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PHD comics' Jorge Cham on misery, hope and academia

Jorge Cham, creator of the cult comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper , or PHD, is probably the most gut-achingly funny/tragic counsellor you could recommend to a PhD student -- or to any confounded friend, lover, or parent trying to understand what he terms, with some flourish, the "global misery phenomenon" of graduate school.

Cham is a full-time cartoonist, but the deep scars wrought by a PhD programme (in robotic engineering) remain his constant muse.

His webcomic has been running since he started grad school in 1997, is syndicated worldwide, and attracts a loyal following among that peculiar breed of poorly-paid, slightly masochistic overachievers, bravely hunting the frontiers of knowledge, free food, most random societies on campus, and unrequited supervisor approval.

PHD follows the travails of four main characters in grad school: the nameless, hapless hero that bears considerable resemblance to Jorge; Cecilia, the reluctant geek constantly frustrated by undergraduates; Tajel, the free-living social sciences student always willing to rally for a cause; and Mike Slackenerny, that person -- every research group has one -- who has been there longer than anyone can remember. The students' harried encounters with the demanding, loveless Professor Smith and absent-minded Professor Jones form the foundation for many priceless recurring gags, poking fun at the lows of grad student life.

Recently, Jorge was in the UK on an academic world tour , talking about 'The power of procrastination'. His thesis has something for all of us -- grad students and otherwise.

The power of procrastination

"The first thing to note", says Cham, "is that procrastination is not the same thing as laziness. Laziness is when you don't want to do anything. Procrastination, its close but distinct cousin, is when you don't want to do the one thing you really ought to be doing, right now. It's not that you don't want to do it, it's just that you find doing everything else possible, from some completely obscure hobby to categorising the entire internet, like the Yahoo dudes did when their supervisor was on summer break, more appealing."

How much time do you spend on a given comic?

I doodle and brainstorm on a notebook I always carry with me. It can take anywhere from five minutes to eight hours to work out a comic. Drawing it on the computer (using a Cintiq) usually only takes one hour.

Simon Singh has written a whole book about mathematics and The Simpsons . Have you got some examples of deep-coded nerd gags in your comics?

I always try to generalise things because my audience spans so many disciplines, but I do have a running gag that pi/2 is always the answer, and I've lost count how many times I've hidden 1.57 into my comics over the years.

Can you give away anything about your characters?

Increasing the ratio of female professors is a big topic I hope to address in the future. The nameless grad student was given a name in The PHD Movie (the film adaptation of the comics), but it's not clear yet whether that's canon or not.

The comics will eventually follow the characters to the completion of their time in grad school. One graduated several years ago (and is now a Post-doc), and I think another will graduate in the next year or two.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Polestar?

You mentioned The PHD Movie . I've heard there's a sequel in the pipeline. Tell us about it.

Yes, we're trying to make a sequel to The PHD Movie ! A few years ago we made what I think is the first independent movie adaptation of a webcomic, and it was a great success in the academic world. It screened at over 500 universities and research centres worldwide (including Antarctica) and got great reviews.

Recently, I've gotten a lot of inquiries whether we're going to make a follow-up so I decided to give the fans a chance to make it happen by launching a Kickstarter . What's different about these movies is that they involve real scientists, researchers and staff members at a real top university (Caltech) in the acting and producing roles.

Part of the message we want to convey is that people in academia are not robots, that they have different passions, talents and even a sense of humour. So, the movie is in the hands of the internet to make it a reality.

Do you have a favourite PHD series?

I started listing out some of my favourite series, but then I realised another reason it's great to be a creator online is that it sort of doesn't matter how many people appreciate any particular piece of work you do. As long as you create something that has meaning to you, you will most likely find others who also connect with it, and the connection will probably be deeper than if you tried to create something that you think everyone would like. It's also easier to take risks because if people didn't particularly like something you did, you have your whole archive there for people to also sample and find something they like.

Is there one comic that stands out as particularly special to you?

