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Two Dead

Issue 106, Fall 2019

Copyright © 2019 by Blue Creek Creative, LLC and Nate Powell. From the forthcoming book TWO DEAD by Van Jensen and Nate Powell to be published by Gallery 13, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission.

The mob and the cops face off in 1940s Little Rock


Like many cities, Little Rock is a place of ghosts. The dead hover and haunt, though their stories often go untold. This story is a work of fiction inspired by some of those ghosts, who lived a tale the city tried to forget—of the mob and cops and gamblers, the good and the bad, and the hazy in-between. The violence they knew was real and ugly, with consequences, not a thing to be celebrated or courted. In those days it was impossible to escape. The story begins with a man named Gideon, back home from World War II . . . 



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As part of our South Words reading series, Van Jensen and Nate Powell will discuss Two Dead with senior editor of the OA, Jay Jennings, at Ron Robinson Theater in Little Rock on November 19, 2019. Reserve your seat here

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Van Jensen & Nate Powell

Van Jensen, a former crime reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has written for the graphic-novel series Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and for DC Comics. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Nate Powell is an illustrator who worked on the graphic-novel trilogy March, for which he became the first cartoonist ever to win the National Book Award. His books also include You Don’t Say, Any Empire, and Swallow Me Whole, and he has won three Eisner Awards, two Ignatz Awards, a Coretta Scott King Author Award, and the Walter Dean Myers Award, among others. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.