STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
DC Comics, the home of Superman, is reissuing its style guide.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A style guide for DC Comics.
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTIN: OK, but why is that news?
INSKEEP: Well, fans have wanted for years to have some way to buy this guide to avoid having to scour the internet for rare and pricey originals.
MARTIN: So what is the DC Comics style guide? What are we talking about here?
INSKEEP: Well, it was created in 1982, to help ensure a consistent look for characters like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BATMAN")
MICHAEL KEATON: (As Batman) I want you to tell all your friends about me.
CHRISTOPHER FAIRBANK: (As Nick) What are you?
KEATON: (As Batman) I'm Batman.
INSKEEP: A few years after the style guide came out, we got this Tim Burton blockbuster movie treatment. I believe that was Michael Keaton as Batman. Tom King writes for DC Comics, and expects to get his copy of the guide any day now.
TOM KING: Most people in this world cannot tell you when they learned who Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman are. By the time they're 3 or 4, they have an image in their head of who those superheroes are, what they look like - that close-your-eyes image, the image you've had since before you could remember, is the DC style guide.
MARTIN: I confess - I mostly care about their outfits for Halloween costume inspiration...
INSKEEP: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ...But OK, if you say so.
INSKEEP: Well, you want to make sure you have authentic costumes, I guess. Now, this style guide was drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, whom Tom King compares to Italian Renaissance artists.
KING: Christianity was around for a good 1,400 years, but somehow, what Michelangelo and Raphael did with those images sort of defined how it exists in our subconscious. You could say Garcia-Lopez's effect on comics - like, that's the equivalent.
MARTIN: Now, I'm used to thinking about style guides that apply to, you know, news writing. That's something we would use.
INSKEEP: Yeah.
MARTIN: So why did DC decide its comics needed a style guide?
INSKEEP: There's a backstory, because in the 1970s and 1980s, DC Comics was falling behind a rival publisher.
KING: Marvel was, like, the cool kids.
INSKEEP: And DC Comics were stuffy.
KING: And that was the reputation - like, you wore a tie at DC. To sort of get young blood in, DC hired a 28-year-old woman to take over a company that was run by 60-year-old men (laughter).
INSKEEP: That 28-year-old, Jenette Kahn, revamped DC and set the stage for a style guide to make sure that character images stayed consistent, which helps Tom King as he writes DC comics today.
KING: When I look at that, it's like, that's what I want to capture - something both fun and transcendent. Superman is smiling. Batman looks sleek. You know, Wonder Woman looks strong. It represents the simplicity of a thing done right.
MARTIN: Back in print, four decades later. That's great.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BATMAN THEME")
NEAL HEFTI AND HIS ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS: (Singing) Batman. Batman. Batman. Batman. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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