One of the seminal book on art deco is The Metropolis of Tomorrow by Hugh Ferriss. Ferriss took the skyscraper and made it an art form as well as inspiring a legion of designers and architects. One of those inspired by the book was designer/writer Chip Kidd. He took Ferriss’ ideas, threw in a dash of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and created (along with artist Dave Taylor) a Batman story set in this art decoish universe, Batman: Death by Design. The art and the look of the story are amazing, the concept is brilliant and the execution misses the mark. Not in the art, but in the mediocre story. But it is a gorgeous book to look at. Let’s see what went wrong.