Karen Disher

Karen Beth Disher is an American film director and storyboard artist. Disher is best known for her work at MTV Animation, where she was the chief character designer and supervising director for the animated series Daria (1997–2002) following her previous work as a layout artist for Beavis and Butt-Head (1994–1997).

Disher is also known for work as a story artist at Blue Sky Studios, an in-house studio at 20th Century Animation, in which she worked on several films, including many in the Ice Age franchise.

Life and career Disher studied traditional 2D animation at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation, she joined MTV Animation as a layout artist on Beavis and Butt-head. She then designed the main characters and was the supervising director on the hit series Daria. Meanwhile, she directed two TV feature-length installments in the series, Is It Fall Yet? in 2000 and the follow-up Is It College Yet? in 2002. She then joined Blue Sky Studios, where she worked as a story artist on many animated films, including Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears a Who!, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, The Peanuts Movie, and Ferdinand. She was also the head of story on Rio, and directed a short animated film Surviving Sid

In 2018, Disher was tapped to co-direct Blue Sky's first feature-length musical, "Foster", based on an original story written by Disher, co-director Steve Martino, and Tim Federle, with songs to be written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. This project was cancelled due to the closure of Blue Sky in 2021.

Disher joined Spire Animation Studios in 2021 as Creative Director, Development and is a founding member of the studio's brain trust, the "Creative Cadre".

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 1996 Beavis and Butt-head Do America key pose artist 1999 Life presenter, animator 2000 Is It Fall Yet? director/original character development/supervising director 2002 Is It College Yet? director/original character development/animation director 2005 Robots storyboard artist 2006 Ice Age: The Meltdown 2008 Horton Hears a Who! Who Kid Surviving Sid (short film) S'more director 2009 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Scratte storyboard artist 2011 Rio Mother Bird head of story 2012 Ice Age: Continental Drift Scratte storyboard artist 2013 Epic 2014 Rio 22015 The Peanuts Movie 2016 Ice Age: Collision Course 2017 Ferdinand 2019 Spies in Disguise additional story artist, Blue Sky senior creative team

Television Year Title Role Notes 1994–1997 Beavis and Butt-head layout artist 1997–2002 Daria Sally supervising director/original character designer 2011 Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Molehog director

Video games Year Title Notes 2000 Daria's Inferno creative consultant