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Show Life Monday & September 15, 2008 B2 C O M I C B O O K R E V I E W A Case for Criminal George Winston comes to Provo Solo pianist will perform at Covey Art Center ITMEL SUNDQUIST Amazon.cofTi The third volume of the Criminal comic book series recently debuted at bookstores. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips continue to deliver one of the best books on the stand BENJAMIN BAILEY [_T!O VMVC* If you are looking for a great comic book experience but superheroes don't get your cape blowing and you want something a bit more grounded, then look no further than Criminal. Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean "Phillips, Criminal has consistently been one of the best comic books published. With Volume 3 just now hitting store-shelves there is no better time to check out this stellar title. Brubaker and Phillips were not exactly no names in the industry when the>f started Qriminal. They worked together on the book Sleeper, and Brubaker's day job is writing the likes of Captain America, Daredevil and, the X-Men. All the while Phill i p became somewhat of a superstar with his work on Marvel Zombies. Still, Criminal was something of a risk. After all, crime comics had not been a big deal for decades, and who could say if they would ever make a comeback? Published through Marvel Comics' Icon imprint in October 2006, Criminal became a critical sensation almost immediately, eventually winning the Eisner (the comic book equivalent to the Oscar) for best new series. With its roots firmly planted in the crime noir tales of the past, Criminal still manages to feel distinctly fresh. Unlike other comic books currently fighting for space on the shelf, Criminal is not trying to reinvent the wheel. What it is, first and foremost, is a crime saga - and a damn good one at that. The stories are classic crime fiction tales of revenge, betrayal, lust and greed, yet they still feel modern and new. Throw in expert pacing, masterful dialogue, beautifully dark artwork, and you have one of the best comic books to come around in years. It also happens to be totally and completely accessible to people who do not read comic books. This is what makes Criminal so important to the industry. Every volume stands on its own as a complete story. You can hand your dad Volume 2 (assuming your dad is cool with cussing, vicious beatings nudity, and the occasional execution), and he can enjoy it. There is no learning curve, no new rules to learn. It is a comic book through and through, but a comic book that can be read by anyone^ as long as they can handle the mature subject matter. The comic book world needs more books like Criminal - more books that don't try to reshape the medium but instead showcase it in its classic form and at its very best. Do yourself a favor and give Criminal a try, even if you have never read a graphic novel in your life. You will not be disappointed. This Friday, solo pianist George Winston will perform at the Covey Center for the Arts in Provo. Winston, whose career began in 1972 with his first album, Ballads And Blues, has since released seven multiplatinum, platinum and gold albums. Chances are the majority of UVU students have never heard of Winston. But their parents most likely have. His career peaked in the '70s and '80s, but that doesn't mean he's no longer an important contributor to the music world. Since 1980 he has released nine solo piano albums, the most recent of which was a tribute to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina titled Gulf Coast Blues And Impressions. This album was released on Sept. 5. According to a press release from the Covey Center, Winston plays over one hundred solo piano concerts a year. His songs range from New Orleans R&B piano to Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts pieces. "I play three styles: New Orleans R&B piano, and the majority of the songs I play are in this style; stride piano, which was the main way of playing that I worked on after hearing Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; and third, folk piano, the style that I GEORGE WINSTON W h e n : The concert will take place on Friday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. W h e r e : The Covey Center is located at 425 West Center Street in Provo. C o s t : $20-$25 and can be purchased at the Ticket Office, by calling 801-852-7007, or by visiting www.CoveyCenter.org came up with in 1971 which is influenced and inspired by instrumental R&B and rock. North American folk music, and even more by the sounds of the piano itself," Winston said. The Covey Center is evolving into a more impressive and respectable venue in Utah Valley. They have started to draw in more than just local artists like the Thrillionaires and Kirby Heybourne. For example, the annual dance concert Thriller by Odyssey Dance Theater has never performed in Utah Valley, but this October they will show for two nights at the Center. The venue has become a place for multiple types of entertainment. Theater, comedy, dance, symphonies, art, and community parties have all been hosted at the center. Eerie new Fringe crash-lands LUIS R. MERINO 9 As lightning flashes, an overly anxious passenger aboard flight 726 proceeds to inject himself with an unknown substance — the aftermath can only be described f as one of the most gruesome and horrific sequences in television history. Let's just say it involves melting flesh and gallons of vortiit. " As shocking as the open- ( ing scenfe to Fox's new series Fringe is, it effectively sets the stage for the entire show. In the pilot episode, which aired last week, FBI agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) is assigned to investigate the happenings on flight 726, which ended with the mysterious deaths of all passengers and crew on board. Agent Dunham enlists the help of streetwise genius Peter Bishop (Dawsoh Creek's Joshua Jackson) and his scientist father Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble) who has been locked away in a mental hospitaffor the past (7 years. After 82 minutes of explosions, jaw-dropping special effects, car-chase action, and more twists and turns than you can shake a melting fist at, Agent Dunham and company manage to get to the bottom of what happened NYTimes.com on flight 726, while opening the door to a mythology that Agent Dunham (Anna Torv) awakes from mentally converging is set to be explored through- with her comatose lover. out the rest of the season. Order and Cft), and the light car-chase scene, it becomes Dunham's superior, now use of a grand understory or harder to take the translucent impressed with her efforts in mythology (as seen in serial skin disease in the previous the pilot, will utilize her and dramas like Heroes or 24). scene seriously. her team to investigate other Though this combo will It is true, though, that crimes involving "fringe" allow for a wider, more ca- Fringe fills the sci-fi hole sciences (including astro- sual audience than the rest of left in network programming projection, teleportation and Abrams' series, it attempts by The X-Files six years ago. dark matter). to be too many things at And although it might not Unlike the rest of J.J. once. This causes the show resonate with some viewers, Abrams' series, like Lost and to be uneven. 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