One particular comic I've done that comes to mind is a version of Alice in Wonderland where Cecilia gets pulled through her monitor into Thesisland, as a metaphor for her feeling lost on her research. It's a series of comics I feel that works on different levels (character, arc, story, artwork, punch-lines). I also wrote and drew them during the first few weeks my son was born, so it's special also because I was somewhat inspired by that. It's not one I'm particularly famous for, but every once in a while someone will come up to me to say it's their favourite too.

You can see the 11 part series online, starting here and ending here .

The PHD Movie is available to watch for free all this month . You can fund the sequel through this Kickstarter campaign

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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The comics depict the typical life of graduate students in Stanford University: how they obsess about ever getting their theses completed, struggle to make ends meet with their meager stipends, wonder why life is passing them by, and slack off while their supervisors aren't looking.

Contains examples of:

Absent-Minded Professor : Almost all of the Research Advisors introduced. They can barely remember the students' name, and hardly ever bother to read their thesis draft.
Adaptation Name Change : Cecelia's advisor Professor Jones is named Professor Chu in the movies.
All Issues Are Political Issues : Tajel often carries protest signboards for various causes.
Ambiguously Brown : Dee's friend has a dark skin, but he has no name or distinctive features to determine his actual race (unlike Tajel, who we know is half-Indian from her mother).
Batman Gambit : During Cecelia's thesis defense in the second film, her advisor Professor Chu gets an adversarial committee member to endorse her thesis by agreeing with him that an additional year of work is needed, knowing that he will change his mind to be Commander Contrarian .
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs : The "How You Spend Your Time" pie chart has a Sports & Leisure section which consist of surfing the internet, doing sports, and reading about sports while surfing the Internet.
Call-Back : Mike teaches the protagonist how to distract with graphs, which unfortunately doesn't work too well for him. Mike himself does it over a year later, with more success.
When we see Tajel interact with Prof. Rivera for the first time, he was lamenting her lack of apparent seriousness in her studies, especially when she chose to write about "The Grad student of Academia" for her research topic. Nowadays, their dynamics are reversed, as Rivera becomes the most egregious example of Absent-Minded Professor who never reads Tajel's draft and gives her useless advice, while Tajel desperately tries to get his support in writing her thesis.
Professor Smith changed too. Originally he was The Faceless , then started to become more of an Absent-Minded Professor who tries to blend in with the students despite being clueless of their trends. Later, he just became a professor with a serious Lack of Empathy .
Chekhov's Gunman : Early in the second movie, Allison points out Dr. Dukosky as the founder of their field, but the latter is surrounded by other conference attendees at the time and cannot be seen. Later during conference presentations, the Nameless Hero has a casual conversation with an old lady who turns out to be Dr. Dukosky, and she provides him with helpful advice in a subsequent scene.
Child Prodigy : Professor Jones's daughter is only a first year in elementary school, but is intelligent enough to fix Mike's research data.
Comic-Book Time : Every year, the strip features the characters celebrating birthdays, summer vacations and various holidays, but despite their constant complains that they're never graduating, they never seem to actually age. Cecelia lampshades this in one of her birthday strips, in which she decided that the time she spends in grad school doesn't count to her age, because it's basically living in a vacuum.
Cool Old Lady : The second movie has Dr. Dukosky, the highly respected founder of the Nameless Hero's field of study, who takes the time to strike up a friendly conversation with him and offers him advice.
Scott all but disappeared from the storyline after he broke up with Cecilia.
Played for Laughs with Gerard, the token Humanities student, who was told by the PHD Comics management that he should either change his major or leave the comics altogether. He was then forced to attend a hearing to justify his existence, and had not appeared ever since.
Creative Closing Credits : The first film overlays the credits on top of academic paperwork, accompanied by sketches of the cast and crew in the art style of the comics.
Cuteness Overload : Most of the campus faculty practically melts at the sight of Mike's baby daughter, Sophy. He exploits this to distract them while he steals food from associations he doesn't belong to.
Demoted to Extra : In the first film, Mike and Tajel were important supporting characters who gave guidance to the Nameless Hero and Cecelia respectively. In the second film, their roles are diminished, only getting some token lines and scenes that for most part don't directly affect the main plot.
Divergent Character Evolution : In the earlier strips , all the University professors were portrayed as a collective group of sinister, faceless Hive Mind who goes out their way to make the students' lives more difficult, especially during Quals. Now, they're mostly given distinct appearance and personalities: Professor Smith is still the mean Stern Teacher , Professor Jones tries to be helpful but is often scatterbrained, Professor Rivera is very flippant and easygoing, but doesn't really pay attention to what his students are doing.
