Noted book designer Chip Kidd is also an avid comic book fan. In his recently released book Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan Kidd exposes us to the work of Jiro Kuwata. In the mid-1960’s, during the heyday of Batman’s television run in America Kuwata was commissioned to bring Batman and Robin to the Japanese manga crowd. Amazingly, the 400 page book represents only half of Kuwata’s output during the one year he worked on the project.
The book was published in October by Pantheon in a limited hardcover edition and in trade paperback
Here is a video tour of Kidd’s world produced by the magazine Dwell
Interview with Kidd about the project at Wired.com
Interview with Kidd and co-author Saul Ferris at About.com