Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan [Paperback]

Chip Kidd (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 28, 2008

The two hottest genres in comics gleefully collide head-on, as the most beloved American superhero gets the coolest Japanese manga makeover ever.

In 1966, during the height of the first Batman craze, a weekly Japanese manga anthology for boys, Shonen King, licensed the rights to commission its own Batman and Robin stories. A year later, the stories stopped. They were never collected in Japan, and never translated into English. Now, in this gorgeously produced book, hundreds of pages of Batman-manga comics more than four decades old are translated for the first time, appearing alongside stunning photographs of the world’s most comprehensive collection of vintage Japanese Batman toys.

This is The Dynamic Duo as you’ve never seen them: with a distinctly Japanese, atomic-age twist as they battle aliens, mutated dinosaurs, and villains who won’t stay dead. And as a bonus: Jiro Kuwata, the manga master who originally wrote and drew this material, has given an exclusive interview for our book.

More than just a dazzling novelty, Bat-Manga! is an invaluable, long-lost chapter in the history of one of the most beloved and timeless figures in comics.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

The campy, Pop-art-infused Batman television series that d�buted in 1966 was not just a hit in the U.S.; it also set off an international wave of Batmania. A Tokyo publisher licensed the comic-book rights and new weekly Batman adventures appeared for more than a year, drawn by Jiro Kuwata, a manga prodigy who co-created the popular cyborg superhero 8-Man. His work, never reprinted and previously untranslated, was so little known here that, until its rediscovery by Kidd and Ferris, even DC Comics, �Batman� �s publisher, was unaware of its existence. Kuwata, an action virtuoso, employed hypnotic geometrical motifs within his panels, incorporating realistic Batman and Robin figures into an exaggeratedly cartoonish style. His Batman fights villains like the shape-shifting Clayface and Go-Go the Magician, as well as typically Japanese oversized robots, insects, and dinosaurs.
Copyright ©2008 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Chip Kidd is a graphic designer and writer in New York City. His two previous books about comics for Pantheon were Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz and Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross. Both won the Eisner Award and were national bestsellers.

Geoff Spear is a photographer, living and working in lower Manhattan. For over two decades he has shot hundreds of images for a wide range of book covers, by such authors as Haruki Murakami, John Burdett, Augusten Burroughs, Oliver Sacks and Daniel Gilbert, among many others.

Saul Ferris is a founding partner in the law office of Ferris, Thompson and Zweig, in Gurnee, Illinois. During the last twenty years, he has amassed the most comprehensive collection of vintage Japanese Batman toys and memorabilia in the world.

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375714847
• ISBN-13: 978-0375714849
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 1 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > History & Price Guides

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Who would have thought? October 28, 2008

By Tim Lasiuta

Format:Hardcover

North American comic fans in the 1960's knew Batman. You could turn the TV on, and watch Adam West/Burt Ward battle crime on a daily basis. The Green Hornet entertained us for a couple of seasons too. Look at the newsstands, and we could find the comic books everywhere. Bob Kane was getting credited with artwork, but Neal Adams, Carmine Infantino, and Gil Kane were starting to change the caped crusader later in the decade.

Then there's the manga Batman I never knew existed. DC licensed Batman to Shonen King and artist Jiro Kuwata created a sensational manga treatment that is visually stunning. Not based on Bob Kane scripts, he changed elements to appeal to the Japanese audience that Shonen King had. The resulting stories are true to the nature of the strip, yet true to the manga culture that craved Batman.

Jiro brings us, courtesty of Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, and Saul Ferris, Batman battling with Clayface, Lord Death, aliens, and Dr Denton. The art is reproduced from printed pages of the book, yet it does not detract, but adds the 40 plus year age to the stories that are still fresh. Reading them with an Adam West appearance, you can almost hear the omitted 'Holy Manga Villain Batman! It's....'!