Education Through Pyrotechnics : The machines used for experimental research frequently blow up in people's faces.
The Faceless : Most of the research advisors don't get drawn in the comic panels, at least in the earlier strips. No longer the case since the 2003 strips.
Failure Is the Only Option : To keep going, the series needs the characters to remain grad students, meaning they have to postpone the completion of their respective theses indefinitely. Mike ultimately subverts this; having been the oldest grad student for several years, he finally manages to finish his dissertation after years of procrastination and graduate, but stays anyway as a member of the teaching staff.
Fourth-Wall Observer : Tajel takes this role in the movies. She addresses the audience at the end of both films, and refers to herself as a "secondary character" in the first movie.
Gag Series : The main point of the strips are to make jokes about the life (or lack thereof) of a grad student, and make fun of the research advisors and Academia in general. When the strips go for more detailed plot and character development, some readers actually complain.
Ignored Aesop : A Smithmas Carol ends with Smith reflecting on his life's journey and concluding with this: Prof. Smith: Eh, who cares? I've got tenure.
Limited Wardrobe : Probably justified considering how cash-strapped the characters are. In any case, they are almost always depicted in the same outfits.
Living Prop : Discussed in-universe regarding the status of grad students. Apparently, the faculty would be more likely to notice an actual missing furniture than they would a missing student.
Meta Guy : Gerard, the Humanities student Recurring Character , only exists to represent another Grad School department apart from engineering. He's definitely aware of this, and most of his appearances have him address the readers in some way.
Misery Poker : A humorous variation took place during the PhD widows meeting between Scott and Jenny as they ranted on their respective partners, Cecelia and Mike. Scott: Cecelia seems to have lost her way... She has a lot of work ethic but lacks purpose. Jennifer: My husband, on the other hand, has a baby on the way, but his work is pathetic and slacks on purpose.
Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher : Cecelia's teaching style has shades of this in the first movie; she prepares baked goods for her students and comes up with an interpretive dance (complete with props and rhymes) to introduce the course material to them. She is eventually discouraged from doing this by the undergrads' seeming apathy, but returns to it enthusiastically once she gets out of her funk.
Named by the Adaptation : In the movies, the Nameless Grad Student's name is given as Winston.
Obstructive Bureaucrat : Faced by Mike when submitting his thesis (he has to come back because the layout isn't in perfect conformity with university rules), by Tajel when applying for a visa, and by the main character when trying to get reimbursed for travel.
Promoted to Love Interest : The second film pairs up Cecelia and Winston (the Nameless Grad Student), though this is only revealed to the audience at the end .
Recurring Character : Scott. He's Cecelia's boyfriend, but since he's not a Stanford student, he is actually featured less frequently than the nameless Living Props that are the Engineering Grad students. Lampshaded by Tajel when he suddenly shows up after a long absence. "Scott? I feel I haven't seen him in years
Relationship Reveal : Throughout the second film, Cecelia and Winston (the Nameless Grad Student) are both shown receiving texts from an unrevealed party. It is revealed at the end that they had been texting each other and are romantically involved, following a Ship Tease at the end of the first film .
Rhymes on a Dime : A lot of the comics' punchlines come from characters bantering with each other in rhymes. One example is the Misery Poker mentioned earlier, and another is the following exchange between Cecelia and her advisor. Cecelia: I have to reference... without deference? Prof. Jones: That's the preference.
Rhyming Title : Several strips have titles such as "Webcam Labcam" and "What is... a Thesis?"
Right in Front of Me : Upon meeting Khumalo, Tajel starts chatting him up without realizing that he's her new professor.
Running Gag : π/2
Sequel Hook : Near the end of the first film, Mike learns that his wife is pregnant. A sketch of their baby daughter is shown in the end credits, with "Sequel!" written next to her. She does end up appearing in the second film, though only for a brief moment in the opening montage.
Skewed Priorities : Mike can remember "important stuffs" like who is the colorist for a particular X-Men issue, but forgets to take Quals, which he needed to graduate.
The Slacker : While several characters are slackers to some extent, Mike Slackenerny stands head and shoulders above the rest in this regard. An eternal student, he's the PhD answer to Doonesbury 's Zonker Harris.
She also accidentally spurts her drink on Scott when the latter mentioned that he had a job offer in London.
Starving Student : All of the students, who live off instant ramen, and spend a lot of their time scavenging for free food.
Mike finally graduated from his Ph.D, but he continues to stick around the campus as a Post-Doc whose activities mostly involve sleeping, napping and scavenging for free food.
Prof. Rivera left Stanford for a position in another University, but continues to serve as Tajel's adviser. Since he barely communicate with his student or give her useful advice anyway, his departure has no virtually effect to her thesis.
Still Got It : Prof. Smith when he finds out he can still take a nap balanced on a chair, as he used to do as a grad student.

