Good Is Dead.

Me, the Reluctant Illustrator.

2009-06-26T17:39:01Z

So I was hired by genius art director Nicholas Blechman to do the cover for the June 28 New York Times Book Review, for a treatise on the history of the depiction of the Almighty Himself, The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright. The review, by Robert Bloom, starts out with the sentence ‘God has mellowed.’ It goes on to chronicle how this came about and that He was depicted as much sterner and meaner in the ancient Hebrew Bible.

I instantly got the idea: the hand of God about to throw a lightning bolt down at Earth from on high, but it would be a plush stuffed toy version…

[continued…]

Illustration for The New York Times Book Review’s No Smiting (2009)

2009-06-26T17:17:00Z

What Father Does Best

2009-06-24T17:52:01Z

[continued…]

Jacket for Gloria Vanderbilt’s Obsession (2009)

2009-06-24T17:50:00Z

Interiors for Gloria Vanderbilt’s Obsession (2009)

2009-06-24T17:44:00Z

Illustration for The New York Times’s OpArt: What Father Does Best (2009)

2009-06-24T17:41:00Z

First “Official” Word.

2009-06-19T20:00:01Z

From Matt Brady’s “Dan Didio: 20 Answers and 1 Question,” posted June 17, 2009, at Newsarama.com:

Newsarama.com: Speaking about upcoming [sic] and writers coming in—designer Chip Kidd is working on a Batman story. Anything you can say about that?

[continued…]

Jacket for George W. S. Trow’s My Pilgrim's Progress: Media Studies, 1950–1998 (1998)

2009-06-08T20:21:00Z

Jacket for Michael Kammen’s Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991)

2009-06-08T20:16:00Z

Jacket for Pico Iyer’s The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (2000)

2009-06-08T20:13:01Z

Jacket for Andrei Codrescu’s The Muse Is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans and Other Essays (1993)

2009-06-08T20:07:00Z

Jacket for Richard Schickel’s Clint Eastwood: A Biography (1998)

2009-06-05T17:38:00Z

Jacket for Eric Lax’s Woody Allen: A Biography (1991)

2009-06-05T17:36:00Z

Jacket for Woody Allen and Linda Sunshine’s The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader (1993)

2009-06-05T17:33:01Z

Jacket for Peter Ackroyd’s English Music (1992)

2009-06-03T05:20:00Z

Jacket for Peter Ackroyd’s Blake: A Biography (1995)

2009-06-03T05:08:01Z

Comp for The Rolling Stones’s Voodoo Lounge (1994)

2009-06-01T21:06:00Z

Jacket and Casewrap for The Who’s The Who's Tommy: The Musical (1993)

2009-06-01T21:02:01Z

Jacket for Tim Riley’s Tell Me Why: The Beatles—Album by Album, Song by Song, the Sixties and After (1988)

2009-06-01T20:54:00Z

Jacket for Tim Riley’s Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary (1992)

2009-06-01T20:47:01Z

Jacket for Michael Gross’s My Generation: Fifty Years of Sex, Drugs, Rock, Revolution, Glamour, Greed, Valor, Faith, and Silicon Chips (2000)

2009-06-01T20:40:00Z

Jacket for Kurt Cobain’s Journals (2003)

2009-06-01T20:37:00Z

Jacket for Wilfrid Sheed’s The Boys of Winter (1987)

2009-05-29T05:20:00Z

Jacket for Mark Richard’s The Ice at the Bottom of the World (1989)

2009-05-29T05:18:01Z

Jacket for Thomas Lynch’s Skating with Heather Grace (1987)

2009-05-29T05:13:00Z

Jacket for Sam Hall’s The Fourth World: The Heritage of the Arctic (1987)

2009-05-29T05:10:01Z

Cover for Ellen Lupton’s Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture (1996)

2009-05-28T14:14:00Z

Jacket for Bia Lowe’s Wild Ride: Earthquakes, Sneezes and Other Thrills (1995)

2009-05-28T14:10:01Z

Jacket for James Sanders’s Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies (2001)

2009-05-20T20:36:00Z

Jacket for Geoff Ryman’s Was (1992)

2009-05-20T20:32:00Z

Jacket for Jayne Anne Phillips’s Machine Dreams (1990)

2009-05-20T20:09:01Z

Jacket for Cameron Crowe’s Conversations with Wilder (2001)

2009-05-20T20:06:00Z

Unused Comp for Bruce Weigl’s What Saves Us (1992)

2009-05-18T16:11:00Z

Jacket and illustration for Bruce Weigl’s Song of Napalm (1988)

2009-05-18T16:04:00Z

Jacket for James Salter’s The Hunters (1997)

