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Ph.D Webcomic Gets Adapted Into Feature Film
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.
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.
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.
You forgot Pokey, you insensitive clod!
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
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
For one thing, they're using that Tynt garbage. For another, that's twice the price of, say, an iTunes or Google Play rental.
I figured it was because Michael Bay couldn't decide whether to put in 7 or 8 explosions in the scene based on a Valentine's Day comic.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There is a South Korean movie based on a popular webcomic here that was released last year called Moss.
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.
I'm going to watch it, but as an amateur filmmaker, I'm bracing myself after looking at its imdb listing here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2066040/ ... The actors are all not real actors. I expect it's going to be silly in a painful way. The idea behind it is great, but, for the major roles at least, you can easily find actors willing to work for free who are worlds more believable than some lab rats trying to make fun of themselves.
Brad pitt's former role as Tyler Durden makes him suitable to play Hat Guy.
The only difference is head wear.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
As a grad-student that just defended I say,
$10 for streaming this? Grad-Students aren't made of money.
People have different tastes than me and all their tastes are wrong!
I summarized your post.
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?
I believe Undercover Brother was technically the first.
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.
Just a heads up, [NSFW] on menagea3
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.
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.
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.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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?
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.
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 popular because it came out at a time when web comics weren't ten-a-penny and was targeted towards (and pandered to) a geek audience at a time when this was still a novelty. If it had come out later, it would have been seen for what it is- mediocrely-drawn, and not actually that funny, clever or insightful in itself... and perhaps that's what happened?
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