By Zack Quaintance — Two Dead is a recent crime noir graphic novel from writer Van Jensen and artist Nate Powell, set in Arkansas post WW II and based on an actual case that Jensen essentially uncovered and wrote about during his time as a crime reporter at a newspaper in Little Rock. Powell — a towering talent who has a stack of comics and literary accolades to his name — drew the book over a period of a few years while working concurrently on work such as Come Again and March, a three part graphic memoir about the life of the late Rep. John Lewis.

This is a story that has sat with both of its creators for years, and the long-term contemplation of the narrative is evident in every facet of the work. Put simply, Two Dead is one of the most thoughtful and immersive graphic novels I’ve ever read, and I was at times stunned by what I found in its pages, be it the incredible cartooning Powell accomplished (ranging from shaded and thrilling shootouts at night to hints of the supernatural and ethereal with visceral sense of feeling) or the feats of empathy Jensen put into developing the two main characters. At more than 200 pages, Two Dead is a long and rewarding read, one that does not shy away from requiring a heavy time and emotional investment from its readers. All of this is to say that I absolutely loved this book.

I loved it so much, in fact, that I’m on the third draft of this review, resisting as I did the temptation to just go on about all that I liked about the work. I have, however, decided to stop fighting that, and so from this point on, I’ll just be going through my notes about the most intriguing qualities of this story.

Perhaps the first thing that jumped out at me while reading this book during this odd year of 2020 was how relevant the themes felt to our times, despite being culled from actual events in the 1940s. To me the core of the story was a tension between following the rules as laid about by systems and taking a dangerous the ends-justify-the-means approach that makes one capable of any behavior provided they have a strong belief they are doing what is right. On each side of this tension is one of our central characters: straight-laced Gideon, a young star in the police department who is still processing trauma from a friendly fire accident during the war; and grizzled Bailey, a cop who plays by his own rules, dangerously so.

This tension builds expertly in the first half of the book, until an attempt is made on Bailey’s life and he gives himself free license to do whatever it takes to defend himself. Bailey makes the attack a racial issue, and it’s here we see how truly dangerous it is for the people in a society who have authority to act outside the rules, to make their own laws. There are multiple events and relationships in the book defined by this tension, even if it is at times itself depicted in shades of grey. There are, for example, multiple incidents in which the story points out that the military men involved were able to kill with their own justifications during the war. It’s all very thought-provoking and powerful, reflected as it is expertly upon our modern times.

Timeliness aside, Two Dead is also just an entertaining story told with bold creative choices. There are touches of the supernatural that play into mental health, and Powell’s cartooning keeps them clear yet haunting. The reality is malleable, yet the reader is never disoriented, never left to fill in gaps. We know exactly what is happening and why at all times, even if it’s inside one of the protagonists heads. The other impressive bit of craft comes in the way the book is structured. There are many flashbacks, and they’re not always played out the same way — yet they never feel distracting or divergent. The mixed chronology in this book is purely additive, a difficult feat (I often find) for comics storytelling to accomplish.

In the end, Two Dead is as essential as graphic novels get in 2020, both for the questions it raises about power structures, the role of the individual within them, and our times, as well as for the intriguing use of vast talent and comics craft. If you missed this book late last year (as I did), do yourself a favor and catch up with it now.

Two Dead - Graphic Novel Review

Two Dead
Writer: Van Jensen
Artist: Nate Powell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster - Gallery 13
Price: $19.99
After World War II, tensions rise in a Southern city ruled by organized crime, touching countless residents as they struggle to make sense of the new world. A sudden act of violence sets off a series of bloody events between the police and mafia as they lash out against one another. As the violence worsens, desperation grows to stop it, by any means necessary. Told in multiple perspectives—from a seemingly untouchable mafia don, to a gun-happy seasoned detective succumbing to the depths of his schizophrenia, to a newly minted police lieutenant haunted by his recent service in the war, and two African-American brothers, one mired in corruption and the other leading a local militia in an effort to see that justice is served—Two Dead is at once a white-knuckled and unputdownable thriller, a roman à clef inspired by true events, and a book about post-traumatic stress disorder and the underlying social traumas of how war and segregation affect their survivors on all fronts.

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.