiveJournal was 7: Girl sleeping (Sketch -- 11th grade Spanish class), posted on Friday September 9th, 2005. On this first day on LiveJournal he posted the 13 comics within 12 minutes. But already from the next post he began the normal Monday, Wednesday, Friday release date routine, although he often posted the comic a little before midnight (making the Monday comic coming out on a Sunday etc. or even forgetting to post a Friday comic, so it came out on a Saturday).

The 52nd and last comic posted on LiveJournal was 55: Useless, posted on January 27th, 2006.

The last posting to the LiveJournal account was on April 23rd, 2006, saying the account would be deleted soon. As of August 2022, the account still exists.

Comics posted before xkcd

The comic 39: Bowl came out as the 41st on LiveJournal on December 5th, 2005 as the last comic to be released before the xkcd website was also used. The day after that comic came out Randall came with this announcement on LiveJournal:

Announcement

What with winter break starting and the like, I'll probably be going off my regular update schedule. I'll try to post something here and there, and might end up doing more drawings than I expect, but won't stick to the MWF schedule.

Thanks for the support! This has been and will continue to be a lot of fun.

After this announcement the next comic, 45: Schrodinger, did not come out before January 4th 2006. But during this month long Christmas break Randall must have been busy preparing the new xkcd site.

The xkcd web site opened up on the 1st of January 2006 where comics with numbers from 1-44 was released.

• All 41 comics posted before that on LiveJournal was added to xkcd on this day, but in a different order.
  • There were for instance five older comics posted after the previous 39: Bowl, before the next 45: Schrodinger.
  • These now have the numbers between those two comics.
  • It is the comics from 40: Light to 44: Love.

Special releases on xkcd only

• There were, however, also two "new" comics added on this first day. Comics that had not previously been posted on LiveJournal:
  • 5: Blown apart
  • 12: Poisson.
• They were probably released for the first time to the public on this day.
  • But as this is not clear they have been given dates based on web archives.

• Finally comic 36 was originally by mistake a double post.
  • So comic 36 showed the same comic as comic 10: Pi Equals.
  • This was first corrected much later to 36: Scientists.
  • See more about this in the trivia section for that comic.

Checkered paper

Before the xkcd site opened most of the comics released on LiveJournal (35 out of 41 as well as the three extra mentioned above) were hand drawn on checkered paper and then scanned in to be posted.

After the xkcd site opened, none were released on this type of paper, not even among those mentioned here below.

Comics posted after xkcd

The next 11 post on LiveJournal from 45: Schrodinger to the last 55: Useless were posted (almost) on the same days both on LiveJournal and on xkcd. After a few mishaps over this first "shared release" month, he went back to an, almost, strict MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) release day schedule.

For some reason 54: Science was released a week earlier on LiveJournal than on xkcd, switching release date with 51: Malaria. The three comics coming after this on LiveJournal (that is from 51: Malaria to the second last 53: Hobby) had their release dates shifted one comic-release-day later, compared to the xkcd release date. 54: Science was finally released, just before the final LiveJournal comic was released, which meant that the last comic on LiveJournal was released the same day on both sites.

When the next comic, 56: The Cure, came out only on xkcd on January 30th, 2006 the following message was posted at the same day on LiveJournal:

I'm closing down this journal. Friend the new feed.

Original title, Randall quote and trivia sections

Only 11 of the original LiveJournal titles was reused when posted on xkcd. Even among the last 11 comics posted on both sites only six used the same title. Several of the comics did not even get a title, but only the date as in Fridays comic.

Most of the comics posted on LiveJournal had an original Randall quote beneath the picture, and many had comments by LiveJournal users. Randall did not use title text before the xkcd site. All the comics reposted from LiveJournal to xkcd had a title text, but this almost never the same as the note beneath the picture from LiveJournal, although the gist of it was often along the same lines.

In the trivia section for all the comics posted on LiveJournal, the original title and note if any will be listed, as well as the original LiveJournal release number, and the previous and the next comic released there. It it thus possible to go through them in the original release order through the trivia section. Also in the Category:Posted on LiveJournal the comics are also sorted in this correct LiveJournal release order.

Links

• The original page with broken pictures can be found here: xkcd-drawings.livejournal.com
• A backup with many original pictures can be found here: LiveJournal on archive.org