Though the supposed take that at Mythbusters makes it abundantly clear that he's never actually watched it and doesn't think about what the actual purpose of the show is (not to prove that something always happens, but to prove if it could happen somehow).
Two Scenes, One Dialogue : In both films, there's a scene in which Cecelia and the Nameless Grad Student receive the same advice simultaneously from different parties at a pivotal moment. In the first film, the advice is respectively given by Tajel and Mike. In the second, it's given by the emeritus professor on Cecelia's thesis committee and Dr. Dukosky.
Vague Age : No one really knows how old any of the characters are, since most of them are grad students who have spent countless of years in their program and not showing any signs of graduating soon, despite their constant lament that they're getting older and older as the years goes by. And given that Mike's baby daughter visibly ages over time, the setting probably doesn't run on Comic-Book Time .
PhD - Episode 1 is based on The Phantom Menace .
What is... The Thesis? is from The Matrix .
Raiders of the lost dissertation is Raiders of the Lost Ark .
Yank the Dog's Chain : During the credits of the second movie, a montage is shown of Mike's attempts to land an industry job during the conference. He is eventually offered a position... only for the employer to retract the offer when Mike starts gratuitously celebrating on the spot.

Alternative Title(s): Piled Higher And Deeper , Piled High And Deeper

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I Draw (A Graphic Dissertation), Comics as Method and Holding Environment

Last week, in “I Draw (A Graphic Dissertation), Therefore I Am,” I wrote about how I got to drawing my dissertation, drawing comics as scholarship, and about comics as a way to think. Building on that, this week I want to start with the concept of “holding environments” (term originally coined by Donald Woods Winnicott and used by Alison Bechdel in Are You My Mother? ) in relation to comics.

In working through the first chapter of my graphic dissertation, which is an auto-ethnographic work about confronting trauma image-textually, I found that drawing comics is as much about the process as it is about the outcome. I discovered through practice more concretely what I already assumed from reading works like Are You My Mother? or Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do to name a couple. In the process of making autobio comics, one does not simply recollect memories but is also able to reenact them via their cartoon self. The artist-protagonist, by confronting their trauma via comics, is able to metaphorically unload it onto the cartoon version of themselves, which aids in freely exploring the conflict without the fear of falling too deep. In a conversation with Hillary Chute collected in the book Outside the Box , Bechdel said:

“I feel like the book [ Are You My Mother? ] is in a way me, my self, my body. And I’m asking the reader to hold me not just figuratively, in the sense of an analytic “holding environment,” but literally. “Hold me!”

