Who is Jorge Cham?
He is not a Nobel laureate.
He is not an established Professor in my fields of study.
He is not my PhD mentor.
He does not even know me.
But he saved me from the feelings of isolation and depression during the phd days of my life. He helped me realize I am not alone in my research as i went higher and deeper.
He is Jorge Cham, the cartoonist of Piled Higher and Deeper phdcomics.com
Linking academia to comics
Jorge Cham's cartoonist journey started from his cartoon contribution to Stanford University's school newletter. After graduating from his phd program at Stanford university, he was able to get a post doc position with Caltech. But alas, his cartoonist work flourished, so much so that he quit his post doc position and became a full-time cartoonist.
Why is he so successful?
Believe it or not, his comics accompanied me for most of my research career and then phd days - it never failed to put a smile on my face on some of the most gloomy and depressing days of my life. Many times, i can see myself, my colleagues and fellow phd students and my professors in his comics. The way he transforms my helpless situation into light-hearted ones really puts things in a more healthy perspective, which is also called laughing at myself. At other times, I can’t help but laugh at the irony of my situation in a few comic strips.
Laughter is always the best medicine - also includes laughing at yourself. It makes life so much better.
He captures and illustrates gripping moments in a wonderful punch line, called his phdcomics. The fact that most graduate students can relate to him shows how engaging and accurate his comics are depicting stories in academia.
He is very popular
Let's look at his fan base.
phdcomics twitter 117,000 followers
phdcomics facebook 347,749 people like the page
From similarweb
From the data, it is not hard to see popular he is and his comics can bring together people from different disciplines(science, engineering, humanities, etc) and discuss about academia.
Would be totally cool if he can join steemit!
P/S: I have tweeted this to @Phdcomics and hope that Jorge Cham sees this!!
I followed him days after days since my PhD times until now :)
What he does is very cool! Several cartoons are actually very close to what happened to me during my academic life, and I am pretty sure any person involved in a PhD or a postdoc can say the same.
I recommend these readings 1000 times!
It is the same for me! His career change from post doc to cartoonist is extraordinary. Thumb twiddling time and hope he joins
Can totally related to this , and how much laughter it brought my Wife as well