Vote for the top corn mazes in the country !

USA Today is once again asking people to vote on the top top 10 corn maze designs in the US. They give you a choice of 20 to vote on with voting ending on Monday September 8 at noon ET. This is part of their Reader’s Choice Awards.

Here are some themes you will see: western themed, Albert Einstein, scarecrow and pumpkins, an octopus, a shark (Jaws 50th Anniversary), Back to the Future themed, and a very large whale.

I also want to highlight the farms and places that you can vote for with links to their websites if you want to plan a trip. They also have more extensive photos and videos of the mazes than USA Today provides. I was surprised and a little disappointed there isn’t one close to where I live but I hope you have better luck !

UPDATE: WINNER BELOW

Here is a video showing a maze that made the top 10 in the same contest in the past:

AND HERE IS THE WINNER !

Getting Lost in the Art: A Look at the Best Album Covers Featuring Mazes and Labyrinths

I run a website about mazes and it shouldn’t surprise you that I am always looking for new maze and labyrinth content. That means doing searches with my local library to find the newest books, comics, and movies that contain mazes and labyrinths. This led me to reading a lot of books that produced some interesting content like this:

5 Books About the Spiritual Aspect of Labyrinths

The Best Books About Mazes and Labyrinths (that aren't actually maze books)

When I do these searches (pre-filtering the results) I always stumble upon the music of the band Maze. And that was never what I was looking for…until today !

One of my favorite blog posts to write was about maze posters, where I researched and collected together The 10 Best Maze Themed Movie Posters. As someone who makes maze art, I really love researching variations of it. The best posters don’t align with The Top 12 Maze/Labyrinth movies of all time, because the quality of the movie and the quality of the poster aren’t aligned.

I got to thinking after looking at the Maze albums so many times. Why don’t I pick out the best maze and labyrinth album covers just like I did with movie posters ? So here we are !

It just so happens that one of my readers (Thank you Romain) showed me where to find a full list of album covers that feature maze and labyrinth artwork. There were 503 albums in the list, many more than I found on my own. I was able to save the list as a pdf document before it was deleted on the website that hosted it. If you want to see every cover here they are on a total of 67 pages !:

First 250 album covers,

next 250 album covers,

last 3 album covers.

So many albums to go through !! My list will surely be different than yours, but I did my best:

First, let’s take a look at a gallery of the album covers that did not quite make the top 10. We have all types of musical genres included. You will notice multiple album covers from the band Maze that inspired this post which feature 2 mazed hands (their logo). There are also 4 album covers from the Italian metal band Labyrinth. We have hedge mazes, stone mazes, minotaurs, mazes, octagonal labyrinths, and dystopian scenes - lots of variety. And the more I look the more I find…and agonize over if it should make the top 10 or not !

The 10 Best Album Covers Featuring Mazes and Labyrinths

BONUS: Moon Duo - Remixed

Moon Duo Remixed album cover

Ok, ok, it is more than 10, but only because I am a big fan of hidden message mazes and this is a great example of just that. Simple concept, well executed, but not quite top 10 worthy ! This looks like something I would have designed. Now on to the real top 10 !

10. Labyrinth - Kontra K

Labyrinth - Kontra K album cover

A city surrounded by a huge maze. And we have a blue wolf. A nice start. I wouldn’t want to need to get to that city quickly without a cheat. Remember in Indiana Jones when a sword fight ends with Indy pulling and using a gun ? I would solve this maze with a helicopter.

9. Namlook Montanà - Labyrinth 2

Namlook Montanà  - Labyrinth 2 album cover

Just a simple blue circular labyrinth on a black background, it looks good. The music from this collaboration is also very good. You can listen below for 5 hours !

8. Life on Planets - The Maze

Life on Planets - The Maze album cover

A cool hand drawn black and white maze with guitarist Phill Celeste in the middle. Well done. Even Phill likes it (you can tell because of the thumbs up).

7. Dãvi - Labyrinth

Dãvi - Labyrinth album cover

A track by David 'DAVI' Khanjian that you may have heard in a club late night. There are a few different mixes of this, but here is the original.

6T. Maze - We Are One ; Oomph! Labyrinth

Maze - We Are One album cover
Oomph! Labyrinth album cover

We have all felt like the people on these album covers at one point, lost in a maze. On the left we can see the top portion of the Maze band logo in the sky above the seemingly endless maze below. And with Oomph!’s cover we get the overheard view of a person in a bad spot, definitely lost among those long pathways !

5. Labyrinth - Return to Heaven Denied Part 2

Labyrinth - Return to Heaven Denied Part 2 album cover

A cool circular maze (possibly underground?) in the country. With a purple lightning filled sky.

4. Strangers on a Train - The Key Part 2 The Labyrinth

Strangers on a Train - The Key Part 2 The Labyrinth album cover

A square maze with a center goal of fire or light that appears to be on another world. Cool.

3. Vision 3D

Vision 3D album cover

A hand drawn, colorful album cover done by well known maze artist Sean C Jackson. If you like this style you can check out more of his mazes here which includes some very cool Marvel and Star Wars books !

2. Sounds from the Ground - The Maze

Sounds from the Ground - The Maze album cover

There is beauty in simplicity and the white maze on purple looks great.

drumroll….do you hear it in your head ? drumroll…our top album cover is

1. Majestic - Labyrinth

Majestic - Labyrinth album cover

Variations of this theme are always in my head…and it makes for a wonderful album cover, and in my opinion the best maze album cover I could find.

I hope you enjoyed the countdown if you know of any additional album covers that should be part of this post, drop me a note ! I am always looking for more maze and labyrinth content !

Maze Comic Book Cover #85 - OMEGA

Issue #85 in my comic book cover series is called OMEGA and features the maze of a mystical warrior demon. I am not sure exactly what the story is here, but I feel like this would make a great bad guy in a superhero comic. Our demon warrior Omega is wearing a crown so he must be important.

My comic book cover mazes can be found in 2 places:

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 1 (Issues #1-53)

Comic Book Cover Mazes - Year 2

Warrior Demon Maze

To receive a book of my first year of comic book book mazes (Volume 1 with mazes #1-53) you can sign up for my book alerts - any time I launch a free maze book, or paid book (on Amazon), I will send you a note about the new book launch.

Maze of the Week #189 - Dragon Tree Maze

This maze was originally commissioned for an adult activity book. I made it for a client in the way they preferred, in black and white and they picked the subject. One of the great things about commissions is I make mazes of subjects I wouldn’t normally make. A dragon tree actually makes a wonderful subject for a maze because of its internal branch structure, something I never realized before. Now, it becomes Maze of the Week #189 - the Dragon Tree Maze.

Today I get a chance to update the maze and try to improve the maze. The original maze is not available for download, but the updated maze is !

Here are the enhancements I made to improve the maze:

1. Added Color - Adding color to the maze was an easy choice since my original work had to be in greyscale.

2. Added Shadows - This took the most amount of time. I added the shadows to the internal branch structure of the main tree. This actually might make the maze easier since many dead ends and false paths are now a different color.

3. Thickened border - I made the outside border more prominent and put in the the background to give the maze a 3D look. Now some of the rocks and the leaves of the second tree “overhang” the border.

4. Rock changes - I gave half of the rocks a bit of texture to give more interest and variety to the ground area.

Let’s see the before and after:

I prefer the new version because of the new border and shadows.

Original Maze: File Size: 353 KB

New Maze: File Size: 725 KB