Panels from Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother? (page 241) with reference to Winnicott

Additionally, drawing comics, using the medium as an investigational space to think, to chart memories, to draw connections, allows the author-protagonist to expose themselves to a simulation of their traumatic event in a controlled environment. Cathy Caruth, a trauma studies scholar, theorizes in her oft quoted work Unclaimed Experience , that trauma is only fully processed in retrospect. She writes, “The breach in the mind’s experience of time, self, and the world—is not, like the wound of the body, a simple and healable event, but rather an event that…is experienced too soon, too unexpectedly, to be fully known and is therefore not available to the consciousness until it imposes itself again.” The reenactment of traumatic memories within the holding environment of comics, then, enables the author-protagonist to wholly see, process, and come to terms with the repressed feelings that destabilize their sense of self. Caruth further writes that what causes trauma “is a shock that appears to work very much like a bodily threat but it is in fact a break in the mind’s experience of time.” The comics medium makes it possible to not just give visual shape to memories, but do so in a spatial and temporal sequence, which provides a sense of urgency to the reenactment.

This reenactment and simulation of the passing of time in the site of conflict, I contend, aids in processing the “break in the mind’s experience of time” that Caruth theorizes as the cause of trauma. I originally made a part of this argument in a paper on Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? , where I argue that Bechdel’s image-textual reenactment of the time her mother stopped the bedtime ritual of “coofie”-ing her, allows her to trace the roots of her complex relationship with her mother. At the time of the event, she was not allowed to betray any emotional response, but on re-drawing the scene, she is able to see what was not visible to her at the time of the infliction of the psychological wound, as is often the case with trauma that, as Caruth writes, it is “experienced too soon, too unexpectedly to be grasped by consciousness.”

In Graphic Women , Chute writes that “The comics form calls attention to what we as readers ‘see’ and do not see of the subject: the legibility of the subject as a literal — that is to say, readable — issue to encounter.” Later, in a conversation with Chute collected in the book Outside the Box , Bechdel states that “when [she is] drawing, the line [she is] making on the paper is a way of touching the people and things [she] is drawing.” This takes on a double meaning when we consider the fact that before drawing, Bechdel poses as herself, her mother, her father, her therapist, to use as photo references. In doing so, she inhabits (the word was originally used by Joe Sacco) those characters and, by extension, their perspective. In her words, as quoted by Chute in Comics & Media : “It’s almost an aerobic activity sometimes– I do this for almost all of the figures I draw. I pose. Sometimes I put on costumes if I feel like I need to…. As Joe said, it gives you this weird insight into the character…. As I am doing these poses which are really just quick drawing aids, there is a kind of interesting emotional thing that happens as I have to impersonate these characters.”

Like Bechdel (and many other cartoonists, I am sure), I posed — as myself, my parents, my estranged brother — to use references as drawing aids in Chapter 1 of my dissertation, where I was working through an unusual assortment of messy issues: suicide, homophobia, deep-seated familial issues, inter-generational trauma. I have been sitting on the subject un-metabolized for years on end, too afraid that there would be no way out of the rabbit hole if I dared to peek in. Comics, however, was like learning to swim in the shallow end of the pool. Like jumping with a safety net. Like transferring my worst fears onto the paper, in full knowledge that it would somehow be contained within the confines of my hand-drawn panels. Drawing just one key event showed me where to go next.

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Kay Sohini's dissertation depicting the author and narrative text against a background of paneled city images

I was able to move between various key points in my life that mediated the primary conflict. On the more technical aspect of things, I had to agonize less over transitions than I would have if I was working in the textual medium alone. In Chapter 2 of my graphic dissertation — “Pandemic Precarities” — I was constantly going back and forth between several topics ranging from grief of losing a loved one to COVID-19 complications, to ableism, to racism, to wealth inequity, to commodification of healthcare. The seamless fluidity allowed by the form was especially useful when jumping from one disparate but ultimately connected subject matter to another. I was able to switch narrative voices without much in the way of interjectory verbal explanations. Most indispensably, I was able to focus on the larger sociopolitical circumstance and the intimate personal details, without one taking away from the other or coming across as disjointed. In a nutshell, scholarship in comics form compels me to find the best possible way to visualize the complex subject matter at hand, and, in doing so, I arrive at a deeper understanding of the subject.

