Ph.D Webcomic Gets Adapted Into Feature Film 126
Technically Inept writes with the lead paragraph from a report at Comics Alliance: "To the best of my knowledge, Jorge Cham's Piled Higher and Deeper (better known as PhD Comics) is the first webcomic to be adapted into a feature-length film. After months spent on a college campus screening tour, Piled Higher and Deeper: The Movie is finally available for purchase and streaming. And, like its comic inspiration, the PhD pokes fun at the frustrations of graduate students, those noble folks who enter academia with dreams of changing the world and inspiring young minds, only to be thwarted by indifferent professors, lazy undergrads and the ever-present fear that they'll never graduate." The short review linked makes this sound like a very watchable movie.
former grad student (Score:1)
As a former grad student, I say Bravo!
Re:former grad student (Score:5, Funny)
As a grad-student that just defended I say,
$10 for streaming this? Grad-Students aren't made of money.
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As a grad-student that just defended I say,
$10 for streaming this? Grad-Students aren't made of money.
You can get the alternate version at the link in my sig for free.
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You probably need to look up "viva voce" in the context of thesis defence.
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You forgot Pokey [yellow5.com], you insensitive clod!
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Can't you enjoy all 6 for their existent value
Can't you just accept an opinion?
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Not when it's a blatantly wrong opinion.
Re:PhD, xkcd and Penny Arcade (Score:4, Informative)
Cripes. A bleeeeeeping cooler-than-thou grad student *comic strip* snob.
May thy dissertation committee complain interminably about footnotes and papers you didn't cite, for ever and ever.
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That's no fun with xkcd Hat Guy.
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Are you kidding? xkcd is total shit. Let me sum it up for you: whimsical stick figures white knighting on the internet!!!!! But with pop culture references!!!!! LOLOLOLOL. Penny Arcade is better, but the blogs are frequently better than the actual strips. PhD comics is alright, but it's not exactly what I'd call great.
Let me introduce you to a real webcomic: The Parking Lot is Full [courageunfettered.com].
Honorable mention to Gone with the Blastwave [blastwave-comic.com], Sexy Losers [sexylosers.com], and Perry Bible Fellowship [pbfcomics.com], even though PBF is a pretty much a
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My current ones are menagea3.net and megatokyo.com
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Just a heads up, [NSFW] on menagea3
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But, really, xkcd is total shit.
Agree. So often I check the latest xkcd and am dumbstruck by how profoundly not funny it is. I think he should just let it die now (though I'm of course ignorant of important issues such as how much money it's raking in....)
You called it shit, and then described it as profound.
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Let me introduce you to a real webcomic: The Parking Lot is Full [courageunfettered.com].
According to the site, it hasn't been published since 2002.
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Not exactly real in the past decade.
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Hipsters man. Into old lame crap and all about how cool it is. Despite it being actual, old, lame, crap. Its like a hipster in a bar at the juke box.
At least my bike has gears. Oh, and brakes. Silly hipsters.
Re:PhD, xkcd and Penny Arcade (Score:5, Informative)
People have different tastes than me and all their tastes are wrong!
I summarized your post.
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Girl Genius forever! I love you, Agatha!
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It sound to me like someone needs to learn the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Google and read about them thoroughly.
Re:PhD, xkcd and Penny Arcade (Score:5, Funny)
The part that confuses me is that I got modded up.
The disturbing thing is that someone out there agrees with me, but only when I phrase it in the most trollish and asshole-ish way possible. Whoever you are, I appreciate your moderation points, but you need to take a step back and think about whether you've made the right decisions in your life. You're modding up an overt troll made by a bipolar poster who's off his medication and thinks it's hilariously funny to flame people on Slashdot. If you're OK with this, then I'm OK with it, too. But you need to think long and hard about this.
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The part that confuses me is that I got modded up.
The disturbing thing is that someone out there agrees with me, but only when I phrase it in the most trollish and asshole-ish way possible.
There, you finally grasped the idea of Slashdot :-)
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The part that confuses me is that I got modded up.
The disturbing thing is that someone out there agrees with me, but only when I phrase it in the most trollish and asshole-ish way possible.
There's trolling and there's trolling. The fact is that xkcd fans are basically like Ron Paul fans; you say something about their beloved comic / the Fed and they go ballistic. Are you really a troll, or are they simply a hoard of thin-skinned losers?
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There is a surprisingly high overlap between XKCD fans and Ron Paul fans.
I really would be surprised as xkcd seems to market itself to center-smug wing of liberalism, whereas Ron Paul markets itself to Ron Paul Ron Paul Ron Paul.
