Political Comicry

January 12, 2005 8:04 AM

Ann Telneasis an editorial cartoonist. She started out working for Disney Imagineering as a designer. She has also been an animator for various studios in London, Los Angeles, New York and Taiwan. She now holds many awards for her cartoons and is in several prestige publications. Her works are an impressive array of political caricatures, feminism, and cultural issues
posted by Hands of Manos (12 comments total)

Wow, She draws beautifully - sort of a Hirschfeld line to it. Nice!
posted by lilboo at 8:12 AM on January 12, 2005

trite, obvious, and 403.
posted by delmoi at 8:18 AM on January 12, 2005

her condi rice is perfectly evil. she really captures the cruella deville in her.
posted by three blind mice at 8:20 AM on January 12, 2005

Hmmm...it appears that her webserver has deep-linking prevented. I think they've gone a little overboard on that. The links worked fine when I tested it (before I hit post).
posted by Hands of Manos at 8:23 AM on January 12, 2005

great stuff--i noticed a little hirschfeld too. It's so great she's not afraid of white space.
posted by amberglow at 8:43 AM on January 12, 2005

She's got a nice eye for composition, but I'm with delmoi here. The jokes are so literally spelled out sometimes that it's painful.
posted by picea at 9:02 AM on January 12, 2005

Not to micromanage my own post (and I'll limit myself after this response).

Delmoi and Picea, you know I never even stopped to think about her "gags" as I was more impressed with her artwork and design. I really don't like comics at all, just illustrative skills. Should I have reworded my post differently?
posted by Hands of Manos at 9:09 AM on January 12, 2005

Ah, if only the Pulitzer Prize judges had delmoi's insight into quality editorial cartooning.

The jokes are so literally spelled out

An unfortunate choice of words, picea. They're not literally spelled out at all - on the contrary, they're literally drawn out. Which distinguishes her from a great many political cartoonists who have to rely on verbiage instead of imagery to convey the main point of the cartoon. Her gags may not be as incisive or hard-hitting as, say, Borgman, but her artwork is always top-notch. Her overall command of her craft is inspiring.
posted by soyjoy at 9:27 AM on January 12, 2005

Telnaes is one of the most talented artists doing politican cartoons right now. She's also one 1/6 of "Six Chix," a cartoon done by six female cartoonists on a rotating basis.

As far as female political cartoonists go, Telnaes is probably in my top three along with Jen Sorensen and Mikhaela Reid.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:39 AM on January 12, 2005

I don't understand the criticism. Perhaps the people who are unimpressed read the paper she appears in and have seen how well her work responds to current events.

In her strongest cartoons the economy of her commentary is a perfect match to the economy of her drawing style.

I haven't looked at editorial cartoons for several years, but I used to pay attention. There was once a strong divide between the tradition in Canada and in the US. While there were divergent individual styles amongst the maybe 30-40 Canadian cartoonists, in the US the many more cartoonists all seemed indistinguishable. The Patrick Oliphant look defined what an editorial cartoon should be as much as the grease-crayoned Herblock look was what a cartoon was supposed to be twenty years before. They even signed their names the same way.

She's combined that typical American editorial cartoon look with the simpler graphic tradition sometimes seen in comic art from Europe or South America. Works well, and seems like it could be influential.
posted by TimTypeZed at 10:58 AM on January 12, 2005

I follow editorial cartoons regularly over at Slate.com, and Telneas' work immediately caught, and continues to catch my eye. Particularly when compared to other cartoonists of the day, her visual restraint is somehow both soothing and effective.
posted by bullitt 5 at 12:19 PM on January 12, 2005

Good stuff. Too bad all but the front page link are now broken. Apparently direct linking is now a no-no.
posted by codger at 10:39 AM on January 13, 2005