Books
War Clips
October 9, 2001David Rees
Get Your War On
(Soft Skull Press, October 2002)
If those ridiculous clip art people talked to each other, what would they say?
In his new book, Get Your War On, Brooklyn-based comic artist David Rees breathes life into a series of stock art yes-men, and, frankly, in their hands, the future doesn’t look good. In the age of Enron, Operation Enduring Freedom, anthrax, and looming war, these forever telephone-cradling, mouse-clicking office drones are freaking out, drinking on the job, and chafing in their ubiquitous suits. The officemates’ latent panic gurgles up in moments of honest desperation:
“Hey buddy. How are you enduring your freedom?”
“Okay, I guess. I drink myself into a stupor every night. I can’t get out of bed in the morning because I’m afraid of what I’ll hear on the radio. My daughter is still wetting her bed. And I’m supposed to fly to Chicago for a meeting on Thursday.”
“That’s what I like to hear!”
Rees’s first comics in this originally online series appeared in October of 2001,when the wounds of September 11 were still fresh for many. And some may still find Rees’s humor off-color—those who maybe bought a couple flags after September 11 and are pretty content with the Bush administration’s war cries. However, for those who do question the United States’s post-9/11 policy, this book is darkly hilarious, appealing to one’s most cynical—and foul-mouthed—sensibilities.
Get Your War On raises up a resounding “Fuck this!” to Bush’s “War on Terror.” Some of us shout back a big “Hell, yeah!” because, hey, we were thinking the same thing.
Both Rees and publisher Soft Skull Press will be donating proceeds from the book to landmine relief efforts in Afghanistan. View the original Get Your War On website at: www.getyourwaron.com
Contributor
Amanda Luker
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