Mystery solved.

I feel as though I see these little guys everywhere - always on the ground and always in street crossings. I first spotted the robot-like character in my neighborhood when I moved in back in 2006. Thinking he’d be gone with the first rain/sleet/snow of the season, I was surprised when the little guy survived through to the spring. Two years later he’s still kicking around. I’ve long assumed that it was part of an underground guerrilla marketing campaign for something I had no interest in learning about. Not until I started researching for this post did I come to discover that, by all (limited) accounts, stikman is art in the truest sense.

I uncovered one article from the Washington Post about stikman’s presence in DC:

Is Bob really stikman's creator? I hope so. He was soft-spoken and thoughtful, unassuming in his desire for anonymity and concerned enough about safety that he places his stikman images near corners so pedestrians can look at them from the curb. The goal is not to provoke, Bob says, but simply to cause those gazing down to pause and wonder.

I appreciate stikman now more than I have in the past two plus years. Have you seen these in your respective city? Where have you seen stikman around NYC? Leave your comments below.

Related: A collection of stikman photos. [Flickr]