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Friday, 09 December 2011 21:35

Written by Sharon Eberson

Correcting this post to say that Chip Kidd is the designer of the book; writers names to come:

Designer, writer, editor, etc., etc. Chip Kidd said he will design "the definitive book on the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy" for publisher Abrams.

"It has to be done by June so it's on a fast track," Kidd said after a lecture at The Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side. "I will have materials from the first two movies, but I guess I'll get everything from the last movie ["The Dark Knight Rises"] at the last minute."

"I don't even know if Christopher Nolan knows me," he said, but he guesses they will work together at some point. The topic of the book and "The Dark Knight Rises," which filmed here this summer, came up when I asked about his attention to detail and if he had any rules he follows when he starts a project. He said what he considers rules would take an hour to explain, but the project that was just beginning was this Batman trilogy book, and as for Nolan, he said, "Talk about attention to detail!"

Mr. Kidd showed slides of different phases of his own upcoming graphic novel, "Batman: Death by Design," which will come out courtesy of DC Comics around the same time as "The Dark Knight Rises" in summer 2012. His starting off points include, What if Fritz Lang were to make a big-budget Batman movie in the 1930s? What would it look like? Two real-life incidents also play a role: the destruction of the old Penn Station to make way for Madison Square Garden and the bland underground maze it became and two falling crane "accidents" that caused fatalities and property destruction.

He showed the evolution of some of artist Dave Taylor's pencil drawings and a new villain of his own creation, Exacto -- a name coming from a designer that drew a laugh from the Warhol audience.

In conjunction with the exhibiton that brought him there, part of Kidd's presentation was on his book "Mythology: The Art of Alex Ross." He explained, demonstrated and partially acted out the eight-page comic book at the end of "Mythology," a Superman/Batman story, with evolving panels, from sketch to completion. His impersonation of a gunshot made all of us jump in our seats and his high-pitched Robin gave us a giggle, as did his random shots of folks in costume who wander the halls of Comic-Con International in San Diego.

There was more design to see than technical talk of graphic design from the master of it, but he's also quite the entertainer, and that was on display, too.

When Kidd discussed his influences and inspirations, graphic novelists like Chris Ware, Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman, he summed up his own work and the work of filmmaker Christopher Nolan, too. "I admire people who take control over the whole thing and deliver and something astonishing," he said.

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