Funko, the company that produces popular collectible vinyl Pop! figurines, has announced the latest addition to its artist collaboration series: a miniature Eddie Van Halen figure.
The collectible, which measures 3.75 inches tall and arrives in a window display box, can be preordered now ahead of its release in January 2022.
It’s been a few years in the making, after it was officially signed off by Eddie Van Halen himself in 2019, prior to the late electric guitar legend’s death in October 2020.
Pop signed off on this way back in 2019 and it’s wonderful to see it finally come to fruition. So stoked with how it turned out! #Funk pic.twitter.com/pb5gdVICjWDecember 9, 2021
Wolfgang Van Halen shared a picture of the figure on social media, saying, “Pop signed off on this way back in 2019 and it’s wonderful to see it finally come to fruition. So stoked with how it turned out!”
Other artists and bands to have been the subject of a Funko Pop! figure include Kiss, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, as well as AC/DC, Def Leppard, Rob Zombie and Slipknot.
Joan Jett, Slayer, Ghost, Motӧrhead and Ozzy Osbourne have also been eternalized in Pop! Funko form.
The Eddie Van Halen Funko Pop! can be preordered now for $12.
To find out more, head over to Funko.
The figure itself sees Van Halen wielding his iconic Frankenstein guitar, with the official Funko ad carrying the disclaimer, “Striped Design, [copyright] 1978 Eddie Van Halen.”
It’s the second time the provenance of the Frankenstein’s striped aesthetics has cropped up this week, after David Lee Roth dropped a seven-minute video in which he claimed to have been the brains behind the guitar’s iconic red, black and white “expanding linear pattern” design.
His claims were, however, refuted by EVH guitar expert and author of Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen Chris Gill, who highlighted “three key factual errors” that he said rendered Roth’s account as nothing more than “a complete revisionist fabrication”.
These included Roth's assertions that the body of the guitar was originally white – photographic evidence provided by Gill suggests it was actually unfinished – and that he used blue tape to design the pinstripes, a form of tape that wasn't invented until 1988.
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