Randall Munroe
Photo courtesy Adrianne Mathiowetz
Randall Munroe is the author of xkcd, "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language". Randall was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in Virginia, and presently resides in Somerville, MA. Randall graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2006 with a degree in physics. He then worked on robots at NASA for a short time before quitting to work on the comic full time.
xkcd came about when Randall was scanning some old sketches from paper notebooks and posting them online. The number of readers gradually increased, and eventually he decided to sell t-shirts on the site. When it became clear that the site could support him full time, he decided to quit his "normal" job and just draw comics.
Randall's other projects include The American Society for the Conservation of Gravity, The Best, The Fairest, The Funniest, The Cutest, and Wet Riffs.
For more information, check out his awesome comic, xkcd.