When The Bad Guys came out in 2022, it was riding a flashy new wave of movies redefining American animation. Four years earlier, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sent a shockwave through the industry. It was a radical break from the push toward visual realism that had dominated American animation since Pixar Animation became the studio to beat. And it was praised and profitable — proving extremely stylized animation might just be a draw. Other animation studios immediately pivoted to more experimental visuals. The Bad Guys was part of the first surge of Spider-Verse followers, but it was no easy feat. As director Pierre Perifel told Polygon at the time, making an animated movie with such dramatic shading and lighting, flat comics-page textures, and unusual character designs involved “fighting the computer” to get the look he wanted.