8.24.21 Update: Dead Philosophers in Heaven is down once more and looks like it is being used for an SEO scam.

1.5.20 Update: As of right now it appears that Dead Philosophers in Heaven is back online. That said, the comics are not appearing and seem to be missing. I am still trying to contact the creators.

Dead Philosophers in Heaven: one of the wittiest, well-made comics on the internet… and it’s gone. As of right now, http://www.dead-philosophers.com/ shows a blank page. It appears that the owners of the site, Matt and Nick, are no longer paying for their server. So, What happened to Dead Philosophers in Heaven?

I have a few theories.

When I talked to Matt Russell (the co-founder of the comic) a few years ago about webcomics, he mentioned his busy life. Back in 2017 (when they last updated) he was working on a doctorate on top of being a father. As for Nick Gibbs (the other co-founder), I believe that he had a residence at a UC. This may not be the most dramatic end to a comic, but it is likely that they are just too busy with their personal and work lives to work on a philosophy comic. It happens. And with things like COVID-19 ravaging the world, it is possible that two chaps in academia had to make a tough decision on what they pay for, and unfortunately, an irreverent webcomic staring Camus was probably bottom of the list. Matt does have a family to feed.

This is a pretty common ending to webcomics. This very site used to be solely dedicated to comics for years, before I pivoted to post-apocalyptic parody novels. Being in the webcomic game since 2009, I’ve seen a lot of webcomics disappear without a trace. Especially gag comics, like Dead Philosophers in Heaven. From my own experience, burnout and writer’s block is very real. Coming up with new gags every week is not sustainable if you want any semblance of quality. Most webcomics cease getting updates, get a second (and shorter) wave of updates, and then fade into the ether as web registration expires.

I again, just want to be clear that this is all theory. I have not been able to get a hold of either as the emails I had for them were attached to their site, and are likely not working now. I have also tried their Facebook, but are still waiting to hear back.

Where can I find the Dead Philosophers in Heaven comics?

Right now the best resource I have found to read the comics is Wayback Machine, with the archive here. I do not know of any mirror site or any other place that they were submitting their comics. That said, occasionally I find their more popular comics on Tumblr, and Pinterest respectively. A quick search for “Dead Philosophers in Heaven” on either site will pull up a few.

My search for the comics, as well as a concrete answer for why this very beloved comic disappeared is ongoing. If you have any insight as to what happened to Dead Philosophers in Heaven, or know of a better archive for the comics, leave a comment for others and I will update this post accordingly.

Mother FUCKING Land Pirates. Land. Pirates.

With a clipboard and an iron will to burn everything in their path, Arthur and Rabia set out into the United Wastes once more. This time they have the entire U.S. Army and the IRS to topple if they want to end Boyd’s schemes to enslave the entire wasteland. No big deal.

With plans going astray, and “t”s failing to be crossed, the duo finds themselves at the steps of the highest octane lunacy in post-apocalyptic America: Land Pirates— a convoy of mutant cars and radiated swashbucklers just as likely to eat you as look at you. The good news? They hate the government more than even Boyd’s slaves. The bad? Arthur McDowell is the government.

Will the duo successfully make a deal with the devil and convince the fleet of Land Pirates to join their underground railroad, or will they find themselves on the menu? M.P. Fitzgerald’s savage sense of humor grips every adrenaline-filled page to this continuation of The Happy Bureacrcay series.

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If Mad Max meets Terry Gilliam’s Brazil with a heaping dash of Hunter S. Thompson’s distilled madness sounds like a thing that you can groove to then A Happy Bureaucracy is the uncut primo shit you have been looking for! Coming out January 15th on Amazon Kindle, this fever dream novel has all of the bleak humor that a clown cemetery cannot deliver.

When the bombs fell and the weather forecast became permanent nuclear fire, when flowers of destructive fusion blossomed leaving death in their wake, the least important question was immediately asked: who’s going to collect all of the taxes?

The IRS was the only institution to survive the human holocaust, and Arthur McDowell is a steadfast tax auditor craving the safety of the desk job due to him. However, his dreams will be put on hold as the IRS plans a census into new irradiated territory and he is forced to work with freelance Enforcer, Rabia Duke, who’s diet of drugs is hand to mouth. This will be a suicide mission, and neither is keen to see the other survive.

The denizens of the wastes have much to fear. Radiation, roving gangs of psychopaths, and starvation, but the thing they should fear most is bureaucracy…

…a happy bureaucracy.

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