2009-05-18T16:02:00Z

OpArt for Chip Kidd’s The New York Times Op-Ed page, April 9, 1999 (1999)

2009-05-18T15:58:00Z

Jacket for Gus Lee’s Honor and Duty (1994)

2009-05-18T15:26:00Z

Jacket for Anthony Hecht’s The Darkness and the Light (2001)

2009-05-18T15:13:00Z

Jacket for Joan Brady’s Theory of War (1993)

2009-05-18T15:08:00Z

Jacket for Larry Beinhart’s American Hero (1993)

2009-05-18T15:03:00Z

Jacket(s) and casewrap for Kenzo Kitakata’s Ashes (2003)

2009-04-16T21:48:00Z

Jacket for Joh Sasaki’s Zero Over Berlin (2004)

2009-04-16T21:44:01Z

Jacket for Yusuke Kishi’s The Crimson Labyrinth (2005)

2009-04-16T21:41:00Z

Cover for Taichi Yamada’s Strangers (2005)

2009-04-09T17:32:00Z

Cover for Ami Sakurai’s Innocent World (2004)

2009-04-09T17:27:00Z

Jacket for Kaoru Kurimoto’s The Guin Saga: Book One—The Leopard Mask (2003)

2009-04-09T17:19:01Z

Cover for Kenjiro Haitani’s A Rabbit's Eyes (2005)

2009-04-09T17:11:00Z

One for Jasmina.

2009-04-08T13:41:01Z

Okay, so this is as important as it gets. This little girl will die in two months if we don’t find a bone marrow match for her. Everyone needs to register immediately.

[continued…]

Jacket and casewrap for Genichiro Takahashi’s Sayonara, Gangsters (2004)

2009-04-07T14:08:00Z

Jacket for Randy Taguchi’s Outlet (2003)

2009-04-07T14:05:00Z

Jacket for Keigo Higashino’s Naoko (2004)

2009-04-07T14:00:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Kaori Ekuni’s Twinkle Twinkle (2003)

2009-04-07T13:57:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Koji Suzuki’s Ring (2003)

2009-04-02T13:51:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Koji Suzuki’s Spiral (2004)

2009-04-02T13:49:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Koji Suzuki’s Loop (2005)

2009-04-02T13:44:00Z

Jacket for Koji Suzuki’s Dark Water (2004)

2009-04-02T13:40:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 1—Kapilavastu (2003)

2009-03-31T17:55:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 2—The Four Encounters (2003)

2009-03-31T17:45:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 3—Devadatta (2004)

2009-03-31T17:41:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 4—The Forest of Uruvela (2004)

2009-03-31T17:33:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 5—Deer Park (2005)

2009-03-31T17:20:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 6—Ananda (2005)

2009-03-31T17:13:00Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 7—Prince Ajatasattu (2005)

2009-03-31T17:09:01Z

Jacket and casewrap for Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: Volume 8—Jetavana (2005)

2009-03-31T15:36:00Z

Jacket for Michael Crichton’s Timeline (1999)

2009-03-28T13:44:00Z

Jacket for Michael Crichton’s Airframe (1996)

2009-03-28T13:23:00Z

Design for Swatch’s The Swatch Decoder Watch (1996)

2009-03-26T14:37:00Z

Jacket for James McCourt’s Time Remaining (1993)

2009-03-26T14:35:00Z

Unused comp for Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled ()

2009-03-26T14:20:00Z

Jacket for Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day (1993)

2009-03-26T14:13:00Z

Jacket and binding for Jeffrey Steingarten’s The Man Who Ate Everything and Other Gastronomic Feats, Disputes, and Pleasurable Pursuits (1997)

2009-03-23T13:42:00Z

Jacket for Vikram Seth’s All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990)

2009-03-23T13:39:00Z

Jacket for Thomas Beller’s The Sleep-Over Artist (2000)

2009-03-23T13:36:00Z

Jacket, binding, and interiors for Marty Asher’s The Boomer (2000)

2009-03-23T13:30:00Z

Clipping: The Learners Paperback in The New York Times Book Review

2009-03-13T20:14:00Z

The paperback edition of The Learners (available now) makes Paperback Row in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review:

[read “The Learners Paperback in The New York Times Book Review” in its entirety…]

Jacket for Alan Richter, Ph. D.’s Sexual Slang: A Compendium of Offbeat Words and Colorful Phrases from Shakespeare to Today (1995)

2009-03-13T19:52:00Z

Jacket for Maggie Paley’s The Book of the Penis (1999)

2009-03-13T19:50:01Z

Jacket for Andrew McGahan’s Praise (1993)

2009-03-13T19:45:00Z

Jacket for Jonathan Ames’s What's Not To Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (2000)

2009-03-13T19:42:01Z

Cover for Paula Vogel’s The Mammary Plays: How I Learned To Drive, The Mineola Twins (1998)

2009-03-09T13:34:00Z

Jacket for Philip Galanes’s Father's Day (2004)

2009-03-09T13:32:00Z

Jacket for Alessandro Boffa’s You're an Animal, Viskovitz! (2002)

2009-03-09T13:28:00Z

Jacket for Kathy Acker’s My Mother: Demonology (1993)

2009-03-09T13:25:00Z

Chip at NYCC ’09 for Salon.

