Ann Telnaes

Ann Carolyn Telnaes (born 1960) is an American editorial cartoonist. She creates editorial cartoons in various media—animation, visual essays, live sketches, and traditional print—for the Washington Post. She also contributes to The Nib.

In 2001, Telnaes became the second female cartoonist and one of the few freelancers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. In 2017, she received the Reuben Award, and thus became the first woman to have received both the Reuben Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Telnaes earned her B.F.A. at the California Institute of the Arts in 1985, specializing in character animation. In 2020 she taught the course "Commentary Though Cartoons" as a visiting faculty member at CalArts.Before becoming an editorial cartoonist, she worked for some years in the animation field and also as a show designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. She contributed to such films as The Brave Little Toaster and The Chipmunk Adventure.

In 2003, while the U.S. Supreme Court was deciding the fate of same sex marriage, Telnaes stepped into the fray by creating the editorial cartoon poking fun at the historical balance of gender roles in the United States. "However, Telnaes wryly observed that the traditional view of marriage between a man and a woman has resulted in second class citizenship for many people in America for a long time."Telnaes had a solo exhibition at the Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building in 2004.In 2015 a Telnaes cartoon was removed by the Washington Post from the newspaper's website. The cartoon had depicted Ted Cruz as an organ grinder with two monkeys. Telnaes defended her cartoon by tweeting, "Ted Cruz has put his children in a political ad—don't start screaming when editorial cartoonists draw them as well."In 2016–2017 Telnaes was president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.In 2020 her work was included in the exhibit Women in Comics: Looking Forward, Looking Back at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.