Kirby Krackle
Kirby Krackle (also known as Kirby Dots[1]) is an artistic convention in superhero and science fiction comic books and similar illustrations, in which a field of black, pseudo-fractal images is used to represent negative space around unspecified kinds of energy.[2][3] Kirby Krackles are typically used in illustrations of explosions, smoke, the blasts from ray guns, "cosmic" energy, and outer space phenomena.[4]
Contents
History
The effect is named after Jack Kirby, the influential comic book artist who created this stylistic device.[3] While the Kirby Krackle in its mature form first appeared in Kirby's work during 1965—1966 (in Fantastic Four and Thor),[2] comics historian Harry Mendryk (of the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center) has traced the earliest version of the stylistic device as far back as 1940 to Jack Kirby & Joe Simon's Blue Bolt #5. As Joe Simon was the inker on that comic, he may have been partially responsible for look of the proto-Kirby Krackle. Examples of a transitional form of the Kirby Krackle appear in two of Kirby's stories from the late 1950s: The Man Who Collected Planets from 1957 (pencils and inks by Kirby) and The Negative Man from 1959 (inks attributed to Marvin Stein).[3]
Analysis
Philosophy professor and author Jeffrey J. Kripal wrote:
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For Kirby, the human body is a manifestation or crystallization of finally inexplicable energies—a superbody. [...] What Mesmer called animal magnetism, Reichenbach knew as the blue od, and Reich saw as a radiating blue cosmic orgone becomes in Jack Kirby a trademark energetics signaled by "burst lines" and a unique energy field of black, blobby dots that has come to be affectionately known as the "Kirby Krackle" [...]. The final result was a vision of the human being as a body of frozen energy that, like an atomic bomb, could be released with stunning effects, for good or for evil. These metaphysical energies, I want to suggest constitute the secret Source of Kirby's art.[5]
References
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