WIDE ANGLE

July 15, 2012 – SO, WHILE THERE'S OBVIOUSLY A VERY BIG MOVIE ELEMENT TO COMIC-CON, THERE'S A LOT OF STRAIGHT-UP COMIC BOOK STUFF TOO. DO THOSE TWO CULTURES COME TOGETHER AT ALL THERE? But of course! Marvel pretty much owned the comics-and-movies crossover today.

July 14, 2012 – AS WE ALL KNOW, POPULAR CULTURE ROTATES THROUGH EPOCHS BELONGING TO ROBOTS, PIRATES AND ZOMBIES. ACCORDING TO THE PREVAILING VIBE OF THIS YEAR'S COMIC-CON, WHICH ARE WE IN RIGHT NOW? Zombies. No two ways about it.

July 13, 2012 – COMIC-CON 2012 IS OFFICIALLY GOING ON NOW. WHAT WAS THE VIBE TODAY ALL ABOUT? Thursday at Comic-Con has become Party Day. There are parties going on everywhere, all week, of course, but lots of companies want to generate buzz about themselves as early as possible.

July 13, 2012 – Let's put it on the table now: If Breaking Bad can sustain the extraordinary momentum of this season's first two episodes — there are six more this year, eight the next — it will have had zero bad seasons.

July 12, 2012 – SO WHAT IS COMIC-CON EXACTLY, AND DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO WEAR A COSTUME? Comic-Con International is the biggest pop culture convention in America. It started a bit over 40 years ago as a bunch of comic book fans in a hotel in San Diego, and grew and grew and grew. For the past few years, it's sold out its well-over-100,000 tickets instantly.

July 5, 2012 – It seems as though Netflix has gone from the best DVD service ever, radically changing our lives by sending us movies OVERNIGHT through the mail, to suddenly making everyone think it is just so dang tough to wait for DVDs in the mail. Why can't they just stream everything? As much as this complaint makes you and me and everyone we know sound like the subject of that Louis C.K.