2009-02-10T23:39:00Z

Chip gives Salon.com a tour of this year’s New York Comic Con…

He seems like less of an artist or an author at “The Con” than a fan, providing a deadpan running commentary as we pass booths selling corsets, comics and swords. “I actually don’t own any swords, I usually just rent them,” he says. Noticing someone dressed as Wookie, Kidd comments, “It looks like somebody I used to date.”

Video after the jump…

[continued…]

My NYT Piece on RDJ!

2009-02-07T23:46:00Z

I’m really psyched to announce my ‘debut’ writing for the New York Times Magazine. It appears tomorrow in the ‘movies’ issue. They asked me to write about Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. The only frustrating thing was that they only wanted 1,000 words(!). I feel like I could have written a book.

Behold the national geek-out.

[continued…]

Clipping: Chip Bids John Updike Adieu

2009-01-30T01:54:00Z

Editors and writers remember John Updike over at Slate Magazine, and Chip is among them (and so, for that matter, is J. D. McClatchy):

Working with and for Mr. Updike was an honor and a treat, and because he was so prolific—not only in quantity but in type of book (novel, poems, essays, criticism)—there were many different kinds of design scenarios. One extreme was his habit of drawing up by hand the entire cover layout, including type specs, which I or another of us in the art department would then execute. On the other end of the spectrum, he would occasionally let us do whatever we wanted. And then everything in between.

[read “Chip Bids John Updike Adieu” in its entirety…]

Bat-Manga! on NPR! Listen Up!!

2009-01-26T20:30:01Z

Intrepid radio reporter Rick Kleffel caught up with me, collector-god Saul Ferris and audacious translator Anne Ishii to create this aural history of the making of the book. I’ll be the first to admit it—Anne steals the show with her descriptions of my apartment and fanboy symptoms. She’s no stranger to the smell of…well, listen for yourself.

Hai!!

Listen here, or read the story (and then listen) here.

[continued…]

Jacket for William Irwin Thompson’s The American Replacement of Nature: The Everyday Acts and Outrageous Evolution of Economic Life (1991)

2009-01-22T21:32:00Z

Unused Jacket Comp for Anthony Lane’s Nobody's Perfect: On Movies, Books, Certain People, Etc. ()

2009-01-22T21:23:00Z

Jacket for Michael Herr’s Walter Winchell (1990)

2009-01-20T20:59:00Z

Jacket for Richard Bausch’s Good Evening Mr. & Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea (1996)

2009-01-20T20:54:00Z

Jacket for Douglas Bauer’s The Very Air (1993)

2009-01-20T20:50:00Z

Jacket and Casewrap for Armistead Maupin’s The Night Listener (2000)

2009-01-09T15:26:00Z

Jacket for Robert Polito’s Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson (1995)

2009-01-09T15:20:00Z

Jacket for Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life (2005)

2009-01-09T15:16:00Z

It’s 2009, the Year Everything Gets Easier!

2009-01-07T20:49:00Z

Hello, all. Well, it looks like we’re in for quite a time this year, no? Amazing. But look at the bright side—um, yes, look at that. Definitely.

Anyway, amidst the collapse of all we hold dear, I plan to have several interesting new projects to talk about in the coming months, including the paperback of The Learners, a new James Ellroy jacket, several super-hero related books, and a truly landmark literary project due for the fall. And lots more with artbreak. More on these as they develop, along with a new appearance schedule for the year.

