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Official Site: Iron Maiden

Eddie, whose full name is Eddie the Head, Eddie the 'ead, or Edward the Head (also known as Edward the Great or Evil Eddie) (see below), is the mascot for the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden. He is a perennial fixture in the album cover art, as well as ever present in their live shows.

The character Eddie was created by Derek Riggs. In the artwork to the single "Running Free", a silhouette of a large, skinny zombie-like creature can be seen. When the band was looking through potential artwork for their first album, they came across the artwork by Derek Riggs that would eventually become the artwork for the self-titled album. The band liked it, and felt that it was what the silhouette actually looked like. The artwork for the second album, Killers, was also an original Riggs painting before he started creating bespoke album covers from The Number of the Beast onwards. Derek Riggs claimed - in the Maiden documentary 12 Wasted Years - that the design for Eddie the cartoon was based on what was supposedly a [http://www.rastko.org.rs/kosovo/istorija/ccsavich-propaganda/009.jpg Japanese head] he saw on a television documentary, hanging on the side of a burned out Japanese tank at the Matanikau River during the Battle for Henderson Field, October 24, 1942.

The original Eddie was just a theatrical mask. It can be seen in the band photos on the first album and on the "Running Free" single picture sleeve. It was a face right next to the band's logo. It was connected to a pump that would eject various kinds of liquids, from food dye to paint, and would drool over Doug Sampson who was the drummer at the time. Fans would also try to throw things into the mouth at gigs.

The very first version of the mask was made by art student David Brown - then at East Ham Technical College. He lived next door to Dave (lights) Beazley and gave him two or three masks that he'd made. It was vacuum formed plastic, made from a plaster cast of the face of another student. By over-heating the plastic before forming the mask it created holes and blisters and looked like a "plague mask".

Eddie the Head has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.