I really like the added bonus of the Jiro interview, and photos of rare Japanese Batman collectibles. Great book for only $29.95, but spring for the signed hardcover.

Tim Lasiuta

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great new perspective on Batman December 17, 2008

By J. Thomason

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm a big fan of the original Bob Kane/Bill Finger run on Batman, as well as Manga from the 60s. This book has the feel of both. It's a collection of several issues of the Batman Manga from the 60s. The stories take some of the classic villians (like Clayface) and reimagine him. The stories aren't complex, but they are a lot of fun. My only complaint is how incomplete they are. You get part one of a story, but it's missing part two. I'm sure it's just a matter of time until the whole run will be collected.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unearthed Treasure December 15, 2008

By E. David Swan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a truly unexpected find. In the introduction Chip Kidd describes how shocked he was to discover that there had been Batman comics produced in Japan back in 1966 describing this find as a `new Holy Bat-Grail'. He presented the information to Paul Levits, the President of DC Comics, saying it was like presenting the skull of John the Baptist to the Pope. Right from the start it's obvious that Chip Kidd is more than a guy putting out some Batman material, he's a major Batman fan producing a book for fans.

I have enjoyed DC Comics for as long as I can remember but oddly enough Batman has never been one of my big favorites. In the last few years, however, I've learned to appreciate the Dark Knight particularly since of all the DC characters he tends to have the highest quality comics and movies. Jiro Kuwata's Batman has more in common with the U.S. comic from the 1940's rather than one from the Mid 1960's but they are easily distinguishable from American Batman comics regardless of the era. The stories are extremely shallow and the artwork is drawn in a very cartoony Japanese style reminiscent of the era. This is not a complaint but readers should be prepared. No one is going to mistake these books for Batman Year One or Frank Miller's Dark Knight in terms of story depth. Imagine it more as if Batman was living in the world of Speed Racer.

Chip Kidd states right up front that these stories are incomplete. The story with `Go Go the Magician' ends with Batman trapped behind a wall of ice suffocating. Still `Go Go' fares better than Dr. Faceless who gets neither a beginning nor an ending. What kind of irks me about this is that Mr. Kidd collected an equal amount of additional material to what's presented after he began preparing this collection for publishing. According to Mr. Kidd this additional material will be published if Bat-Manga sells well enough. But this sounds like a real problem because in order to complete the stories the next book would need to have the beginning of the Dr. Faceless story and the conclusion and the reader would have to go back to this book for the middle portion. Yikes.

So let me get down to brass tacks and tell you exactly what's in this book. There are five stories spanning multiple issues. The first one features Clayface (the only actual Batman villain to put in an appearance. This story is missing its ending. Next up is Lord Death Man, a character with no apparent counterpart in DC Comics. This story is complete. Following Lord Death Man is `Go Go the Magician', a near clone of the Weather Wizard including WW's "weather wand", physical appearance and origin. As mentioned earlier Go Go is absent an ending. Dr. Faceless is vaguely similar to Two-Face if both sides of Harvey Dent's face had been destroyed. Poor Faceless gets neither a beginning nor an ending. Perhaps as a homage to Gorilla Grodd, Karmak is an ape who temporarily gets the intelligence of a brilliant scientist. This one is missing its beginning but it's pretty easy to get the gist of what's going on. The final story, about a politician who transforms into a hyper powerful mutant, is entirely complete. So 40% of the stories are complete and one story has enough that most readers won't miss the beginning. Not so bad. Also, there are no breaks in the stories so except for beginnings and endings the continuity is complete.

I suspect the reason the publishers pushed this collection to market before collecting all the material is because they were so anxious for people to see it. This is one of those products that feels like a labor of love more than an opportunity to turn a quick dollar. It's nicely sized for the material with all sorts of images of quirky Japanese toys and art of Batman spread throughout the book. They even produced the book in its original Japanese right to left layout. It's a really neat book that someone could stick on their coffee table without feeling silly. I just wish they could have waited to collect more material.