[continued…]

Jacket for Ivan Klíma’s The Spirit of Prague (1995)

2009-01-07T20:39:00Z

Jacket for Václav Havel’s Summer Meditations (1993)

2009-01-07T20:37:00Z

Jacket for Václav Havel’s Disturbing the Peace (1990)

2009-01-07T20:34:00Z

Jacket for Carolyn Forché’s The Angel of History (1995)

2009-01-07T20:26:00Z

Jacket for Wendy Brown’s States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (1995)

2009-01-07T20:21:00Z

Jacket for Steven Wright’s Going Native (1994)

2009-01-05T19:50:00Z

Jacket for Colin McEnroe’s Lose Weight Through Great Sex with Celebrities (The Elvis Way) (1989)

2009-01-05T19:46:00Z

Jacket for Nancy Leman’s Sportsman's Paradise (1992)

2009-01-05T19:44:01Z

Jacket for Wayne Koestenbaum’s The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire (2001)

2009-01-02T15:10:00Z

Jacket for Jean-Jacques Nattiez’s Wagner Androgyne (1993)

2009-01-02T15:08:00Z

Jacket for Christopher Hein’s The Tango Player (1991)

2009-01-02T15:04:00Z

Casewrap and Book Design for Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report (2002)

2008-12-31T15:14:00Z

Jacket for Steve Erickson’s Arc d'X (1993)

2008-12-31T15:12:00Z

Jacket for Jack Butler’s Dreamer (1998)

2008-12-31T15:09:00Z

Jacket and Casewrap for Gore Vidal’s Palimpsest (1995)

2008-12-30T17:12:00Z

Slipcase and Binding for William Shatner with Chris Kreski’s Star Trek Memories: Limited Signed Edition (1994)

2008-12-30T17:05:01Z

Jacket for Edward W. Said’s Out of Place (1999)

2008-12-30T17:01:00Z

Jacket for Mikhail Heller’s Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man (1988)

2008-12-30T16:58:00Z

Jacket for Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun (1992)

2008-12-29T20:53:00Z

Jacket and Illustration for Michael Crichton’s The Lost World (1995)

2008-12-29T20:47:00Z

Jacket and Casewrap for Michael Crichton’s Disclosure (1994)

2008-12-29T20:35:00Z

Jacket and Illustration for Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park/Jurassic Park: The Gift Edition (1990)

2008-12-29T20:27:00Z

Design and Illustration for AIGA’s AIGA Bookshow 1991 Call for Entries (1991)

2008-12-24T21:43:00Z

Jacket for David Ramus’s Thief of Light (1995)

2008-12-22T15:23:00Z

Jacket for Iva Pekárková’s Truck Stop Rainbows (1992)

2008-12-22T15:19:00Z

Jacket for Sam Michel’s Under the Light (1991)

2008-12-22T15:17:00Z

Jacket for Mordecai Richler’s Barney's Version (1997)

2008-12-18T15:11:00Z

Jacket for E. L. Doctorow’s Drinks Before Dinner (1996)

2008-12-18T15:07:00Z

Jacket for William Trevor’s Excursions in the Real World (1994)

2008-12-18T15:04:01Z

Jacket for Joseph O'Neill’s This Is the Life (1991)

2008-12-18T14:57:00Z

Jacket for Rick Whitaker’s Assuming the Position: A Memoir of Hustling (1999)

2008-12-18T14:53:00Z

Jacket for Patrick Moore’s Beyond Shame: Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality (2004)

2008-12-18T14:50:00Z

Cover format for Lambda Literary Foundation’s The James White Review (1999)

2008-12-18T14:47:00Z

Jacket for Christopher Isherwood’s Diaries: Volume One, 1939–1960 (1996)

2008-12-18T14:39:01Z

Merry X-Mas from Chip (and The Space Giants)!

2008-12-16T21:16:00Z

[continued…]

Jacket for Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker with Howard Means’s The 500 Year Delta: What Happens After What Comes Next (1997)

2008-12-15T19:19:00Z

Jacket for Jesse Sheidlower’s The F Word (1995)

2008-12-15T19:13:01Z

Jacket and Casewrap for Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital (1995)

2008-12-15T19:09:00Z

Jacket for Granta Books’s The Granta Book of the Family (1995)

2008-12-15T19:05:00Z

Jacket for James Gleick’s Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (1999)

2008-12-15T19:03:01Z

Jacket for Ken Auletta’s World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies (2001)

2008-12-15T19:00:01Z

Jacket and Casewrap for Charles Solomon’s The History of Animation: Enchanted Drawings (1989)

2008-12-11T14:52:00Z

Jacket for Gerard Jones’s Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book (2004)

2008-12-11T14:48:00Z

Jacket and Illustration for Jon Stephen Fink’s Further Adventures (1990)

2008-12-11T14:44:00Z

Jacket for Jay Cantor’s Great Neck (2003)

2008-12-11T14:41:00Z

Clipping: The BDR on Being Digital

2008-12-10T22:02:00Z

Joseph Sullivan over at The Book Design Review covers, so to speak, an oldie but a goody from Chip’s portfolio (and one that hasn’t yet made it into the Work. section of this site, but never fear: it’ll be there soon enough), Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital (1995):

I was lucky enough to live in London in ’94 and ’95, and I picked this up in a bookshop in Camden Town. I had no idea who Chip Kidd was, and only a marginal interest in graphic design at that point. But even I knew, back in ’95, that this was a pretty sexy way to package ideas.

