Lauren Faust

Lauren J. Faust (born July 25, 1974)^[2][3] is an American animator, writer, voice director, and storyboard artist, best known as the creator of the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and DC Super Hero Girls. Faust has collaborated with her husband Craig McCracken on his four animated series The Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Wander Over Yonder, and Kid Cosmic.

Lauren Faust
Faust in 2014
Born	Lauren J. Faust (1974-07-25) July 25, 1974 (age 48) San Jose, California, U.S.^[1]
Nationality	American
Alma mater	California Institute of the Arts
Occupation(s)	Animator, writer, storyboard artist
Years active	1994–present
Known for	My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic DC Super Hero Girls Super Best Friends Forever
Spouse	Craig McCracken ​ (m. 2004)​
Children	1
Awards	2009 Primetime Emmy Award

Career

Faust attended the California Institute of Arts from 1992 to 1994. She started working in the animation industry as a character layouts artist for the character Julie from the MTV animated television series The Maxx, before becoming an animator at Turner Feature Animation and Warner Bros Feature Animation, where she worked as an animator on feature films such as Cats Don't Dance, Quest for Camelot, and The Iron Giant.

Faust shifted to television animation in 1999, working on The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends^[4] at Cartoon Network Studios as a storyboard artist, screenwriter, supervising producer, story supervisor.^[5] Faust created and developed the toy line Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls.

Faust worked with Hasbro to develop the company's My Little Pony property, resulting in the series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.^[3] The series proved to be a major success not only with the primary young audience, but also significantly among adults and teenagers, who became popularly known as "bronies".^[6] She developed Super Best Friends Forever for Warner Brothers, and Medusa for Sony Pictures Animation,^[7] though Sony changed the creative direction of Medusa, with Faust leaving the project.^[8] She worked with her husband Craig McCracken on Wander Over Yonder for Disney and Kid Cosmic for Netflix.

Faust worked with Warner Bros. in 2019 to develop a reboot of DC Super Hero Girls. As of 2021, she was developing an animated series for Netflix Animation, called Toil & Trouble. However, the series was cancelled by August of that year due to a change in leadership. Faust mentioned in April 2022 that she managed to retain the rights to the show, and was hoping some other network would pick it up eventually.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

Awards

In 2004, Faust was nominated for an Emmy Award. In 2005, she was nominated for an Annie Award.^[5] In 2009, she shared a Primetime Emmy for the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends special, "Destination: Imagination".

Personal life

 

Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust in 2003

Faust is married to Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Wander Over Yonder.^[3] They met while they were working on the third season of The Powerpuff Girls.^[14] Faust has worked with her husband on all of his shows. She considers herself a lifelong feminist.^[15] Faust took maternity leave in mid-2016 to take care of her newborn daughter.^[16]

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role
1994	Home, Honey, I'm High	Voice
1997	Cats Don't Dance	Animator – "Sawyer"
1998	Quest for Camelot	Animator – United States
1999	The Iron Giant	Animator
2002	The Powerpuff Girls Movie	Story, screenwriter, storyboard artist, character designer, character layout supervisor
2013	Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony	Executive Producer, herself
2015	The Iron Giant: Signature Edition	Animator
2018	#TheLateBatsby	Short film; Director, writer, story, character design

Television

Year	Title	Role
1995	The Maxx	Character layout artist
2001	Codename: Kids Next Door	Walk cycles Episode: No P in the OOL
2001–2005	The Powerpuff Girls	Storyboard artist, Story, writer, director, Supervising director
2004–2009	Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends	Developer, Supervising producer (Seasons 3-4), writer, Story, Story supervisor, Storyboard artist, Character designer, Animation director, Story editor
2010–2011	My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic	Developer Season 1: Executive producer, writer, Character designer, Creative director, Story supervisor, Story editor Season 2: Executive producer on The Return of Harmony, Consulting producer
2012	Super Best Friends Forever	Creator, director, writer, Storyboard artist, producer
2013–2014	Wander Over Yonder^[17]	Developer, co-producer, Story editor, writer, director, Character designer (Season 1 only)
2019–present	DC Super Hero Girls	Developer, writer, Executive Producer
2021	Kid Cosmic	Developer, Story, Writer (Season 2)
—	Toil & Trouble^[18]^[19]	Creator, Developer, Character Designer

