Why Use This Blog?

For a medium that is relatively young, webcomic production is enormous. There are a lot of webcomics available, and they are easy to find. Google "Webcomic," and you'll hit about 5,000,000 sites that mention the word. Unfortunately, only a fraction of what is online is enjoyable to read. Finding the "good stuff" can be difficult and takes a considerable amount of time and patience.
This blog was created as a guide to finding good web comics. As a starting point for new readers, it features links to great comics and tips on how to search for the good comics on your own. I also review comics that I come across in my own search for the best that webcomics have to offer.

A note: this is not a guide to publishing a webcomic. I suggest reading the FAQ of a good webcomic artist for information about how-to, or visiting this tutorial.

Also, this is not a literary review of webcomics. For a literary review, see the Webcomics Examiner.

I now update on Sundays.

December 28, 2007

PhD Comics

PhD Comics
Jorge Cham
PG
Real Life

I found PhD Comics ("Piled Higher and Deeper" the artist calls it) completely by accident. Part of me, the part that likes comics, is happy I did. Another part, the part that is currently applying to grad school, is less sure. Before running across PhD, I spent my time being terrified that I won't be accepted into anyone's grad program. After reading PhD, I'm terrified at the prospect of being a grad student, period.

Began as a strip for the Stanford Daily long ago when the author first entered Stanford's Masters program, PhD is now featured in University papers across the nation and has quite a cult following on the web.

The comic follows four main characters, (Mike Slackenerny, Cecilia, Our Nameless Hero, and Tajel) as they travel down the path to a PhD. They battle with apathetic advisors, endless research, little social life, even less money, and a constant nagging doubt that perhaps going the extra mile to be called "Dr." isn't worth the effort.

The big theme is hopelessness. Oh, and crushed dreams with a smidge of decimated ego. Only one of the characters is a post-doc at this point, and this strip has been going strong for ten years. The characters themselves don't progress in life much, though they do age. The point of this, it seems, is to better represent the feeling of listlessness that runs rampant amongst grad students.

The humor is fairly consistant. It feels like something you'd read in the daily newspaper, only with better jokes than most dailies. The strip is probably funnier to people who have or are currently sweating it out in grad school, but it isn't "whoosh!" humor. (That is, over the head,)The art is solid at well. In fact, this comic is one of the few I've read online that didn't look scribbled in it's early years. I would be surprised that the author didn't go for art instead of engineering in school if it weren't for the huge salary difference between art majors and engineering majors.

I say go for this comic if you have some time to read ten years of archives. It's a funny, if slightly depressing read. (For the record author, if you ever run across this blog, I was in 7th grade when you started PhD. Not as young as the 9 year old, but still. Grad school really takes that long? *shiver*)

1 comment:

Shane D said...

PhD Comics is even less funny than xkcd. Still better than CAD though, which I was astonished that you read, considering you created a blog about webcomics. I mean, I thought it was reasonable to assume you knew what you were talking about.

Anyway, PhD Comics relies on a similar formula as that of xkcd. That formula is appealing to people who "get the joke" or can relate. The difference is PhD is drawn well but the theme is not nearly as varied as xkcd. I go to an engineering college (WPI) so I can relate to and understand both comics, but this adds very little to my enjoyment of them. Our newspaper prints PhD comics and I consistently take a look at them to confirm that the subject material will be identical to that of the last strip and equally unfunny. As hard as I've tried to find a funny strip, I am consistently disappointed, even more than I am with xkcd. Fortunately it's still better than CAD which looks hideous, displays no sense of humor, and bores you to death with meaningless, drawn-out text.