2016 Guest Speakers

Join us September 15th, 16, and 17th of 2016 as we welcome another stellar line up of internationally recognized cartoonists to Kenosha Wisconsin!


Ann Telnaes
Ann Telnaes creates animated editorial cartoons and a blog of print cartoons, animated gifs, and sketches for the Washington Post. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for her print cartoons.

Telnaes’ print work was shown in a solo exhibition at the Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in 2004. Her first book, “Humor’s Edge”, was published by Pomegranate Press and the Library of Congress in 2004. A collection of Vice President Cheney cartoons, “Dick”, was self-published by Telnaes and Sara Thaves in 2006. Her work has also been exhibited in Paris, Jerusalem, and Lisbon.

Telnaes attended California Institute of the Arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specializing in character animation. Before beginning her career as an editorial cartoonist, Telnaes worked for several years as a designer for Walt Disney Imagineering. She has also animated and designed for various studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Taiwan.

Other awards include: The National Press Foundation’s Berryman Award (2006) – The Maggie Award, Planned Parenthood (2002) – 15th Annual International Dutch Cartoon Festival (2007) – The National Headliner Award (1997) – The Population Institute XVII Global Media Awards (1996) – Sixth Annual Environmental Media Awards (1996)

Her television and radio appearances include: – The Newshour with Jim Lehrer – C-Span – NPR – BBC radio -Sirius XM Radio- The Editors, World Affairs Television, Canada.

Telnaes is a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, the National Cartoonists Society, The International Women’s Forum (Washington DC affiliate), and the American Newswomen’s Club.


Jen Sorensen
Award winning cartoonist Jen Sorensen has been drawing her weekly comic for over 15 years. Formerly known as "Slowpoke," the strip now simply goes by her name.

Jen's cartoons appear in numerous altweekly newspapers around the country, magazines such as The ProgressiveIn These Times, and Ms., and websites including Daily Kos, Truthout, and AlterNet. Her work has also been published in The Nation, The Village Voice, Politico, NPR.org, and MAD. She has created commissioned long-form comics for the ACLU, NPR, Kaiser Health News, The Oregonian, and other clients. In addition to drawing cartoons, Sorensen edits a comics section for Fusion, a new media company from ABC and Univision. 

Over the years, she has won several accolades for her work. In 2014, she was named the winner of the Herblock Prize, an award endowed by the legendary Washington Post cartoonist Herb Block, as well as the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. In 2013, she was the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and she also won the National Cartoonists Society Divisional Reuben Award for Editorial Cartoons. In 2015, Sorensen was given an Inkpot Award for career achievement in comic arts from the San Diego Comic-Con International.

Jen grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and went on to attend the University of Virginia, where she studied cultural anthropology and drew cartoons for college publications.

Additional fun fact: Jen was once clue “12 down” in the Time Out New York crossword puzzle.

Sorensen currently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and small terrier.



Wiley Miller
Wiley Miller has always had one simple goal: "Produce the funniest, best-drawn cartoon possible, regardless of theme, subject matter or setting." Non Sequitur has accomplished that and more: A hit with fans of all ages, the strip is distributed to more than 700 newspapers.

Wiley is the recipient of the Rueben Award, naming him Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society in 2014, the most prestigious prize in cartooning. In addition to that, Non Sequitur has won four National Cartoonists Society divisional awards, and Wiley was the first cartoonist to be presented a divisional award after only one year in syndication. He's the only one ever to win in both the comic strip and comic panel categories.

"Innovation" is a constant in Wiley's approach to cartooning, and his ongoing quest to stretch the medium has been integral to Non Sequitur's success. While the strip's sardonic humor and distinctive art have given Non Sequitur an impassioned following among readers, Wiley's technical innovations have earned admiration from newspaper editors and comics connoisseurs. In addition to developing a unique drawing method that allows the cartoon to be used in either a strip or panel format, Wiley also pioneered a cost-effective way to produce the strip using process color, which gives it a depth and richness of color not seen previously on the comics page.

Wiley studied art at Virginia Commonwealth University and worked for several educational film studios in Los Angeles before joining the Greensboro, N.C., News & Record as staff artist/editorial cartoonist in 1976. After a stint at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in California, he created his first syndicated strip, Fenton, in 1982. He returned to editorial cartooning three years later, joining the staff of the San Francisco Examiner.