Video games

Year	Title	Role
2018/2020^[20]	Them's Fightin' Herds	Narrative design director (story), character designer (main characters)^[21]

References

1. "Inside the Animator's Studio, an Evening with Lauren Faust - Excerpt". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021.
2. "Lauren Faust on California Birth Index".
3. Liz Ohanesian "Lauren Faust: Let's Hear It for the Girls" October 19, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, L.A. Weekly People 2012 issue, May 17, 2012
4. . Worldsfinestonline.com. Archived from the original on January 11, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2012.
5. Reber, Deborah (May 11, 2010). In Their Shoes: Extraordinary Women Describe Their Amazing Careers. Simon Pulse. pp. 234–6. ISBN 978-1-4391-0370-8. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
6. Vara, Vauhini; Zimmerman, Ann (November 4, 2011). . The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 7, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
7. Sony Pictures Animation (June 5, 2014). "Sony Pictures Animation Announces New Original Feature Project MEDUSA, With Emmy® Winner Lauren Faust To Direct" (Press release). PR Newswire. Retrieved June 5, 2014.
8. Amidi, Amid (November 24, 2015). "Lauren Faust No Longer Directing 'Medusa' at Sony Pictures Animation (Exclusive)". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved November 24, 2015.
9. Nico Colaleo (January 20, 2021), Special Guest Animator and Writer LAUREN FAUST, Creative Talent Network, about 1 hour 11 minutes into the video, archived from the original on December 22, 2021
10. Alejandra Gularte (April 20, 2022). "Netflix Animation Fires Phil Rynda, Cancels Bone, The Twits". Vulture.com. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
11. Drew Taylor (April 20, 2022). "Netflix Animation Erased: Executives Fired, Shows Canceled and Accusations of 'Staged Data' (Exclusive)". Ca.news.yahoo.com. Retrieved May 8, 2022.
12. @Fyre_flye (April 21, 2022). "In light of the buzz worthy Netflix Animation article from The Wrap, I'd like to thank all who offered sympathy for…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
13. @Fyre_flye (April 21, 2022). "--it can still live another day. And that perhaps we can get the band back together to share our new take on the wo…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
14. Ostroff, Joshua (October 22, 2013). . The Grid. Archived from the original on September 25, 2014. Retrieved May 16, 2016.
15. Lauren Faust (December 24, 2010), "My Little NON-Homophobic, NON-Racist, NON-Smart-Shaming Pony: A Rebuttal", Ms. Magazine Blog, retrieved September 12, 2016
16. "Episode 18: Lauren Faust", Nick Animation Podcast, September 9, 2016, archived from the original on December 22, 2021, retrieved September 12, 2016, My daughter's only three months old, so I'm still on my leave, so I'm... just... usually... all day, taking care of the baby. I kinda love it.
17. . Archived from the original on March 14, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
18. "TOIL & TROUBLE Trademark Application of Netflix Studios, LLC - Serial Number 90722354 :: Justia Trademarks".
19. "Resume".
20. Matulef, Jeffrey (September 22, 2015). "My Little Pony: FiM creator launches brony fighting game crowdfunding campaign". Eurogamer. Retrieved September 22, 2015.
21. ManeSix DevTeam, 2020

Further reading

• Liz Ohanesian, "Lauren Faust: Let's Hear It for the Girls", LA Weekly People 2012 issue,

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lauren Faust.

 

Wikiquote has quotations related to Lauren Faust.

• Lauren Faust on DeviantArt
• Lauren Faust on Twitter  
• Lauren Faust at IMDb
• . Archived from the original on June 18, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) (2021, unsupported flash animation)
• Lauren Faust interview