Making and Visualizing Affordance/s

Comics, or thinking within/with the help of/via comics, also allows one to make affordances of other existing works with ease. For instance, in Fun Home , Bechdel redraws a page from James Joyce’s Ulysses concerning the suicide of the latter’s protagonist’s father, to demonstrate her coping mechanisms following her own father’s death. Throughout the length of her graphic memoir, Bechdel visually refers to a range of literary works — from The Odyssey to Collette’s Earthly Paradise — since books “serve[d] as [their] currency” and were a way for her to connect with her father after a childhood of considerable psychological abandonment. Within the visual space comics, Bechdel is able to make visible the web of intertextual networks that are crucial in making sense of her troubled relationship with her father.

Similarly, I was able to draw on (and literally re-draw) certain pages from literature that helped me make sense of the crises I was dealing with. To rewind a little, my interest in certain comics, such as Satrapi’s Persepolis or Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? or Amruta Patil’s Kari , exceeded mere cognitive appreciation. Their evocative nature moved me beyond polite interest; they were my punctums (a thing that pricks or bruises to paraphrase Roland Barthes’s concept from Camera Lucida ). Ten years ago, when I first chanced upon Kari, it was unlike any other literature I had previously encountered.

I remember being somewhat unsettled (but in a good way) by the image of Kari (the eponymous protagonist) standing in front of the mirror, unable to come to terms with her reflection. There was something strangely affirming to see somebody else, even a fictional character, struggle with the burden of flesh and femaleness. It was not just the realistic depiction of depression and sexuality from a young, queer woman’s perspective that I connected with, but also the fact that the story was actually set in India, where I then lived and where we did not (not back then anyhow) talk about mental health and sexuality, let alone homosexuality. The character’s resilience, as well as the very existence of literature that highlighted these struggles, made me hopeful about the shared communities of empathy that literature of resistance engenders. It made me believe in the transformative affect of storytelling. To put it briefly, being able to reference, expound, draw upon, and quite literally re-draw pages from other comics that I resonated with, in my work, was indispensable to my “ graphic analysis ” — a process that Lisa Diedrich refers to as “a long and difficult therapeutic and creative process of doing and undoing the self in words and images.”

Comics theory gives us the critical language to talk about the medium and is an absolute necessity for the advancement of the field. But over the last few months of drawing a dissertation in comics form, I have realized that perhaps some of the affordances of the medium is best discoverable and/or advanced through practice. In other words, I believe that there is a case to be made for the use of drawing comics in comics studies. Considering, notable journals in the field such as The Comics Grid or Studies in Comics solicit graphic submissions as do major conferences (such as Comics and Medicine ), maybe we are already witnessing a shift in that direction. In 2017, University of Florida’s Department of English started Sequentials , a journal dedicated to “the creative capabilities of comics as a medium” [Editors’ note: check out this interview with Ashley Manchester about the launch of Sequentials]. Moreover, this year alone, there has been a noticeable increase in collaborations between the comics academe and the industry . The way I see it, these collaborations, these intersections between drawing comics and studying it, stand as a testimony to the growing popularity of comics as method, as a medium, and not a genre as the common misconception goes. Consequently, the question I want to move forward with is: what can we discover about comics — its role in the academe, in narrative medicine, in ethnography, and broadly, as literatures of resistance — by drawing comics?

Works Cited:

Bechdel, Alison. Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama . Mariner Books, 2012.

Bechdel, Alison. “Interview.” Outside the Box: Interviews with Contemporary Cartoonists , By Hillary Chute, U of Chicago P, 2014.

Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home . Mariner Books, 2006.

Chute, Hillary. Graphic Women . Columbia University Press, 2010.