In 1988, Wiley was named Best Editorial Cartoonist by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for editorial cartooning in 1991.

A native of California, Wiley and his family now live in Georgia.




Rob Harrell
Rob Harrell first got really into cartooning as a fourth grader, growing up in Bloomington, Indiana. By the fifth grade, he was producing his own magazine called Freak Out. While largely a blatant rip-off of Mad magazine, it featured the adventures of two original characters: Henry the Cat and Bob the blob. Reviews were mixed.

After a few years of seasoning, he created the syndicated daily comic strip Big Top, which from 2002 through 2007, telling the story of a dysfunctional group of circus animals in the animal-run Big Top Circus. Currently, he writes and draws the long-running daily strip Adam@Home, about the daily exploits of Adam Newman and his family.

His first graphic novel, Monster on the Hill, was released by Top Shelf Productions in 2013. Set in a fantastical 1860s England where each town takes great pride in their local monster, the book tells the story of one Stoker-on-Avon and their less than impressive monster Rayburn. 

Rob is currently writing and illustrating a series of middle-grade books called Life of Zarf which tell the story of Zarf Belford, a troll just trying to make it through middle school in a fairy tale world. The first book was released in September 2014, and the second, Life of Zarf: The Troll Who Cried Wolf hit shelves in September 2015. The third installment will be out in the fall of 2016.

In addition to his busy schedule as an author and syndicated cartoonist Harrell is a freelance illustrator who has worked with clients that include Mad, Simon and Schuster, American Greetings, Time, Inc. and Volkswagen.

His figurative paintings have been shown around the country, including solo shows in San Francisco, Austin and Indianapolis.

Rob lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Amber and their two dogs, Cooper and Kasey.



John Hambrock


John first discovered his love for cartooning in 1991 while working for a Chicago Graphic Design firm. That year he and his wife Anne decided to collaborate on a comic strip titled "Second Nature. Although it was never syndicated, Second Nature reached a long list of loyal readers through their privately run subscription service.

John continued experimenting with other comic strip ideas until one day a little boy named Edison arrived uninvited in his imagination. The precocious little ten year old refused to leave, so John eventually awarded him a starring role in the comic strip "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee," picked up for syndication in 2006 by King Features. The strip, now entering its tenth year, appears in over 200 digital and print newspapers worldwide.

“The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” was nominated for the Reuben Division Award “Best Newspaper Comic Strip” in 2010 by the National Cartoonists Society. That same year John was a featured speaker at “Toonfest”, the annual Walt Disney hometown festival in Marceline, Missouri. In 2011 he was one of the inaugural speakers at the first annual Kenosha Festival of Cartooning. For the 2015 KFOC he amazed the audience with a one take video in which he drew all the characters of the festival guests.

In addition to Edison Lee, John has been illustrating children’s books and serving on the board of the National Cartoonists Society. Plans for 2016 include creating a series of small Edison Lee books.

John lives in Wisconsin with his wife, daughter, an ancient cat, a passel of comic strip characters and two herding dogs who keep everyone in line.







Eddie Pittman
Eddie Pittman grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught himself how to draw in the back row of math class. As a kid, he won a 10-speed bicycle from the Kellog's "Stick-Up for Breakfast" Contest, which has given him years of validation in his chosen field as he has since been known as an "award winning" cartoonist. For 25 years he has worked in animation, comics, and illustration.

Eddie began his animation career with Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, working on MulanTarzanFantasia 2000The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch. He made his directing debut with Legends of the Night Sky: Orion, the world's first full dome (360°x 180°) traditionally animated movie, giving planetarium audiences the sensation of being immersed in a cartoon environment.

Most recently, Eddie was a writer and story artist for Disney's hit series, Phineas and Ferb and made the jump into voice acting for Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars. He now has the distinction of being the only cartoonist to play the voice of Darth Vader.

Eddie is also the creator of award winning all-ages webcomic and graphic novel series, Red's Planet, published by Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books. He resides in Central Florida with his beautiful wife, his two brilliant daughters and their annoying cat.



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