Managing to disparage both at once isn't the worth effort, as the gain in population of pissed-off-people is marginal, at best.
I'll try anything... for science.
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Why is the parent modded as flambait? It might be provocative, but everything in the post is essentially true. It notes webcomics of actual quality, and explains why xkcd is indeed bad nowadays.
The only weird thing about the post is, that I can't really tell whether it recommends Subnormality (even in passing) or not. For the record, it should not, Subnormality is preachy, excessively wordy (albeit well drawn) tl;dr misuse of the comics medium.
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Perry Bible Fellowship, even though PBF is a pretty much a ripoff of ["The Parking Lot is Full"]. Still, it ripped off the best, so it gets an honorable mention.
Are you actually serious, or have I just been trolled? I clicked the link, and they're nothing like each other in terms of humour or format (even allowing for the different artwork styles).
That "Ghastly's Ghastly Comic" one you linked to was actually pretty funny (if very NSFW)...
I actually noticed- and was pleased to see- that no-one had mentioned the once-geek-favourite "User Friendly" yet (until I opened my big mouth just then). As I once said elsewhere...
Aside from its "moderately-promising 14-year-old still showing too much influence from the Teach-Yourself-Cartooning book" drawing style, User Friendly has always relied on its geek-friendly subject matter and viewpoints to flatter the audience and obscure the fact that it's neither creative nor funny.
Here's a good example [userfriendly.org].
There's nothing creative about this. The "news" was a real-life item reported in many tech outlets about a year back [i.e. 2008]. The strip itself is just a lazy [and badly drawn] excuse to let the audience laugh again at that story- it adds nothing to it except an audience-pandering but uncreative aside."
Frankly, I'm guessing that User Friendly got
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Gunnerkrigg Court, Freefall, or Digger.
Re:No, not quite... (Score:5, Funny)
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Brad pitt's former role as Tyler Durden makes him suitable to play Hat Guy.
The only difference is head wear.
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According to the Hollywood rumor sites, XKCD is held up because Michael Bay can't decide who looks better in a hat, Brad Pitt or Ashton Kutcher.
He definitely should make #311.
Rather see LFG (Score:2)
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They were trying to make it in to an feature length animation at one point.
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an? a. Note to self: actually read the preview.
Saw it, loved it (Score:5, Informative)
I saw this at a screening in March, and it was very good. The references to the comics would be lost on non-readers, but the movie is enjoyable even without them.
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I haven't seen it, but based on the topic I figured it would basically be: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The College Years.
how close is that?
Price point (Score:3)
You can access a streaming version of Piled Higher and Deeper: The Movie for $10
Read More: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/04/19/phd-comics-the-movie-video/#ixzz1spIbl05I [comicsalliance.com]
For one thing, they're using that Tynt garbage [slashdot.org]. For another, that's twice the price of, say, an iTunes or Google Play rental.
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Of all the things to moan about, a bit of javascript that adds a citation isn't exactly at the top of my list.
It sure is inconvenient when one is trying to copy just the title of the article to make a proper citation suitable for use with Cite.php on a MediaWiki site, and Tynt adds the crap anyway. Besides, the Tynt moan was the throwaway gag; my real moan was about the price.
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Not a rental though. You can stream it forever. It is in fact half the price of a purchase :)
Not the first among ALL webcomics, but bravo still (Score:5, Informative)
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Not looking forward to this (Score:3)
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The acting is a bit painful at times, but some of it is ok. Overall it works for what it is.
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The actors are all not real actors.
Jorge actually explained this at our screening's Q/A. They are all actual graduate students. In fact, I am not sure exactly who wasn't a grad student but the vast majority of the film including camera operators, editors, sound etc are all grad students.
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Jorge actually explained this at our screening's Q/A. They are all actual graduate students. In fact, I am not sure exactly who wasn't a grad student but the vast majority of the film including camera operators, editors, sound etc are all grad students.
Yup, if I recall correctly all of the PhD student characters were actually played by Caltech PhD students, except for the 'Nameless Grad Student' who was played by a Caltech undergrad. I actually had a minor speaking/dancing role in the film myself. :)
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The actors are all not real actors.
Jorge actually explained this at our screening's Q/A. They are all actual graduate students.
There's a big difference from acting like yourself when you're not trying to act like yourself, and trying to appear the way you think you would react given a particular simulated situation. Anyone can do the former. Only talented actors can pull off the latter. You have to learn to be "in the moment" and have real emotion in reaction to things you know are not actually happening. It's a lot more difficult than people give it credit for.
