CNN Revealed

spoke to legendary IRON MAIDEN artist Derek Riggs recently.

Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

CNN Revealed: When you started drawing Eddie back in the 1970s did you ever imagine he'd become such a high-profile character, much-loved by Maiden fans?

Derek Riggs: "As soon as I had finished painting the first picture of Eddie I sat back in the chair and thought 'that picture is going to make me rich and famous'... and then I thought 'don't be silly' and went off to get a coffee. I showed the picture to my artist's agent who gave it back to me with a grimace and said 'we don't think that picture is very commercial. I started showing my portfolio to the art directors of record companies who usually drew back in horror as soon as they saw it, one time an art director threw me out of his office because he didn't think it was a proper rock album cover. He pointed to a picture on the wall which was his idea of a rock album cover -- it was an airbrush drawing of a waitress in a short skirt bending over so you could see her knickers. Another record company art director suggested I go and get my hair cut and paint more normal things because I looked 'like a weirdo, or a mental case,' and I shouldn't go around painting things like that and I should get therapy. The picture was unclaimed for a year and a half before Maiden asked to see my portfolio, I gathered things together and thought whether I should take it along as well because it had caused me nothing but grief so far, I kind of thought "oh well" and stuck it in anyway. So now I am a bit famous but still not rich... This story, and many others are covered at greater length in my book Run For Cover, The Art Of Derek Riggs, which is available exclusively from my Derekriggs.com it also contains a lot of nice and nasty pictures."

CNN Revealed: What's your favorite depiction of Eddie and why?

Derek Riggs: "I like the clairvoyant because it's so completely manic. I didn't plan it like that, the song was about clairvoyance (seeing into the future.) I started out with an idea for something like the Roman God Janus who I think had two faces, and then I gave him three faces (past, present and future) but I couldn't reconcile his face when his mouth was open, so in desperation I rubbed out the bits between his lower and upper jaw (his cheeks) and it looked so mad that I left it like that."

CNN Revealed: Do you think he's aged well? Is the Eddie of today as powerful and compelling as those past?

Derek Riggs: "Only the ones which I paint. The ones by other people are a bit lame. They all talk like they can paint but when it comes down to it they fail. This is because they talk the talk, but I am the only one who can walk the walk. I have walked all the way out there and all the way back again and I'm still standing (but only just, and my feet are quite sore). My pictures have sold more merchandise than Walt Disney. One for one Eddie outsells Mickey Mouse. I have sold more posters than the U.S. president in an election year. A lot of the "original" fantasy ideas you see in the movies and on TV have been stolen directly from my Web site and my published works. I thought it up and someone else just stole it. I do get a bit tired of seeing my ideas used by other people who have no creativity of their own, just a big movie budget. Hey, give ME the big movie budget and see what happens. And stop pilfering from my website. Thieves."

Read more here.