Chute, Hillary L., and Patrick Jagoda. Comics & Media . A Critical Inquiry Book , 2014

Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History . Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Diedrich, Lisa. “Graphic Analysis: Transitional Phenomena in Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother?” Configurations , vol. 22, no. 2, 2014, pp. 183–203, 10.1353/con.2014.0014. ‌

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What happened to the Piled Higher and Deeper comics?

Without dating myself too badly, I have enjoyed PhD comics since the beginning. For the past few years, there have been about 2 or 3 new comics a week, but there has not been a new comic in months. I don't really follow all their social media contacts, but it does not look like there has been a tweet or a facebook update in a while.

Was there any announcement about a break (or the end)?

academic-life
social-media

15 Odd to see such an obviously off topic question from a mod. You know about the chat rooms, of course. – Buffy Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 14:51
4 Maybe you could ask them by e-mail? As it now stands, it looks rather off-topic to me. – user105967 Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 14:51
21 @Buffy why is it off topic? If Google scholar or pubmed went down, or had a major unannounced change, wouldn't that be on topic? Something like XKCD comics has a non-academic following, but my guess is PhD Comics is more or less only followed by academics. – StrongBad Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 14:59
1 I would not consider it off-topic, since it is clearly related to academics. It is just hard to answer, as Guest already has indicated. Maybe Jorge Cham has run out of ideas and is looking for our contributions?! I guess some of the funny to bizarre situations we encounter in academics are worth telling. – carlosvalderrama Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 15:44
4 The problem with this being adjudged on-topic is, it will act as a precedent for similar me-toos , and even more so because the OP is a mod. Also, unless somebody gets a horse's mouth account (i.e. from Jorge himself), any other answer is essentially speculative. – 299792458 Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 16:48

3 Answers 3

According to the latest comic , the series is on hiatus until November 2019. The unsubtle message behind the comic is that the author doesn't owe an explanation to anyone.

1 Just to be clear I wasn't asking for justification or even an explanation, but was just looking for the email Prof Smith sent. I still haven't recovered from losing homestar. – StrongBad Commented May 7, 2019 at 13:56
When was this comic published, just a couple of days ago, right? I'm going to assume there's a mistake in PhD comics archive phdcomics.com/comics/archive_list.php (since I don't remember that comic being there last year) and it was actually published 6th May 2019? (and apparently the author feels like he does owe his readers an explanation, despite the message the comic is trying to send -- seeing as he published this "explanatory" comic more than 6 months after stopping other activities). – penelope Commented May 8, 2019 at 13:40

Not sure what happened with PhD comics, but Jorge Cham seems to be actively involved in this other project: https://www.danielandjorge.com/ It looks like the last comics were around the time of his Kickstarted book celebrating 20 years of PhD comics. Maybe he got burned out by that endeavour?

1 I noticed that a lot of the more recent comics were credited to someone else, as sort of "thanks to ___ for this idea!" - the comic's been around a long time, might be running out of creative novelty. – Bryan Krause ♦ Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 19:07
+1 -- following that link shows that this other project is putting out 2-3 updates a week. I suspect he just doesn't have enough bandwidth for both, so the frequency of the comics has fallen off (though you'd think there would be a note). – cag51 ♦ Commented Mar 26, 2019 at 11:18

He took a break , but the comics are back now .

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IMAGES

Check out the comic Best of PHD Comics :: Draft Approved!
Write Your PhD Thesis In One Month Or Less
Read Best of PHD Comics :: We're all DOOMED
Thesis margins
Best of PHD Comics :: Have you seen him
That thing you are still supposed to be writing in 2022

VIDEO

Is this going to be on the test? #teaching #teacher #academia #gradschool #students
Pairs... (a brain story)
You're drawing Action wrong
PhD
PHD Comics
Women in Comics Draft with Whitney Van Laningham

