Goth Spirals



It's the little spiraly design that seems to come up so often in cartoonier media influenced by Goth culture, which itself was heavily inspired by the feel of The Nightmare Before Christmas (pictured). The popularity of this film has influenced an entire generation of young artists with dark proclivities (see Deviant ART) and seems at times so common that one wonders if all one needs to add a bit of gothic appeal to their work is to add a few little spiral designs here and there.

Curiously, spirals looking very close to this are a common element of fractal art, as results of "JosLeys-Kleinian" formula and its variations (image search yields a lot of… right, so return tomorrow?).

Contrast (or sometimes compare) Everything's Better with Sparkles, and definitely contrast with Spiral Power.

Anime and Manga

 * In One Piece, the spooky, Überwald-esqe island where Zoro, Perona, and Mihawk end up has several spiraly mountains as a Shout-Out to The Nightmare Before Christmas.
 * Uzumaki, which turns the humble and ubiquitous spiral into horror beyond imagination.

Comic Books

 * In the Sandman comic Death is portrayed with a small spiral design under her eye.
 * Although she is indeed a Perky Goth, this is more an Egyptian motif (probably the Eye of Horus) in keeping with her habit of wearing an ankh, although the ankh is much more symbolic.
 * The Eye of Horus represents wisdom (it's the facial markings of the hawk), and there's that adage about death bringing wisdom, so it might be meaningful after all.
 * Delirium's sigil is a spiral or a bunch of spirals (at least in the manga-esque At Death's Door), although they're less goth, more insane.

Film

 * Dark City made a repeating theme of spirals: spiraling staircases, spiral patterns carved into victims, spiral rat mazes, spirals drawn by a madman. A good chunk of the movie is devoted to this trope.
 * As seen from the Strangers' map, the entire city is arranged as a spiral.
 * Pretty much the entire filmography of Tim Burton.

Literature

 * The title font of Twilight is this. And sparkly.
 * The font used for the italic words in Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain contain spirals.

Tabletop Games

 * Tharizdun is one of the big, nasty evil gods who has been featured prominently in Dungeons & Dragons. An evil Lovecraftian god, his "holy" symbol is none other than a black spiral.
 * Werewolf: The Apocalypse had a group of evil corrupted werewolves as one of its main villain types. Their name? The Black Spiral Dancers.
 * The primary initiation ritual for the Dancers is to walk a literal one, which looks like a harmless spiral in the floor but will bring you face-to-face with the Wyrm, and you don't want to come face-to-face with the Wyrm.
 * There's a pretty big spiral motif in the artwork for Changeling: The Lost.

Video Games

 * Found all over the place in Death Jr.: Root of Evil, most prominently in the character designs.
 * Ditto for Psychonauts.
 * In World of Warcraft, Scourge and Forsaken buildings quite often have small spirals on them.
 * In Eversion,
 * In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, anything associated with Twilight is going to have these, from the Tron Lines on portals, monsters and Midna to the markings on Zant's robes (even the emblem on the front part of his outfit, which is interesting considering that it's ).
 * Some types of heartless have spirals in their design.
 * And, obviously, The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of the recurring worlds.

Web Comics

 * This is also all over Gunnerkrigg Court, especially in vapor and hair. It's particularly associated with the Donlan family.
 * Secret from Keychain of Creation has a small spiral under her eye.

Western Animation

 * Ember of Danny Phantom sports a spiral design under her right eye in her role as something of a Gothic (undead) rock star. It may be a Shout-Out to Gaiman's Death.
 * The Nightmare Before Christmas. Interestingly, the trope picture is photoshopped to look spookier. The scene in question is actually quite romantic.
 * And much of Tim Burton's work; he seems to like them. In fact, the logo for the exhibit on him at the Museum of Modern Art was a spiral.
 * Skyclone, the Big Bad of Sky Dancers wears a spooky spiral on his shirt.
 * Perhaps not everywhere in the hilariously quoteworthy Invader Zim, but at least two examples can be seen: One being in Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, Nightmare Membrane's lab coat ends with strangely swirling mist, and Nightmare Gaz's hair is shaped like squared spirals. In Door to Door, the specter of Poop Dogg (wearing a black robe, a la Ghost of Christmas Future) has the same swirls as Nightmare Membrane.