“The book will tell the tale behind the events leading to the powerful moment captured on the cover of Dio’s debut album,” Z2 said, “definitively addressing 30 years of fan speculation. Why is the priest being thrown into the ocean? Who is truly the villain in this scenario?”
Wendy Dio-Padavona, the wife of Dio’s late frontman Ronnie James Dio, said Holy Diver was “a story about how you can’t judge a picture by the way it appears, which is what Ronnie wrote many times in his songs; that you have to see inside the person and not judge them by the way they look or by what they wear.” She said “Ronnie would have given his stamp of approval” on Niles and Hampton’s interpretation.
The book will be released in June 2021 in a standard edition for $19.99, and a deluxe edition for $99.99, containing art prints and a Vinyl Picture Disc Reissue of the album. The main cover was illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz, while an (unrevealed) alternate cover will be created by Becky Cloonan.
