Rock Reads: Iron Maiden
by Kevin Wierzbicki
The fertile minds at Fantoons Animation Studios have turned loose two fun Iron Maiden collectible books, one a coloring book and the other a seek-and-find puzzle book.
"Iron Maiden - Where is Eddie?"
The Eddie in question here is of course the monstrous animated Iron Maiden figurehead who has appeared on all of the group's album covers as well as on many other pieces of Iron Maiden merchandise. He even appeared on the livery of the band's tour airplanes over the years, which in another nod to their mascot were dubbed Ed Force One, a play on the name of the U.S. president's plane, Air Force One. Here Fantoons presents 15 "Where's Waldo?"-style puzzles, each of which takes up two large colorful pages. Each puzzle has a design inspired by an Iron Maiden album cover or single with first album Iron Maiden, Piece of Mind, Killers and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son among the albums represented and "Out of the Silent Planet," "The Wicker Man," "The Number of the Beast" and "2 Minutes to Midnight" among the represented singles. Eddie is not easy to find among all the "fans," freaky or otherwise, but the book has an index that shows you which version of Eddie you're looking for in each puzzle. No matter how long it takes you to find Eddie there are endless hours of fun to be had as you scour the amazing artwork and marvel at the mummies, monsters and guy with two heads that lurk among the regular folk. As the book's promotional material says, "pray you find Eddie before he finds you!" Hardcover, 9 X 12 inches.
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"Iron Maiden - The Official Coloring Book"
Grab your colored pencils or markers and have fun colorizing 72 pages of Iron Maiden graphics! And while band members feature in some of these illustrations you can probably guess who steals the show here; Eddie! Eddie is depicted as Frankenstein's monster, as an amusing Tickle Me Eddie toy (still in the box, of course), as an Old West gunslinger, as a chess set where all the pieces have (different) Eddie heads; there's also Eddie as a tiki, Eddie as both figures from the American Gothic painting, Eddie wearing a Santa hat in a Christmas scene, and our favorite, Eddie as a record store clerk hawking nothing but Iron Maiden releases. Again the artwork here is phenomenal even before you apply your own artistic touch. Considering that the book is a collector's item, you may wish to own or gift two copies; one to color and one to preserve as is. Softcover, 9 X 12 inches.
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