[read “The BDR on Being Digital” in its entirety…]

Jacket for Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1993)

2008-12-10T19:28:00Z

Jacket, Casewrap, and Interiors for Chip Kidd’s The Cheese Monkeys (2001)

2008-12-10T19:18:01Z

Jacket for John Hersey’s Fling (1990)

2008-12-10T19:16:00Z

Jacket for John Hersey’s Antonietta (1991)

2008-12-10T19:14:00Z

Jacket for Richard Ford’s The Essential Tales of Chekov (1998)

2008-12-10T19:12:00Z

Jacket for Pietro Citati’s Kafka (1990)

2008-12-10T19:09:00Z

Jacket for Anthony Burgess’s A Dead Man in Deptford (1996)

2008-12-10T19:07:00Z

Jacket for Anthony Burgess’s Byrne (1997)

2008-12-10T19:05:00Z

Jacket, Binding, and Interiors for Thomas Glynn’s Watching the Body Burn (1989)

2008-12-09T18:35:01Z

Jacket for Caroline Blackwood’s The Last of the Duchess (1995)

2008-12-09T18:25:00Z

Jacket for Jonathan Weiner’s The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (1994)

2008-12-09T18:23:00Z

Jacket for Noy Holland’s The Spectacle of the Body (1994)

2008-12-09T18:19:00Z

Jacket for Russell Banks’s Rule of the Bone (1995)

2008-12-09T18:16:00Z

Jacket for Hideaki Sena’s Parasite Eve (2006)

2008-12-08T15:08:00Z

Jacket for Kenzo Kitakata’s Winter Sleep (2005)

2008-12-08T15:02:00Z

Jacket for Jane Stanton Hitchcock’s Trick of the Eye (1992)

2008-12-08T14:56:01Z

Jackets Required.

2008-12-05T17:41:00Z

Just a quick note about some goings on around the site: It has been our goal since day one to make Good Is Dead. the definitive compendium of Chip Kidd’s design work, and today we begin, in earnest, the process of making it so. Over the next few months, we will be adding, literally, thousands of jacket and cover designs to the Work. section of the site. We’ve started with six today, and we’ll continue to add a few every week day until they’re all there.

[continued…]

Jacket for Peter Mayle’s Chasing Cézanne (1997)

2008-12-05T15:30:01Z

Jacket for Peter Mayle’s Anything Considered (1996)

2008-12-05T15:24:01Z

Jacket for Frederic Tuten’s Van Gogh's Bad Café (1997)

2008-12-05T15:21:01Z

Jacket for Lily Tuck’s Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up (1991)

2008-12-05T15:15:01Z

Jacket for Daniel Libeskind’s Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture (2004)

2008-12-05T15:11:01Z

Jacket for Richard Sennett’s The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Cities (1991)

2008-12-05T15:02:00Z

Rocketship!

2008-12-03T21:32:00Z

It’s the very last Bat-Manga signing! Come to Rocketship comics store in Brooklyn on Tuesday, December 16. There’ll be a special presentation, Q&A, refreshments, and a few surprises. Also, an exclusive custom Rocketship Bat-Manga bookplate will be available with the purchase of every book.

[continued…]

What’s the Story?

2008-11-11T21:58:01Z

I am endlessly fascinated with the juxtapositions of pictures and headlines in newspapers. Sometimes I think the layout people just get bored, but other times things seem to be totally coincidental. I’ve been working for years on a scrapbook about this stuff (which may or may not ever see the publishing light of day), but when I saw this example in the Philadelphia Enquirer last Thursday for my appearance on a comics panel at the free library, I was truly pleased, especially considering my utter loathing for Sarah Palin (isn’t it fantastic that she’s already SO LAST WEEK?).

[continued…]

Mr. Sandman, Bring Me a Dream…

2008-10-28T15:24:00Z

Hey, all you Neil Gaiman fans! A little mini-contest: I have been tapped to interview Mr. G on stage by the 92 Street Y fall lecture series here in NYC, on Sunday, November 9, at 7:30pm. It’s in honor of the 20th anniversary of his astonishing, legendary The Sandman comics series. If any of you read this and have a question you’d like me to ask him about the series, write to me here in the comments and let me know. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance (for me, anyway), to ask Neil something you always wanted to know about Dream, Death, Delirium, Destiny, Despair, Desire, and Destruction.

And don’t forget to preorder your tickets to Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: The Sandman 20th Anniversary Celebration at the 92Y website.

