Out at the end of October is this bizarro cultural artifact: Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan. Unfortunately it's not a tell-all pulp sleazer chronicling Bruce Wayne's hopped up days gun running with yakuza in Nagasaki (curses!), instead we get oodles of long-thought-lost Shonen King Dark Knight manga.
Printed from 1966 to 67, and principally drawn by jailbird 8-Man (Japan's first cyborg hero!) co-creator Jiro Kuwata, Shonen King's Batman ran in tandem with the hugely popular Adam West biffer show. Why all new stories? Apparently the licence to reprint US Batman material had been granted elsewhere. Plus! Typical DC world greatest detective tales do not fit your young-teen Shonen aspirational remit. Action clone or bust! Read much more here - an interview with book compilers Chip Kidd and Saul Ferris.
Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan is out October 28th. Expect all-new peculiar villains.
Oh yeah, this Bat-Manga book by Chip Kidd is gonna be awesome! Beside reprinting a bunch of Japanese stories it's also gonna have a lot of color photos of the cool vintage 1960's Batman Toys from Japan. I can't wait!!
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Thanks, Tommy