XKCD-style Plots with Matplotlib

Today I discovered that Matplotlib has an xkcd-style mode, which is fantastic. It took a few steps to reproduce their example, particularly getting fonts installed

The Code

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

with plt.xkcd():
    # Based on "Stove Ownership" from XKCD by Randall Munroe
    # https://xkcd.com/418/

    fig = plt.figure()
    ax = fig.add_axes((0.1, 0.2, 0.8, 0.7))
    ax.spines['right'].set_color('none')
    ax.spines['top'].set_color('none')
    ax.set_xticks([])
    ax.set_yticks([])
    ax.set_ylim([-30, 10])

    data = np.ones(100)
    data[70:] -= np.arange(30)

    ax.annotate(
        'THE DAY I REALIZED\nI COULD COOK BACON\nWHENEVER I WANTED',
        xy=(70, 1), arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle='->'), xytext=(15, -10))

    ax.plot(data)

    ax.set_xlabel('time')
    ax.set_ylabel('my overall health')
    fig.text(
        0.5, 0.05,
        '"Stove Ownership" from xkcd by Randall Munroe',
        ha='center')

The result:

Nice xkcd-style squiggly lines, but the font leaves something to be desired

Installing the fonts

# Install fonts into home directory
mkdir ~/.fonts
cd ~/.fonts
wget https://github.com/ipython/xkcd-font/raw/master/xkcd/build/xkcd.otf
wget https://github.com/ipython/xkcd-font/raw/master/xkcd/build/xkcd-Regular.otf

# Clear font cache
fc-cache -f -v

# Clear matplotlib cache
rm -rf ~/.cache/matplotlib

The restart your kernel, if using jupyterlab, and rerun the code.

The final result: