Packaging
The cover artwork features a blurred drawing of a bear's head against an orange background. The cover concept originated when Stipe showed cover artist Chris Bilheimer a balloon he wanted to serve as the album cover, and told him to "play around with". Bilheimer changed the color of the balloon, which was originally green. He also had to re-photograph the bear head. When he was down to the last few frames on a roll of film, he took a few photos without bothering to focus the shots, which he and Stipe ended up liking the best.
The back cover features the body of the bear next to the track listing. The inside sleeve artwork features images of the cartoon character Migraine Boy. "I lifted Migraine Boy from the Flagpole," explained Michael Stipe to Molly McCommons, his 12-year-old interviewer and daughter of Flagpole editor Pete McCommons. "I'd like to officially thank Flagpole for introducing me to Greg Fiering and Migraine Boy. I haven't met Greg, but I've talked to him a lot on the phone. We were actually in San Francisco at the same time, but I was working on another project and we had a television visit for about two hours. This is an exclusive. I don't think anybody else knows about Migraine Boy yet."
The booklet contains several alternate names and working titles for songs involved in the recording process of the album. In interviews the band has described its process of naming albums this way: they tape a big sheet of paper up on the studio wall and then variously they write down random ideas when they occur to them. One song that is mentioned in the list is "Revolution," an outtake that later appeared on the Batman & Robin soundtrack and the bonus disc of In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003. "Yes, I Am Fucking with You" was the working title for "King of Comedy".
Read more about this topic: Monster (R.E.M. album)