The Dark Knight in the light of manga

In a world that judges a book by its cover, Chip Kidd is a visual genius in high demand. The author, graphic designer and pop culture connoisseur is the art director for publisher Alfred A. Knopf, but like many of the superheroes he adores, Kidd has a secret identity -- as a “Batman purist.”

The 44-year-old (who’s designed memorable covers for the novels of Cormac McCarthy, James Ellroy, Larry McMurtry, Elmore Leonard and Michael Crichton) had a childhood fascination with the Caped Crusader that has turned into an obsession.

That leads to Kidd’s latest book, “Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan” (Pantheon Books). At the peak of the 1960s Batman craze, Shonen King, a weekly manga anthology, licensed the rights to publish its own Batman and Robin tales in which the Dynamic Duo brawled with aliens, mutated dinosaurs and immortal villains. But the yearlong run of stories was never collected in Japan nor translated into English . . . until now.

“For Batman fans, the real surprise is that they’ll have never seen any of this or even heard of it,” says Kidd, who’ll be in town Wednesday to sign copies at Meltdown Comics. “That’s like somebody finding five new Beatles songs that no one has ever heard of.”

-- Yvonne Villarreal