Get Your War On: An Interview with Cartoonist David Rees

by Elana Berkowitz, Campus Progress

Only a few weeks after September 11th, David Rees, then a fact-checker at Maxim magazine, sent his friends a few scathingly funny cartoons he made from found clip art featuring generic office workers chatting about the administration’s response to the terror attack. The one that garnered the most attention featured the following exchange: “Oh yeah! Operation Enduring Freedom is in the house!” “Oh yeah! Operation Enduring Our Freedom is in the motherf – - king house!” “Yes! Operation Enduring Our Freedom To Bomb The F – - k Out Of You is in the house!”

The cartoons were soon ricocheting around the internet and getting an overwhelming response – both positive and negative. As one of the few voices in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack that was openly critiqued the government’s conduct of the War on Terror during a political moment of unquestioning support, he struck a nerve. Since the beginning of his strip, Get Your War On, his website has gotten more than 8 million visitors.

Rees’s cubicle-dwelling office drones have since talked about almost everything: anthrax, Enron, Palestinian suicide bombers, John Ashcroft, women in Afghanistan, WMDs, Bush’s plans to send astronauts to Mars, and his favorite topic, the War on Terror. His clip art citizens are by turns grieving, angry, and confused. The cartoons, which generally involve more curse words than you can shake a stick at, are scabrous and sarcastic with a deadpan wit that isn’t subtle, but can be totally cathartic.

Now, after two Get Your War On books (all proceeds from the 2nd GYWO book went to clearing minefields in Afghanistan), and with the strip running regularly in Rolling Stone, the 32 year-old cartoonist, a Tar Heel now living in Brooklyn, sat down with Campus Progress.

Click here for a gallery of David’s Get Your War On comics.

EB: Get Your War On was borne out of the attacks of September 11. How were you feeling and how did you get started?

DR: I started the comic as kind of a reaction to the fact that I couldn’t find anything in pop culture or in the comic world that reflected how I was feeling about the war on terrorism. I read this newspaper article and it was about the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and it was really bad, saying that there would be massive starvation, which didn’t happen, fortunately, but there was a significant risk because of a really bad drought. Nobody seemed to be talking about that and I felt that to not talk about it was dishonest in a way. I mean, if we’re going to bomb Afghanistan, we should really talk about all the potential complications and deaths that would be a result of that. So, I started making comics about it and I really felt like I wanted to react to this militaristic attitude that came out after September 11th, especially at Maxim magazine, which is where I was working.

EB: I showed the strips to my mother who said to me, “You know, this man is very funny, but I don’t think I like his language.” I suppose this is a typical response from a mom. Clearly, there’s a lot of cursing in the cartoons, why did you choose to do it that way?

DR: Yeah, well I initially started making comics with a lot of cusses in it just for fun because I thought it was funny to have an insane amount of profanity. And then once I was making a comic about the war on terrorism, I wanted to express all of these mixed emotions I was feeling and all the anger I had. I thought it would be a really direct way to work against this sort of watered down political language we were hearing. It was strange because, in a way, the language of the War On Terror was not watered down, it was all “we must get the evil-doers.” On the other hand, I felt that when it came to talking about the actual horror of aerial bombardment campaigns, then you get into some really weird military language with vague terms about civilian causalities like “collateral damage” and so I really wanted to cut through it as much as possible and I decided that profanity really felt right. At the time that I made it, I made it for myself and I wasn’t thinking that this was going to limit my readership or alienate any potential people, you know what I mean?

EB: You know, at least in the last ten minutes, it seems like you don’t curse very much in your regular life.

DR: I know, it’s funny. I was talking yesterday about how the kids with the blue dreadlocks are always the ones in the front of the protest that always wind up on the cover of the New York Times. You just have to be media savvy and careful with the message.

EB: So, you’d say that you’ve become more media savvy nowadays?

DR: Well, I do use profanity among friends when I’m annoyed or frustrated about something. So, in a sense the strip talks in the way I talk, but when I do interviews and media stuff, I always try to remember to look decent with a collared shirt. Be polite, well-spoken and not use profanity. In a way the strip is like a diary and I try not to censor myself, but there is some artifice to it and it is scripted. You know it would be like meeting David Mamet and saying “Wow, he uses so much profanity in his plays, but it’s strange because he hasn’t called me a cocksucker at all during the entire interview.”

