Kirby krackle

For the band, see Kirby Krackle.

Fantastic Four #72 (March 1968). Cover art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott. The pseudo-fractal nature of the red light comes from the negative space created by the Kirby dots.

Kirby krackle (sometimes Kirby dots) are an artistic convention in superhero and science fiction comic books and similar illustrations: a field of black, pseudo-fractal images are used to represent negative space around unspecified kinds of energy. They are typically found in illustrations of explosions, the blasts from ray guns, and outer-space phenomena.

Kirby krackle is a comic book visual effect named after Jack Kirby, the influential comic-book artist whose superhero art frequently featured it. The effect was developed from the use of a pattern of round black spots to depict smoke, energy, or flying debris from explosions, or as a way to manually generate the random patterns that depict the path of lightning and other energetic strikes.

References

• Foley, Shane (November 2001) Kracklin' Kirby: Tracing the advent of Kirby Krackle. Jack Kirby Collector #33
• Mendryk, Harry (September 3, 2011). "Evolution of Kirby Krackle". Simon and Kirby. Jack Kirby Museum. http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/simonandkirby/archives/3997. Retrieved September 3, 2011. 

External links

• Kirby Dots Plug photoshop plug in for windows.
• Kirby Dots at TV Tropes