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There's a big difference from acting like yourself when you're not trying to act like yourself, and trying to appear the way you think you would react given a particular simulated situation. Anyone can do the former. Only talented actors can pull off the latter. You have to learn to be "in the moment" and have real emotion in reaction to things you know are not actually happening. It's a lot more difficult than people give it credit for.
Ok and you failed to understand the whole point of using graduate students. This is a film about graduate school. Written by someone who went through and experienced it first hand. And filmed, acted, edited etc by actual graduate students. If he wanted good acting, he would have hired actors.
Re:Not looking forward to this (Score:5, Funny)
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Wait, wait, wait a second! So you're saying that the actors are just acting like actors, they're not real actors? How can you tell an actor is real and is not just acting like an actor, anyway? What if someone is so good at acting that you can't tell they are an actor, likewise what if someone is so bad at acting you think they are just acting like they're not a real actor when in fact they are an actor after all.
Yo dawg...
Re:Not looking forward to this (Score:4, Insightful)
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So, wait, what are you selling again?
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You're also a lot younger than them - experience tends to result in greater pay.
Someone still needs to adapt the Girl Genius ... (Score:1)
...the Girl Genius web comic, it's from Studio Foglio. There are not many films in the steampunk style, though - maybe Spielberg could give it a fair rendition.
Shameless plug.
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No. No more adaptions. GG is one of my favorite things in the universe. Keep that cesspit Hollywood far away from it.
How about they write movie scripts with original ideas that fit a movie form and structure?
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Actually... (Score:3, Informative)
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I believe Undercover Brother was technically the first.
Ahem, yes it was. [comicbookresources.com] Not sure what all the fuss is about, only that this latest webcomic-to-movie was a geek-based character set rather than a more mainstream set, but it wasn't first.
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Here's my review (Score:5, Informative)
I read a lot of webcomics and I always buy the printed compilations and other goodies. So I buying the DVD a good use of money to support the art of webcomics from which I derive much entertainment. That said, in my opinion, the movie was only so-so.
Pros:
1) hit many great jokes from the strip - the conference in hawaii, Tajel's hippie-ness, lab role stereotypes, trying to secure funding, etc.
2) I thought male leads more-or-less matched their hand-drawn counterparts
3) I also thought DVD extras were entertaining, particularly the commentary
Cons:
1) the main character had two different haircuts! Thought it was two different characters at one point! I found it really distracting.
2) sound quality was awful
3) acting for the main characters wasn't great, and was flat out awful for all the non-main characters
4) the female leads were not well matched to their hand-drawn counterparts. This is more of a nit-pick than a real flaw. The girl playing Tajel was gorgeous, though!
5) I thought Tajel & Slackenery's roles were marginalized, while Cecila's romance was given unnecessary prominence. I'll agree that Cecila and the unnamed main character are the "leads", but in the comic they don't dominate like they did in the movie.
Bottom line: the movie was made by students, with students, for students. And I think it showed. I don't recommend it for people who aren't fans of the strip. But for people who are fans of the strip I found it to be a good use of an hour, if for no other reason then seeing your favorite strips acted out live.
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I pretty much agree with this review. I enjoyed it, but thought that it came off a bit amateurish and I doubt if it will have much appeal to people who are not already fans of the strip.
Trolling, web comics, Penny Arcade, PhD, and XKCD (Score:2)
Too much time (Score:1)
"Get back to work!" says Prof. Smith
They should have worked with the drama dept (Score:4, Funny)
From what I've read of this film so far, the grad students involved would have been better served if they had worked with the experts in the field: the drama department.
Why is it that so many "geeks" think they're good at everything just because they're experts in one or two fields? No one is good at everything, so sometimes you need to swallow your pride, shelve your ego, and call in people who are experts.
Saw it about half a year ago (Score:1)
I can think of better options. (Score:2)
Errant Story, First Blood, Marry Me.
Timing of release (Score:1)
Cowboys and Aliens, after Moss, I think, well before PhD. No?!?
That's some awful acting (Score:2)
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PhD comics is about grad school. In grad school you're supposed to learn how to learn what you need to know. If you lack skills when you come out, it's because you failed.
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Didn't one of the Occupy guys have a degree in puppetry?
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Puppeteers can make a lot of money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppets [wikipedia.org]
well in IT trades / tech schools are bettter (Score:2)
well in IT trades / tech schools are better college CS just covers the wrong areas and the higher up you go the less tech skills are learned so it's the schools teaching plans that failed as well as HR who says they want a BA, MA, PHD for a Trades / Tech job.
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Oh please. Many engineering jobs are project-oriented, a new project is often like an entirely new job, only you don't have to interview again.