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

BatmanThis one is for comic book fans all over the world. It's called Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan and it represents a delightful mix of Western and Japanese comic culture.

Bat-Manga itself is a tribute to the Batman craze that existed in Japan in the 1960s. The 400 page book is a collection dedicated to this superhero and was put together by comic book collectors Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear. The contents of the book range from memorabilia from that time period as well as a particular shonen manga series that ran for a few years. Keep an eye out for glimpses of a Chinese Batman; Kidd presented snippets of his project at Comic-Con prior to its release and turns out he talked a bit about a Bat-Manwah!

The manga in question was called Batman and, similar to his Western counterpart, followed a  bat-eared hero saving the city from villains. It was drawn by artist Jiro Kuwata and was published between 1966 and 1967 in the Shonen King Magazine. Kuwata is famous for his contribution to the manga genre, specifically for his pioneering moment in creating a robot-themed series called 8-man.

Funnily enough, DC was apparently in the dark about the Japanese version of their hero. Seems like Kidd got wind of this adaptation when he attended a conference in Japan recently. It was not long before he made friends with another ardent collector, Spear, and would venture out to immortalize the brief Batman bonanza in Japan.

Bat-Manga was published in 2008 and is now available everywhere.