Back in 2008, Stickerbomb dropped our first monster into the world — and things got out of hand fast. Monsters crept across our pages, spilled into the streets, and found their way onto laptops, lampposts, and skate decks. They became our DNA: playful, weird, a little bit scary, but always unmistakably Stickerbomb.
But the story doesn’t start and end in print. Monsters were already there before the first book hit shelves. They showed up in graffiti blackbooks, in envelopes traded between crews, on wheat-pasted walls in London, São Paulo, and Jakarta. They became part of a living network of subculture energy.
Now, two decades later, monsters are still everywhere. They’ve shifted shape with the times — from graffiti throw-ups to slick illustrator lines to digital mash-ups — but the core hasn’t changed. Monsters are freedom. Monsters are rebellion. Monsters are the glue that connects artists across borders and cultures.
This is a look back at twenty years of monsters: where they came from, how they grew, why they stick, and which ones still haunt us.
Origins and First Sightings
The origins of Stickerbomb monsters lie in the streets. Before Stickerbomb 1 ever landed in bookstores, we were seeing monsters pop up in unexpected places: scratched onto bus-stop glass, stuck on school lockers, sketched in margins of notebooks. Monsters gave artists — especially younger graffiti writers — a way to move away from strict lettering and play with character, humour, and identity.
When we pulled together Stickerbomb 1 with Laurence King in 2008, monsters were everywhere. We knew they had to be the beating heart of the book. The result? A collection that didn’t just speak to one scene but to everyone: graffiti writers in New York, illustrators in Tokyo, skaters in Paris, designers in London.
Monsters had no borders. They didn’t need translation. You didn’t have to “get” typography or theory to connect with them. A monster was a monster: goofy, grotesque, funny, fierce. And in a world of rigid categories, monsters felt open, alive, and instantly collectable.
Monsters as a Language
How did monsters become so recognisable?
Because monsters travel. They don’t carry baggage. They work in every scene, on every surface, in every culture. A spray-can monster with wild eyes hits the same in Seoul as it does in São Paulo. A blob with teeth scrawled in seconds on a postal sticker belongs as much on a gallery wall as on a lamppost.
Monsters became Stickerbomb’s signature because they embodied our ethos. Other sticker books leaned heavily on typography or design polish. We doubled down on the messy, the playful, the absurd. Monsters gave us an instantly recognisable look — they made the books pop on shelves, they made the stickers essential in trades, they gave the brand a sense of humour and energy that stuck.
Over time, Stickerbomb became shorthand for monsters, and monsters became shorthand for the subculture itself.
The Evolution
Across the years, monsters have shifted with every book, every collaboration, every wave of artists.
- In Stickerbomb 1 (2008), they were raw — a mix of graffiti sketches, weird faces, and notebook doodles. Monsters that felt like they’d been born in the margins of a maths class or a late-night tag run.
- By Stickerbomb 2 and XL, they grew bolder. Illustrators flexed with cleaner lines, brighter colours, and characters that felt like they had backstories. Monsters weren’t just quick hits anymore — they were personalities.
- Collaborations took them further. Monsters moved off the page and onto walls, T-shirts, vinyl toys, album covers, and skate decks. They stopped being just “stickers” and became mascots of a global street art movement.
- The digital shift came next. Monsters started showing up on Instagram feeds, redrawn in Procreate, modelled in 3D. Same chaotic energy, new mediums, new audiences.
And then there were the standouts.
- X’s monster — a round, bug-eyed creature from Stickerbomb 1 that still gets traded today. Its simplicity made it universal.
- X’s monster — sharp teeth, drippy graffiti energy, the one you could imagine snarling from a New York rooftop.
- X’s monster — bright, almost cute, spotted stuck up in Tokyo, Berlin, and LA.
- X’s monster — hand-drawn, imperfect, always mutating — perfect for photocopy zines and trades.
- X’s monster — so detailed it felt like a mini-comic in one sticker, proof that monsters didn’t have to be simple to land.
- X’s monster — iconic enough that people still ask about it at events, a full decade after its first print.
Each one tells a story of evolution — proof that monsters adapt, mutate, and endure.
Why Monsters Endure
Monsters endure because they’re open to everyone. They’re not owned by one scene, one style, or one definition of “good art.” They can be drawn in two seconds with a fat marker or crafted over hours in Illustrator. Both count. Both belong.
They also endure because monsters carry honesty. They’re messy, playful, absurd — mirrors of the subcultures that created them. They let artists be funny, grotesque, political, personal, or just chaotic. Monsters don’t demand perfection. They demand personality.
And above all, monsters are collective. We’ve seen them passed hand-to-hand at festivals, plastered across continents, traded in envelopes between strangers who never met. They’re proof that art doesn’t need galleries or gatekeepers to travel. Monsters are Stickerbomb’s global handshake.
Looking Ahead
Twenty years down, the next twenty are only just starting. Monsters aren’t nostalgia — they’re fuel for what’s next. You’ll even see fresh monsters in our upcoming Stickerbomb Sneakers book, because monsters don’t stay put. They’ll creep into whatever project we touch.
The point is simple: monsters belong to everyone. We’ve been sticking them for two decades, and now it’s your turn.
Got a monster? Send it in, join Worldwide Sticker Club.