Sure, it's been a really sad day with all the deaths and all, so let's lighten the tone a smidge. Chip Kidd is the amazing graphic designer/book cover artist/writer who's managed to turn his triple threat talents into two amazing books, The Cheese Monkeys and it's sequel, The Learners. Both books are about graphic design advertising in the 60's: a precursor to Mad Men, if the whole story was told by Salvatore Romano. And yes, closeted homosexuality runs rampant in the books as well.

But now Kidd has a new book out, on the portrayal of Bruce Wayne overseas. Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan looks amazing and everyone should check it out, post-haste. In case you needed any more urging, here is an interview with Chip, describing his love of all things bat-related.

What's the story behind this crazy Batman/Japanese comic book you're putting out?

I've published several books on the lore and the toys and the this and the that of Batman. When the Batman TV show came out in 1966, it was a global hit. But Japan was the only country in the world that contacted DC Comics and said, "We want to license the right to write and draw our own Batman and Robin stories." These stories appeared for exactly a year, from April '66 to May '67. And they kind of came and went. They were never collected, never translated. They just appeared and then vanished.

How was it different than the American version? I noticed one comic where Batman was fighting a man who could change into a praying mantis, a drill bit, a pterodactyl…

They took it back to the '40s, where there wasn't any deep psychological exploration, just a slam-bang fun thing. There's this one villain called Lord Death Man, and his ability is basically to die. But much more importantly, he comes back to life and starts to haunt Batman's dreams. All kinds of wonderful weird things happen that don't get explained.