[continued…]

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

2008-10-28T15:16:00Z

The two hottest genres in comics gleefully collide head-on, as the most beloved American superhero gets the coolest Japanese manga makeover ever.

In 1966, during the height of the first Batman craze, a weekly Japanese manga anthology for boys, Shonen King, licensed the rights to commission its own Batman and Robin stories. A year later, the stories stopped. They were never collected in Japan, and never translated into English. Now, in this gorgeously produced book, hundreds of pages of Batman-manga comics more than four decades old are translated for the first time, appearing alongside stunning photographs of the world’s most comprehensive collection of vintage Japanese Batman toys.

This is The Dynamic Duo as you’ve never seen them: with a distinctly Japanese, atomic-age twist as they battle aliens, mutated dinosaurs, and villains who won’t stay dead. And as a bonus: Jiro Kuwata, the manga master who originally wrote and drew this material, has given an exclusive interview for our book.

More than just a dazzling novelty, Bat-Manga! is an invaluable, long-lost chapter in the history of one of the most beloved and timeless figures in comics.

The deluxe, expanded, limited, and autographed hardcover edition has a distinctly different cover, full-color printed endpapers, and an amazing extra adventure written by Jiro Kuwata (not included in the paperback), about a band of rogue alien robot art thieves at large in Gotham City. Guess who gets called in to save the day…

Pantheon, 2008. 384 pp.
Pantheon, 2008. 352 pp.

More about Bat-Manga!: Check out some images from inside Bat-Manga! and read an interview with Chip and Saul Ferris at About.com. Or read Chip’s recent interview with TIME Magazine. You could even watch Chip’s presentation of Bat-Manga! at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Or you could just skip all this mumbo jumbo and order yourself up a copy of the Limited Edition hardcover at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or the unlimited edition softcover at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

[continued…]

Clipping: Graphic Designer Chip Kidd

2008-10-24T15:35:00Z

Chip hits the pages of TIME Magazine in the run-up to the publication of Bat-Manga!:

I’ve seen pictures of your place and you have tons of collectibles. What the oddest one you have?
There’s a water gun from England, which is a figural water gun of Batman basically bent over...I don’t know how far you want me to go with this.

No, keep going.
I was amazed that this thing got made. It’s legit, too, not a knockoff. His arms are behind his back. The water comes out of his mouth and the trigger of the gun is basically...what you think it would be. The plug you pull out and put more water in is, well, the other end.
[read “Graphic Designer Chip Kidd” in its entirety…]

Jacket for Nelson W. Aldrich Jr.’s George, Being George (2008)

2008-10-14T16:27:00Z

Jacket for Paul Simon’s Lyrics 1964–2006 (2008)

2008-10-14T16:23:01Z

Watching the Watchmen in Stores October 21.

2008-10-14T15:28:00Z

Late last spring I was approached by DC Comics on behalf of the artist Dave Gibbons to design a coffee table book of his preparatory artwork for the seminal 1986 comic book series Watchmen. My initial response was “I can’t,” not because I didn’t want to (I am a HUGE fan, surprise surprise) but because the production schedule was lethal and completely coincided/met-head-on with that of Bat-Manga!, which I was assembling pretty much on my own and still up to my neck in. I was also curious as to what exactly would fill such a book, seeing as the ‘Absolute’ edition of WM, published the previous year, had so many ‘extras’ in it I’d assumed that that was all there was. But DC editors Steve Korté and John Morgan persisted, assuring me that Dave had saved EVERYTHING from twenty-some years ago, and was intent on having me put it together (which was/is very, VERY flattering—I so greatly admire his work).
[continued…]

Jackets and Casewrap for Dave Gibbons, Chip Kidd, Mike Essl’s Watching the Watchmen (2008)

2008-10-14T15:09:00Z

Bat-Manga! Tour Dates. Neil Gaiman at 92Y. And Save the Superman House.

2008-09-16T02:50:00Z

Just a couple of quick updates about things going on around the site and elsewhere in the Chip Kidd-iverse (yeah, I really just said that):

First, the lion’s share of Chip’s upcoming Bat-Manga! promotional tour has been posted in the ‘Appearances.’ section. The tour kicks off with the Bat-Manga! Launch Party at the Strand Bookstore in New York on October 28, and hits Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and a few other places over the last couple months of the year. There are a few details—and possibly an appearance or two—yet to come.

Also posted to the ‘Appearances.’ section, though not officially a stop on the Bat-Manga! tour, is Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Chip Kidd: The Sandman 20th Anniversary Celebration to be held at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Sunday, November 9…
[continued…]

The Learners: Looser and Loopier in ’09.