COMMENTS

The 200 Most Popular Comics
Piled Higher and Deeper The 200 Most Popular Comics
Piled Higher and Deeper
Draft approved! 1/15/2007: Misery Camera : 1/17/2007: Severe Weather Conditions : 1/19/2007: Bright and early : 1/22/2007: In case of fire, save my thesis : 1/24/2007: Last cookie : ... How funny you find PHD Comics : 7/29/2015: Academic Deadlines : 8/7/2015: A Grammatical Conundrum : 8/31/2015: Attachment : 9/4/2015: Sharing : 9/9/2015 ...
PHD Comics: Draft dodging
20 YEARS! - PHD Comics turns 20! We are celebrating by Kickstarting a new book, having a huge sale and offering custom comics and cartoons! Join the fun by clicking here! 11/25/2017
Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper (also known as PhD Comics) [1] is a discontinued newspaper and webcomic strip produced from 1997 to 2018. The series was written and drawn by Jorge Cham, and follows the lives of several grad students.
Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics)
Ponder. Hypothesize. Discover. PHD illustrates and communicates the ideas, stories and personalities of researchers, scientists and scholars worldwide in creative, compelling, funny and truthful ...
PHD comics' Jorge Cham on misery, hope and academia
PHD comics' Jorge Cham on misery, hope and academia Jorge Cham, creator of the cult comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper, or PHD, is probably the most gut-achingly funny/tragic counsellor you could ...
PHD (Webcomic)
PHD (Piled Higher & Deeper) is a Satire webcomic by Jorge Cham that has been running since 1997. The comics depict the typical life of graduate students in Stanford University: how they obsess about ever getting their theses completed, …
PHD Comics: About
About PHD Comics. "Piled Higher and Deeper" (PhD) is the comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in academia. Jorge Cham got his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, and was a full-time Instructor and researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 2003-2005. A list of his research publications on ...
I Draw (A Graphic Dissertation), Comics as Method and Holding
Comics Comics Academe. Kay Sohini October 2, 2020. Last week, in "I Draw (A Graphic Dissertation), Therefore I Am," I wrote about how I got to drawing my dissertation, drawing comics as scholarship, and about comics as a way to think. Building on that, this week I want to start with the concept of "holding environments" (term originally ...
Read Best of PHD Comics :: Draft Approved!
Read Best of PHD Comics and more premium Slice of life Community series now on Tapas!
Piled Higher and Deeper: The Everyday Life of a Grad Student
Cham proposed a comic strip that would center on the life (or lack thereof) of a group of overworked, underpaid, procrastinating graduate students and their terrifying advisers. The Stanford Daily 's editors liked the idea, and in October 1997, Piled Higher and Deeper was born. A few weeks later, Cham created the Web site on which, to this day ...
Jorge Cham
Jorge is the best-selling and Emmy-nominated creator of "PHD Comics", the popular ongoing comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in Academia. He is the co-creator and co-Executive Producer of the celebrated animated series Elinor Wonders Why, which airs on PBS Kids and in 78 countries around the world.
Piled Higher and Deeper
Piled Higher and Deeper. by Jorge Cham. www.phdcomics.com. title: "Final Draft" - originally published 5/11/2016.
Piled Higher and Deeper : The Everyday Life of a Grad Student
The PHD comic strip is still available for free on his Web site and syndicated for free in university newspapers. Cham makes his living with the sale of books, merchandise, and "The Power of Procrastination" lecture series.
What happened to the Piled Higher and Deeper comics?
Without dating myself too badly, I have enjoyed PhD comics since the beginning. For the past few years, there have been about 2 or 3 new comics a week, but there has not been a new comic in months....
PHD Comics: New Book! Oliver's Great Big Universe!
NEW BOOK! Pre-order now! - I'm SUPER excited to announce my new book Oliver's Great Big Universe is now available to order! It's funny, heart-warming and full of awesome science. Please check it out! 9/9/2020. NEW TV SHOW!
PHD Comics: Staples
20 YEARS! - PHD Comics turns 20! We are celebrating by Kickstarting a new book, having a huge sale and offering custom comics and cartoons! Join the fun by clicking here! 11/25/2017