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Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan in stores today!
The two hottest genres in comics gleefully collide head-on, as the most beloved American superhero gets the coolest Japanese manga makeover ever.
Learn more about Bat-Manga!: Check out some images from inside Bat-Manga! and read an interview with Chip and Saul Ferris at About.com. Or read Chip’s recent interview with TIME Magazine. You could even watch Chip’s presentation of Bat-Manga! at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Or you could just skip all this mumbo jumbo and order yourself up a copy of the Limited Edition hardcover at Amazon.com
or Barnes & Noble or the unlimited edition softcover at Amazon.com
or Barnes & Noble.
LATEST JOURNAL ENTRY
What’s the Story?
I am endlessly fascinated with the juxtapositions of pictures and headlines in newspapers. Sometimes I think the layout people just get bored, but other times things seem to be totally coincidental. I’ve been working for years on a scrapbook about this stuff (which may or may not ever see the publishing light of day), but when I saw this example in the Philadelphia Enquirer last Thursday for my appearance on a comics panel at the free library, I was truly pleased, especially considering my utter loathing for Sarah Palin (isn’t it fantastic that she’s already SO LAST WEEK?).
RECENT CLIPPINGS
Graphic Designer Chip Kidd
Chip hits the pages of TIME Magazine in the run-up to the publication of Bat-Manga!:
I’ve seen pictures of your place and you have tons of collectibles. What the oddest one you have?
There’s a water gun from England, which is a figural water gun of Batman basically bent over...I don’t know how far you want me to go with this.No, keep going.
I was amazed that this thing got made. It’s legit, too, not a knockoff. His arms are behind his back. The water comes out of his mouth and the trigger of the gun is basically...what you think it would be. The plug you pull out and put more water in is, well, the other end.
[read “Graphic Designer Chip Kidd” in its entirety…]
Real Headliners
From the true barometer of fame, The Post’s Page Six:
ONE of The Post’s famous headlines is now a rock band. Novelist and designer Chip Kidd was so taken by our Aug. 27, 2006, headline, “Artbreaking” - about famed quadriplegic artist Chuck Close’s battle with a condo project threatening to block his studio’s sunlight - he adapted it for the name of his group.
[read “Real Headliners” in its entirety…]
The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists
Okay, so, Chip is a finalist for the 2008 TIME 100, TIME magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in, well, the world. This is the ‘con’ portion of Chip’s mini-profile on the TIME 100 page:
As is often the case with replicable success, Kidd’s book-jacket dominance is provoking backlash. (Updike has called his stuff “monstrously ugly.") Soon, he’ll be the orthodoxy some new Kidd will rebel against.
Is it just me, or is that just as much a pro as it is a con? Either way, please go vote for Chip. Barack Obama, Bono, Steven Colbert, George Clooney, The Pope, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are pretty stiff competition, ya know?