2008-08-28T05:11:00Z

I’m jumping the gun here, but here’s what The Learners paperback is going to look like when it is published by HarperPerennial in February ’09…
[continued…]

Cover for Chip Kidd’s The Learners (paperback) (2009)

2008-08-28T05:02:00Z

Jacket for J. D. McClatchy’s Mercury Dressing (2009)

2008-08-26T02:30:01Z

Logo and variants for DC Comics, Kurt Busiek, Mark Bagley’s Trinity (2008)

2008-08-26T02:19:00Z

Logo for DC Comics, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Scott Williams’s All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder (2005)

2008-08-26T02:12:00Z

Signing My Life Away.

2008-08-26T00:33:00Z

As you may or may not know, Bat-Manga! is being released on October 28 simultaneously in hardcover and paperback. The hardcover is a limited edition with an extra 32 pages of material—and not cheap, at $60. Regarding this last point, someone in the Pantheon sales force thought it would be a good idea if I signed…all of them. Now, I want to do all I can to make this book a success, so I agreed:

“Sure. Oh, and how many copies are we talking about?”

“Let’s see. Um, six thousand.”

“What? Six thousand constitutes a LIMITED edition?”

“Let me check. Wait, that’s wrong. It’s not six thousand.”

“Whew.”

“It’s seven, actually. Seven thousand.”

“Oy.”
[continued…]

Order Yours Now: The Limited Edition “Asymmetrical Girl” Single Is Here!

2008-08-21T12:48:00Z

We know practically no one buys music anymore, let alone actual CDs, but that’s not what this is. This is the first in a series of ‘artbreak-objects,’ the musical equivalent of numbered, signed prints. Letterpress printed on acid-free card stock by Peter Kruty Editions, this first edition of the “Asymmetrical Girl” single is limited to 200 signed and numbered pieces.

Order yours today with the help of our good friends at PayPal (just click the ‘Buy Now’ button above), and we’ll ship it out to you lickety-split. We’ll even throw in a free artbreak. sticker or two (great for your bumper, guitar case, or even for the occasional vandalizing of street signs) for your trouble!
[continued…]

“Chip Kidd: By Its Cover.”

2008-08-20T17:17:01Z

Sorry for the short notice, but if you’re in the area of Reading, Pa., in the next couple of months, I’m having a gallery show of work (rare for me) at the Freyberger Gallery of the Berks Campus branch of Penn State, curated by Marilyn J. Fox. The opening reception is Friday, September 12th, at 6 pm, and the show runs through October 16th.
[continued…]

Bat-Manga! Hits Comic-Con!

2008-08-19T18:06:00Z

We’ve got Chip’s full Bat-Manga! presentation from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con for you. Get an overview of the Batman in Japan phenomenon, along with a generous sneak peak at the Bat-Manga! book itself, in eight short clips, starting with “Jiro Kuwata, an Introduction”:

(Videos after the jump…)
[continued…]

Jacket for Chip Kidd, Geoff Spear, Saul Ferris’s Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan (limited edition hardcover) (2008)

2008-08-19T17:40:00Z

Police Blogger.

2008-08-19T15:35:01Z

Following up to the post of 7/29, I will admit that I was skeptical when this whole Police t-shirt thing was proposed to me. But lo and behold, they all approved the design, the shirts got made, and three days before they were to give their final, historic concert at Madison Square Garden, two laminated backstage passes with tickets were slipped under my office door via messenger. It was like magic.

I chose as my guest my artbreak partner Mr. Mars Trillion, naturally, and on Thursday August 7th at 7:30 pm we found ourselves ushered through Number 4 Penn Plaza and whisked by elevator up to the 5th floor, and led to the Hospitality Room…With a LOT of other people, also all with passes. But so what, we were in!
[continued…]

“Asymmetrical Girl” Directed by Gary Nadeau.

2008-08-07T01:41:00Z

I’m still recovering a bit from Monday night’s show—my heartfelt thanks to everyone who made it a sold-out affair, and my apologies to those who showed up and couldn’t get in. We filmed it and will be posting parts of the performance later. In the meantime, check out the video for “Asymmetrical Girl,” finally completed. Directed by Gary Nadeau, with typography by Dan and Andre at dress code, and guest starring my niece Lauren on drums.

Video after the jump…
[continued…]

Come Out with Your Hands Up!!

