In the four years and change that the Dot and Line has been around, we’ve published more than 500 pieces, and we stand by all of them. It wasn’t easy trying to choose the best, or most important, or our favorite pieces, or to sum up the entire editorial history of our site in 25 representative selections. It turns out that picking which darlings to put on a pedestal is almost as hard as picking which to kill! But here they are: the very best pieces the Dot and Line has ever published, probably. We hope you relished them as much as we did.
Dr. Girlfriend, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying about the Female Villain
Kelsey Amentt’s piece on the patience and panache Dr. Girlfriend brought to the testosterone looney bin that is supervillainy in The Venture Bros. is one of our earliest pieces, and still stands as one of the best. Dr. Girlfriend, after all, would have expected nothing less.
Inside the Passion of ‘Batman: The Animated Podcast’
One of Eric Vilas-Boas’s earliest big and blasting profile efforts made us forever fans of the greatest podcast on the DC Animated Universe and a friend of the site in perpetuity in Justin Michael. The podcast holds up as well as the profile. You should dig into both.
At the End of ‘Cowboy Bebop’ All I Could Think About Was My Dead Mom
The first personal essay the site ever published is also probably the best personal essay John Maher has ever published. The title says it all. Keep a box of tissues handy.
Why We’ll Never See a Show Like ‘The Critic’ Again
Siena Koncsol sees The Critic as a series too bold to survive in today’s pop culture landscape, in which fickle fans can make or break a show with nothing more than a viral hashtag.
Andrea Romano on Retiring and 30 Years’ Hard Work
The first time we broke news we weren’t supposed to break was in Eric’s magnificent profile of one of the most potent behind the scene players in all of contemporary animation history, the universally beloved voice director Andrea Romano.
The Secret Origin of One of Bugs Bunny’s Best Insults
Most people think of the word “nimrod” is an insult. But they didn’t until Looney Tunes. In one of our most beloved pieces, Alex Costello explains the one way Bugs Bunny beat the Bible.
Ask Scratchy: Can I Talk to This Boy Without Hurting My Friend?
Amelia Kidd’s pseudonymous column took the crotchety, kooky house headshrinker from Animaniacs and turned him from a Sigmund Freud knockoff into the voice behind one of the most original advice columns on the internet. This column, the first, is still one of the best—and it’s the kind of thing you’d never find on any other site.
This 70-Year-Old Cartoon Made the Strongest Healthcare Argument Ever
The Dot and Line was always supposed to be a conversation in what cartoons could do that other media couldn’t, and John’s piece here is a story that rightly exemplifies what we could do as a site that most news analysis sites couldn’t: draw connections between the history of art and animation to issues we still face in the modern day.
Here’s How Chuck Jones Really Felt About “What’s Opera, Doc?”
We named this website after a beloved short by the great Charles M. Jones, but this short may be the most beloved of them all. It’s also a supreme example of everything he did well. Eric’s interview with Jones’s last protégé makes this short sing once more.
An Oral History of the Phrase “Get Shrek’d”
This began as a joke and became an ethos. The “Get Shrek’d” is all manic energy and humor writing from Dan and his brother Nick. Aspire to it. Live it. Get Shrek’d.
D+L Podcast: Was “Toys in the Attic” Just a Big Nod to the Movie ‘Alien’?
The very first podcast (of two, because dang, editing audio ain’t easy) the Dot and Line ever produced was for our obsessive, mammoth editorial package for the 20th anniversary of Cowboy Bebop. Kevin Conway and John’s brother Stephen Maher took their golden pipes and cutting horror trope analysis to the mic and Eric took to the digital editor to make it sound all smooth. Give it a listen.
‘Trigun’ Celebrated Its 20th Anniversary Last Month. I’ll Never Forget Its Story.
Wyatt Erchak graced the Bebop package with his phenomenal linework, and then he did us one better—he asked us to publish some stories on Trigun‘s 20th anniversary, and turned around yet another stunning illustration to accompany them.
10 Hidden Clues That Will Blow Your Mind When You Revisit ‘Gravity Falls’
One of our site’s great traffic workhorses, Ang Cruz’s analytical eye brought all the aspiring clue-seekers in the Gravity Falls fandom to the yard over and over again.
Jackson Publick on the Ambition of ‘The Venture Bros.’
Yes, we’ve featured two pieces on Cowboy Bebop and The Venture Bros. on here. Sue us. John’s chat with Jackson Publick, one of the two showrunners of what is perhaps Adult Swim’s greatest cartoon, is as good a look at what’s special about this show as any other on the internet.
What ‘She-Ra’ Gets Right About Angsty Queerness
Maya Gittelman couldn’t get enough of the queer tension between Adora and Catra on She-Ra, and her analysis of their relationship is as good as it gets from one of the writers who’s been on this journey with us consistently since nearly the beginning.
An Urgent Question About ‘Freakazoid!’
With this piece, Sean Fitz-Gerald used one of our favorite columns (yeah, we only really had two columns, what of it!?) to ask a question we ask ourselves often where old cartoons are concerned: IS IT STILL GOOD!? Oh yes. Yes, it is. And so’s the piece.
Rob Paulsen Just Can’t Get Enough
Rob Paulsen is one of the greatest voice acting talents of his generation, and our very own director of special projects, Marley Crusch, brings it all out of him in this superb interview.
Why You Should Watch Sports Anime (And Where to Start)
If this scholarly, meticulously researched piece doesn’t get you watching sports anime, nothing will, and heaven help you. S.M. Balding, a recent contributor to our site, brings you the definitive primer to one of anime’s most underrated categories.
An Urgent Question About ‘The Pagemaster’
Rebecca Long is another of our newest writers, and we couldn’t be gladder she pitched us. She added her own twists to an old favorite column format and really made it her own.
Communist China’s Animators Made Traditional Ink Painting Into Cartoons
Isabel Galwey’s long, detailed looks at Chinese animation are another example of just the kinds of stories this site published that most other websites wouldn’t. It was their loss, and our readers’ gain.
Best Animated Movie Dragons of All Time, Ranked
We have always loved a good ranking here at the Dot and Line. And this isn’t just a good one. This is a great one. Christina Sterbenz went way, way too deep into this semi-scientific look at the best animated dragons of cinema.
The Best Cartoon Theme Songs: A March Madness Tournament
Eric has long been the unsung visual hero of the Dot and Line, putting his Photoshop talents to the test over and over again as the site’s de facto art director. There’s simply no way the site would look even half this good without him. Let this absolute monster of a project, which pushed both Eric and John to the brink, be taken as evidence of that.
‘Lilo and Stitch’ Taught Me That I’m No Monstrosity
When newsletter editor Elly Belle joined the Dot and Line in 2017 to help John and Eric wrangle their mess of a social media presence, the site gained another exceptional personal essayist. She saved her best for last with this one.
How Myth Made Many of Your Favorite—or Least Favorite—Animated Movies
The amount of research Deirdre Coyle—who is, obviously, a trained librarian—put into this cartoon mythopoeia is simply staggering. The results are funny, fascinating, and another perfect example of the kind of piece you’re unlikely to find anywhere else on the web.
What Queer People Want the Future of Cartoons to Look Like
We weren’t going to select any pieces from our final package for this list. Then we read Elly’s draft. We changed our minds pretty quickly after that.
Thanks for reading The Dot and Line, where we’ve written about animation of all kinds for more than four years. We’ll miss you! If you’ll miss us too, show us some love on Twitter and show our writers the money on GoFundMe. Read our goodbyes here: That’s All, Folks!
