So, when I opened up The Dark Knight Manual, I was simply expecting a coffee table book, similar to Batmobile: The Complete History, but covering just the Dark Knight series of movies. Although the Batmobile book is an awesome coffee table book, I was pleasantly surprised to find that The Dark Knight Manual is, well, something altogether different.
The Dark Knight Manual is designed to have the appearance of a scrapbook, rather than a coffee table book. Quite frankly, they do a very good job of it. Throughout the book, there are several sections that are made so they look like they are file folders, such as a case file on the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, complete with pictures that are attached by their corners, giving the appearance of photographs simply disarrayed in the file, when they're actually fastened in place; you can flip them like pages a bit to see the other partially-covered pictures. The two-page report in the case file is on City of Gotham Police Department letterhead and is attached in the top left-hand corner, so the pages flip diagonally, as if they had been stapled together. There's another case file on the Joker, complete with two pockets marked "Evidence" containing seven different playing cards of the Joker's namesake. Two more files appear to be a hospital admission file for Harvey Dent and a mental evaluation file on Doctor Crane (Scarecrow). In between the different files such as these, you'll find sketches, CAD drawings, photos and more - with a lot of sticky-notes from Lucius Fox adding a comment here or there on the functionality and availability of some bat-gadget or, perhaps the need to attempt to handle the more expensive ones with some degree of care. Of course, there are pictures that are simply printed in the book in a normal fashion. However, even these are done so they appear to be taped into the book in scrap-book fashion.
Also to be found within, there are goodies such as vinyl appliques in the section on the Bat-signal, a schematic drawing of the Bat, vehicle identification stickers for various Gotham City public service departments and bat symbols, and a map of Gotham City.
The text of the book goes into description of the various technical aspects of Batman's gadgets, gear, guise and garage. If you're looking for information on how the movie was filmed, how Batman developed over the years or interviews with the actors in the making of the Dark Knight series, um... no. That's not here; move along. If, however, you enjoy what I call "source books" - books that go off into little details about the world in which the story takes place, then The Dark Knight Manual is just what you're looking for; it's not just a source book - it's got props!
If you have a bookshelf with a hidden passageway behind it that leads to a massive underground sanctum beneath your stately manor, The Dark Knight Manual is the book that needs to be on that shelf.
