Chip Kidd’s Luxurious, Custom ‘All-Star Superman’ and ‘Batman & Robin’ Books [Video]
Graphic designer Chip Kidd has long been admired for his prodigious collection of DC Comics books and merchandise, particularly that which he compiled in the popular Batman Collected coffee table book. Responsible for the trade dress of DC's All-Star line of comics, Kidd has just eclipsed the accomplishments of comics collectors everywhere with the creation of two utterly unique comic books that feature not just high quality glass covers, but also all of the original Frank Quitely artwork for All-Star Superman #10 and Batman & Robin #2.Kidd made headlines in the blogosphere following the surfacing of a videotaped lecture he gave to design students. In the presentation, Kidd was highly critical of Quitely's now famous cover artwork for All-Star Superman #1, featuring the Man of Steel perched relaxedly atop a cloud. It would seem that Kidd's disdain for Quitely's work is limited to that particular illustration, as the graphic designer later purchased at what must have been enormous expense all the original artwork for All-Star Superman #10.
Working with Brooklyn-based book artisan Peter Kruty, Kidd created an extremely luxurious book to contain the Quitely artwork. The cover is made of glass and adorned with Kidd's own logo for the series. Each uninked page of Quitely's original art is presented alongside it's Jamie King Grant-finished and colored counterpart, offering the most visually impressive All-Star Superman reading experience anyone could imagine.
Kidd created an identically formatted book for Batman & Robin #2, also featuring work by Quitely and Grant, although for his edition Kidd replaced Rian Hughes' logo with the one Kidd designed for All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (a series whose cover art Kidd also criticized in the same aforementioned lecture).
Additionally, Kidd was able to purchase a complete Batman manga story by Jiro Kuwata, whose work Kidd presented in the 2008 book, Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, and compile it in a similarly high quality volume.
The video was produced by The Comic Archive, who also interviewed Kidd about his education and history as a comic book fan.