Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant (born December 9, 1933 in London, England) is an author and syndicated cartoonist living in Santa Barbara, California. He is best known for Pot-Shots, a single-panel comic of illustrated one-liners, which began syndication in the United States in 1975.

The Wall Street Journal described him in a 1992 profile as "history's only full time, professional published epigrammatist."

In a copyright infringement suit filed by Brilliant, a U.S. federal judge has ruled that, while short phrases are not eligible for copyright, Brilliant's writings were epigrams and, therefore, copyrightable (Brilliant v. W.B. Productions Inc., 1979).

While Brilliant employs a self-imposed limit of 17 words per epigram--and has claimed that he did forget his own rule once, but will not reveal this one mistake; he's actually written and published 41 with at least 18 words, and has even published one containing 19 words (By the miracle of teaching, I can give you some of my ability, without losing any of it myself.)

In 1999 he authored the famed (and often-copied-without-credit) "Y1K Crisis" article which parodies the "Y2K Crisis" (Year 2000 Crisis) of 1999.