Looking for ways to teach your child the alphabet? Well, allow me to direct your attention to this very awesome poster titled “The ABC’s of Heavy Metal,” which makes the alphabet out of various heavy metal band logos.

Check out the poster image here at right (click for larger full view).

This 18″ x24″ art print, by Aye Jay, comes in a hand-numbered edition of 80 and is available here for $25. The two-color image is printed on metallic silver currency paper.

There’s also a version that’s the same size that’s printed on a sheet of metal stainless steel for a super limited edition of 10. That’s so metal!!! Another variant is the Glam Metal edition, which looks real cool, but “glam” doesn’t apply to the bands represented on this print. The glam metal edition is on black paper with metallic gold ink and “a righteous split fountain” and is limited to 20.

It took me all of 60 seconds to figure out which band logos 21 of the 26 letters came from. It wasn’t too difficult considering I’d spent a good portion of my teen years drawing these same band logos all over my school notebooks, folders, and binders.

Can you guess which bands are represented in this poster?

I’ve put my choices here below, with an asterisk next to the ones I didn’t know right away.

The creation of this image was suggested to me by a friend via Twitter, and I immediately thought ‘Horns’ and got to work making it happen.

I created ‘Horns’ to honor of one of the most inspiring people in my life and the lives of many of my friends, the Godfather of Heavy Metal — Ronnie James Dio, who passed away yesterday.

Dio’s bold music scored such a large part of the backdrop of my youth that I can rarely think of good times without thinking of him (Look Out!!).

I was lucky enough to have seen him perform in concert more times than I can rightfully put a number to and I gotta tell ya, every single time I saw him he made that concert seem like the ‘best’ performance of his career.

My friend Greg said it best: ‘Black Sabbath with Ozzy may have created Metal – but it was RONNIE JAMES DIO that made metal a REALITY’

Rock in Peace, RJD!!

\m/ \m/ Hold those horns high!!

Singer and heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio died on Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 7:45 AM after battling stomach cancer, according to an online post by his wife Wendy Dio. He was 67.

Rumors spread over this internet this weekend that Dio had died yesterday, but the truth was that he was in the hospital and not doing well. [Read Ronnie James Dio’s Wife Responds To Rumors: “˜Ronnie has NOT passed away!’]

After quelling the rumors yesterday about the singer’s death, his wife updated Dio’s official site this morning with the news of his passing today.

[UPDATED: Rock Legend Ronnie James Dio Has Died; he passed on Sunday, May 16, 2010 in the morning.]

Rumors began spreading across the Internet last night (Saturday, May 15) that rock singer Ronnie James Dio had died early that day.

Many sites were picking up the story and reporting the rumor as fact, and Twitter and Facebook is all a buzz about this, despite the lack of attribution or official statement.

Since the rumor appeared online — leading to several revisions to Dio’s Wikipedia entry, the singer’s official site has been flooded with traffic, bringing it down (it was still down at the time of this posting).

Blabbermouth contacted Dio’s wife and manager Wendy Dio to respond to the rumors. Wendy Dio, who said she was at the hospital with her husband, responded that while the singer was not doing well, he is NOT dead.