Book designer and author Chip Kidd explored The Secret History of Batman in Japan on November 19, 2008 at the Plaza Branch. Check out Kidd’s works, the world of Batman, or the art of the book cover in these books.

By Chip Kidd | Batman | Book cover art

Written, Designed, or Edited By Chip Kidd

Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan
By Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Saul Ferris
The two hottest genres in comics gleefully collide head-on, as the most beloved American superhero gets the coolest Japanese manga makeover ever.

The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days
Written and selected by Les Daniels; designed and selected by Chip Kidd
From the late 1930s to the mid-1950s, DC Comics introduced the fantastic characters that became everyone's favorite super heroes: Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and Shazam! This brilliantly illustrated volume features entirely new, large-format photography of the original comic books, showcasing this fabulous visual world.

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross
Art direction, design, text, by Chip Kidd
Mythology brings together the best-loved comic characters in the world, brought to life by one of the most astonishing young artists working in the medium today, Alex Ross.

The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters
By Chip Kidd
This novel in two semesters follows the narrator through his first year at the ubiquitous State U. In the first semester, he meets Himillsy Dodd, a precociously brilliant fellow art major with a great disdain for art, and takes Introduction to Drawing. Then they take graphic design with the enigmatic William Sorbeck, and life changes forever. Sorbeck shines in three dimensions on the page, a living representation of the larger-than-life professor that luckier college students have a chance to know. This is a fascinating, funny, and wonderfully written novel of graphic design that manages to deepen the reader's appreciation for the artistry and wonder of design without a single drawing.

The Learners: The Book after "The Cheese Monkeys"
By Chip Kidd
Fresh out of college in the summer of 1961, Happy lands his first job as a graphic designer (okay, art assistant) at a small Connecticut advertising agency populated by a cast of endearing eccentrics. But when he's assigned to design a newspaper ad recruiting participants for an experiment in the Yale Psychology Department, Happy can't resist responding to the ad himself. Little does he know that the experience will devastate him, forcing a reexamination of his past, his soul, and the nature of human cruelty -- chiefly, his own.

Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits
By Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd
Pulitzer-prize winning writer and illustrator Spiegelman joins forces with designer Kidd to pay homage to the comic book hero Plastic Man, and his creator, Jack Cole.

Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz
Edited and designed by Chip Kidd
This beautiful album will dazzle fans of Charles M. Schulz and his art, providing an unprecedented look at the work of the most brilliant and beloved cartoonist of the twentieth century. More than five hundred comic strips are reproduced, as well as rare or never-before-seen items. The book features an introduction by Jean Schulz and has been designed and edited by renowned graphic artist Chip Kidd, who also provides an informed and appreciative commentary.

Wonder Woman: The Life and Times of the Amazon Princess: The Complete History
By Les Daniels; art direction and design by Chip Kidd
Filled with a fascinating array of archival comic book art, photos and paraphernalia, and designed by Chip Kidd, Wonder Woman follows on the heels of the successful Batman and Superman histories to complete this popular superhero series.

Batman

The Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes. Vol. 1, Featuring Batman
By Michael L. Fleisher, assisted by Janet E. Lincoln
Everything you ever wanted to know about DC's Dark Knight -- and so much more -- can be found in this amazing volume, brought back into print for the first time in 30 years! Originally published in 1976, this comprehensive volume includes every piece of information from the Dark Knight's early days through the seventies, covering everything you could want to know about Batman, his allies and enemies, weapons in his war on crime and his adventures across the decades!

Batman Unmasked: Analysing a Cultural Icon
By Will Brooker
Pinpointing four key moments in Batman's history, the author illuminates the debates over Batman's significance by shining a light on the cultural issues of the day.

Batman Chronicles, Volume 1
By Bill Finger and Gardner Fox
The Batman Chronicles Vol.1 begins with the very first appearance of the Dark Knight in Detective Comics #27, and continues with every subsequent appearance in sequence. Created by Bob Kane, Batman is featured in adventures written by Bill Finger, with art by Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and others. This volume reprints Detective Comics #27-37 and Batman #1.

Book cover art

Chip Kidd
By Véronique Vienne
This richly illustrated book--the first critical selection of the book designer's work--looks closely at this contemporary visual pioneer. Vienne presents a full and nuanced view of Kidd, discussing how he has developed celebrity status as a designer, design critic, lecturer, and editor. She also relates how Kidd is greatly influenced by popular culture, noting his vast collection of Batman memorabilia. Vienne concludes by examining Kidd's editorial involvement with books on cartoonists as well as his own first novel, The Cheese Monkeys.

Wendell Minor: Art For the Written Word: Twenty-Five Years of Book Cover Art
Edited by Wendell Minor and Florence Friedmann Minor
Bringing together a rich selection of pieces from Wendell Minor's extraordinary body of jacket art, this volume features commentary from authors and others on the relationship between a book's cover and what's inside. The book includes over 100 full-color reproductions of artwork from the jackets of bestselling books by Ray Bradbury, Mary Higgins Clark, Pat Conroy and others.

The Look of Love: The Art of the Romance Novel
By Jennifer McKnight-Trontz
Swashbuckling sailors, dashing dukes, naughty nurses, and sexy stewardesses caught in webs of love, passion, betrayal, and intrigue: these are the raw materials of the romance novel – and the lusty covers that advertise them. In The Look of Love, Jennifer McKnight-Trontz provides a rollicking history of the covers and stories that have captivated millions of readers worldwide. More than 150 of the most sensational covers from this venerable if venal literary form are shown in color, focusing on the period from 1940 to 1970, romance design's most fertile era.

Book descriptions provided by BookLetters.