2008-07-29T16:33:00Z

Okay, I think I’m allowed to talk about this now. A week from Thursday, August 7, the mighty Police will play the very last show of their reunion tour at Madison Square Garden, with The B-52’s opening. Months ago, in anticipation of this event, I was contacted by reps of the group to create a special t-shirt to be sold on that night only, commemorating the evening. Apparently, it was Andy Summers’ idea to contact me, and sure enough, soon we were chatting on the phone about what was wanted (a thrill!—he sounds just like Andy Summers!).
[continued…]

T-Shirt for The Police’s Toast in the Machine (2008)

2008-07-29T16:03:00Z

Clipping: Real Headliners

2008-07-25T16:53:00Z

From the true barometer of fame, The Post’s Page Six:

ONE of The Post’s famous headlines is now a rock band. Novelist and designer Chip Kidd was so taken by our Aug. 27, 2006, headline, “Artbreaking” - about famed quadriplegic artist Chuck Close’s battle with a condo project threatening to block his studio’s sunlight - he adapted it for the name of his group.
[read “Real Headliners” in its entirety…]

Brian Greene at the Edge of Categorization.

2008-07-23T15:56:00Z

The genesis, if you will, of the design and art direction of Brian Greene’s Icarus at the Edge of Time represents (for me), a prime example of problem solving at its purest and most exhilarating. What happened is that in the spring of 2007, Marty Asher (Brian Greene’s editor at Knopf) brought me a short manuscript by Brian for which he was having trouble finding a home. It was a fable, a science fiction tale of a teenage boy-genius (Icarus) who lives on a starship heading back to Earth after a generations-long mission and, against the stern warnings of his scientist father, commandeers a sort of pod-ship to go explore a black hole. When he returns from doing so, he finds that everything he knew has changed, and he learns a devastating lesson.

The problem was that traditional children’s book publishers couldn’t figure out what to do with it.
[continued…]

JUST ANNOUNCED: artbreak Live at Joe’s Pub August 4!

2008-07-03T16:21:01Z
[continued…]

Poster Series for The Wolfsonian-FIU’s Thoughts on Democracy (2008)

2008-06-28T17:50:00Z

Interiors for Brian Greene’s Icarus at the Edge of Time (2008)

2008-06-28T17:24:00Z

Commencement: Embracing Your Uncertainty.

2008-06-19T01:15:01Z

Last year (2007) I was invited to give the commencement speech at my dear Alma Mater, Penn State University, at the School of Art & Architecture. I’m posting it here (as a PDF file) for anyone who hasn’t had enough of this sort of thing.
[continued…]

Chip Kidd To Present Bat-Manga! for the First Time Anywhere at the MoCCA Art Fest 2008

2008-06-05T23:22:00Z

JUST ANNOUNCED: Chip Kidd will present Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan (in stores October 28) for the first time anywhere this Sunday, June 8, at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Gallery in New York City as part of the MoCCA Art Festival 2008. Says Chip: “The story of how this project came together is as amazing as the stories themselves in the book. The work is a great cross-pop-cultural convergence that was nearly lost to history, plus it’s just so damned beautiful. Come and see the Batman you loved as a kid, fighting Godzilla!”

Free promotional eight-page previews of the book will be available for signing. Also, immediately after the Bat-Manga! presentation, Chip will host a panel with cartoonist David Heatley on his forth-coming book My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down.

More details, downloadable posters, and other cool stuff after the jump…
[continued…]

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! Dinner with Sir Paul.

2008-06-03T01:37:01Z

So on Memorial Day weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a dinner in New Haven, honoring the honorary degree recipients at Yale. One of which was…the cute Beatle. The only reason I was invited was as arm-candy for Sandy (a rhyme!), because he was on the selection committee. I didn’t really think that I’d get any face time with Him, but as luck would have it, he arrived at the end of the cocktail hour just as The Whiffenpoofs were about to be introduced and the logistics of making proper space for them literally pushed PM in front of me. Or rather, his back was right in front of me.

Pictures and such after the jump…
[continued…]

Announcing artbreak. Video Contest #1.

2008-05-27T14:36:00Z

As you may have seen on our artbreak MySpace, Mars and I have posted two more songs from Wonderground—“Falstart” and “Trees.” These are very different from the others. “Falstart” is more blues-rock call-to-arms, and “Trees” is a sort of alt-folk lullaby about the apocalypse. Plus there’s an updated version of “Asymmetrical Girl,” the video of which should be finished in a month or two (hey, everyone’s donating their services on it, which means it gets done when it gets done).

Which brings me to the point of this post. Our goal is to finish the album this summer and do a pressing of it ourselves with the video included, to be available through the site. So I got to thinking, I’d like to see what any of you budding video-designer-directors out there would do with one of these songs.
[continued…]

Cover for TIME Magazine’s TIME 100 (Vol. 171 No. 19) issue (2008)

2008-05-09T16:46:00Z

Inner Cover for TIME Magazine’s TIME 100 (Vol. 171 No. 19) issue (2008)

2008-05-09T15:46:00Z