Most mainstream comic books are produced in an assembly-line type of creativity. One that hasn’t changed much in nearly a century.

Most comic books have a writer to script the story, an artist listed as the penciller who draws the initial characters and page designs, another artist listed as the inker who embellishes the first artist’s pencils with ink, a letterer to place the text and a colorist to add colors.

The penciller and inker have an interesting relationship. Inkers should keep the essence of the penciller’s artistic style, though some inkers’ styles overwhelm the pencils.

With “Batman: Dark Knight Unwrapped,” DC has published a hard-cover edition that loses almost all of the inks and tells the stories via artist David Finch’s pencils.

The book does several things.

It exposes the dynamic power of Finch’s pencils. His pencils fill pages with details and mood, action and design. It is a joy to follow the storylines in pencil.

Given these stories were originally published in regular comic book issues, readers of the original inked and colored comics can compare the finished product with the raw pencils.

And a few of the pages in “Unwrapped” are presented in ink. Whether the original penciled pages are gone or the publisher wanted to emphasize the difference, the occasional inked page gives readers an intriguing comparison.

“Unwrapped” is a prestige hard-cover, heavy-stock paper volume, though it can be found in discount bins. A post-Christmas gift worth unwrapping.