EB: There is lot of anger in these strips and that seems to have really resonated with people. Is it exhausting to sustain that level of rage? I noticed you have been putting out fewer columns since the election.

DR: I announced in Rolling Stone that I was going to quit the strip if Kerry won. I really thought he was going to win. I was actually really surprised by the election results. I just felt like “Shit! I have to feel like this for another four years.” Now that Bush is reelected I am trying to be under less stress and pressure and I want this comic to be one of many ways where I can make a living and express myself.

EB: But you were still able to make your rage pretty funny. Is the left funnier?

DR: Maybe, but some people say “oh well, the left is really obsessed with the idea of being pc and so you can’t be funny.”

EB: Well, the left seems to specialize in a certain gallows humor that comes naturally to underdogs, though it is the right that always seems to think they are the underdog.

DR: I know. For some reason Rush Limbaugh can still complain about the liberal media. I mean they control every branch of government! I mean, that’s Thomas Frank’s point –that is where they get their strength and motivate people. They always claim to be under siege from these Susan Sarandon types. They really use their own sense of victimization, which is ironic because the whole argument of the right against political correctness and campus identity politics is that these people claim to always be the victim. And here we have the most powerful political party in the world playing on people’s sense of victimization.

EB: What political hot button issues are you most interested in exploring nowadays?

DR: Well, the thing that I’m interested in now, even though I haven’t done many strips on it, is values and religion and their role in society and politics. I grew up in a really religious household and I used to be really religious. So, I get really offended when Bush uses all of that rhetoric and language, but I feel like Bush’s policies don’t reflect my understanding of Christ. And that’s something that really offends to me in a sort of personal way.

EB: You do still do a lot of strips about Afghanistan, even during news cycles where Afghanistan is almost totally out of the public eye.

DR: One thing that bothered me about the Iraq War was it how it pushed Afghanistan off the front page. And how, in a way, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, shamelessly wanted to skip Afghanistan entirely with this whole attitude of “let’s go straight into Iraq,” you know? I mean….take the Inaugural Address, which all the neo-cons are saying is one of the greatest Inaugural speeches in history. On paper it is; it’s totally awesome. Sure, lets spread liberty. But I feel like those guys are not willing to fulfill the promises of those words and that bothers me. So I still try to make strips about Afghanistan just to remind people that the country is still there and it’s really struggling.

Its strange to remember it now, but after September 11th, I was saying to my wife that if we want to make the world a better place and overthrow regimes, we should overthrow Saddam Hussein. The guy is totally brutal; he’s been there too long; and we owe it to Iraq because we used to support him. I mean, I totally had the Wolfowitz point of view in October 2001 and then when they started talking about it, I was, like, wait a minute, this doesn’t feel right to me: is that really why they’re going to do it? I think we really screwed up in Iraq and that bothers me. I feel that, in the end, Iraq will be better off than it was with Saddam Hussein and then in some other ways, it’ll be worse. So, in a way it’ll turn out to be a wash, but the thing is it will come at this incredible expense.

EB: I know you have really put your money where your mouth is, supporting UN landmine clearance with your last book, what are you up to politically these days?

DR: I am still trying to figure out what I want to do. I was thinking about maybe trying to raise more money for land mine relief in Afghanistan and Iraq. For me, doing the cartoon is really a luxury. It’s funny because I used to feel less guilty about my life when I was doing the cartoon. I would think “well, I’m doing something. I’m making this cartoon. I’m making people laugh about politics.” But in the end, I want to be able to really do something. That’s why I donated the landmine money in the first place, but now that doesn’t feel like enough. Maybe I should canvass or write more letters to my representative. I want to do more. It’s sort of like a drug.

EB: So if you could pick your very own presidential and vice presidential dream team for 2008, who would it be?

DR: Oh, man. Hmmm. President would be Angelina Jolie … and [religious progressive] Jim Wallis for Vice President.

EB: I think that’s one of the better tickets I’ve heard.

DR: It has a pretty good balance.

Click here for a gallery of some of Campus Progress’ favorite Get Your War On cartoons.