Get Your War on [Paperback]

David Rees (Author), Colson Whitehead (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

The only anecdote to the saccharine 9/11 retrospectives flooding bookshops, this collection of hilarious comic strips - cleverly mixing clip-art of office workers with hip-hop inspired profanities - gives a platform to the fear, frustration, anger and distrust that many Americans and the rest of the world feel concerning U.S. foreign policy and big business in the post-September 11 world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

About a month after 9/11, stiff little drawings of office workers talking on the phone about the developing war on terrorism appeared on Rees' Web site. They have proliferated since into a bitterly funny running commentary on what Rees obviously considers a profound waste of the human spirit, not to mention personnel, materiel, and money. The drawings are clip-art figures--the same handful used over and over, cropped, enlarged, and diminished--and they look eminently bland and middle-of-the-road, not a boat-rocking bunch. What Rees has coming out of their mouths, however, couldn't contrast more starkly: slash-and-burn cynicism, frothing with anger and fear, liberally peppered with the f-word, especially in participial form; in short, the kind of impotent, resentful, but intelligent bile hip youngsters might spout. The sheer incongruity of pictures and text provokes laughter, and references to trashy pop culture keep it coming. Rees' conceit that straight-arrow, would-be patriotic Americans are actually profoundly unnerved by Bush-administration policies as well as lethal fanaticism, however, ensures that one's laughter is satiric. Very smart protest stuff. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"The funniest post-September 11 critique... Conveys a hilariously deadpan fatalism while managing to provide a surprisingly articulate expression of our anxieties." - Newsweek "Very funny, very profane." - New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: Soft Skull Pr; First Edition. states edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188712876X
• ISBN-13: 978-1887128766
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,565,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blistering social critique & principled, profane brilliance., October 24, 2002

By 

Julie Babcock (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Your War on (Paperback)

In the days following Sept. 11, about the only thing that moved faster than MSNBC's news tickers was the mass market comic book industry. All the corporate mainstays of the genre, DC, Marvel, and so on were quick to join in the textual and visual relief effort with varying degrees of success. From The Amazing Spider Man #36 to the Heroes project to the 9-11 Artists Respond volumes the lines between humanistic testimony and tribute and jingoistic posturing became murkier and murkier. Enter David Rees, the author of such clip-art classics as "my new filing technique is unstoppable" and the sidesplitting "my new fighting technique is unstoppable" (a must-read for anyone who remembers Black Belt Theater on late night).
Now published by Soft Skull Press, this book collects Rees's clips from October 8, 2001 to August of this year. Rolling Stone magazine even included a small write-up in its August "Hot" Issue (reproduced in that issue is the final page in the book (excluding the epilogue).
Colson Whitehead, former NY journalist and author of the sublimely brilliant THE INTUITIONIST and JOHN HENRY DAYS (in this book he reveals an affinity with comics), usefully focuses on the appropriateness of clip art as THE genre by which to respond to the emotions and events of the past year. In the hands of Rees's generic office drones, file clerks, claims adjusters, and Dilberts-in-waiting, a fierce, sensitive and ultimately humanitarian response emerges. Combining the inanity of the office water cooler conversation with the intellectual paranoia and insight of Chomsky and Herman's MANUFACTURING CONSENT, Rees has given us a kind of new vocabulary by which to gauge our responses not only to the tragedy of 9-11 itself but also and perhaps more crucially the ever developing terror of the current administration's ongoing war fever and assault on basic domestic human rights and freedoms.
Rees's profane burlesque is a hysterically parodic assault on the corporate controlled "news" toadies who provide us with much of the biased worldview and conservative jingoism that passes for information and is disturbingly parrotted throughout the workplaces (and homeplaces) of the U.S. Thus, Rees is a kind of Lenny Bruce of sequential art. He asks all the right questions (in the process giving some of the right answers), and presents it all in a manner entirely and gloriously inappropriate to the watered-down censored palaver of the evening news.
A satirist on the order of Rabelais, a social critic on the order of Chomsky, and a patriot in the truest sense not unlike Thoreau at his very very best.
Buy this book, weep with it, laugh your ... head off, and then roll up your sleeves and get to work; learn about the Adopt-a-Minefield Campaign and the related grass roots community groups the book benefits and donate more money and time beyond those you spent buying and reading the book. ...

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it, read it, tell a friend..., October 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Get Your War on (Paperback)

I was browsing through the "current events" section of my local mega bookstore (sorry, amazon) and happened across this decidedly un-serious-looking book. I picked it up and began thumbing through it, and before long, I found myself choking back laughter (didn't want to make a scene). One of the best things about democracy is the diversity of ideas and expression. One need not agree with Rees at all to find these strips hilarious. If you can cope with a generous use of expletives (or "explicatives" (sic) as one reviewer called them), you will find yourself laughing so hard your mid-section aches. My husband and I enjoyed this book so much we bought 10 copies (yes, from amazon) and gave them as gifts to friends!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't wait to buy it, January 5, 2003

By 

Patrick Hanks "me" (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Get Your War on (Paperback)

I have not bought this book yet but I have read the online comics. They are one of the most hilarious cartoons about the war on terrorism, but I must warn firm supporters of U.S. foreign policy to stay as far as way as possible from this book. You will be so offended that you will be calling Lynne Cheny to tell her to put David Rees on the terrorist watch list and ban all of his literature. If you have a dark sense of humor, a fan of Doonesbury, and you are not offende by profane language, then I recommend this book for you. It only costs $...which is cheap for most collections of comic strips. All of the royalties given to David will go to fight for getting rid of land mines and getting the the U.S. to stop producing land mines, which is a very worthy cause. If you are still not sure if you want to buy this book then may I suggest that you go to a search engine and search for Get Your War On. You should be able to find his free site which contains a bunch of free comic strips from Get Your War On. If you like these free strips then you should love the book because it contains 100 pages of that kind of humor. Almost forgot. If you are a fan of Mallard Fillmore or you are the author of Mallard Fillmore, don't buy this book because you will hate it more than the Clintons, The New York Times, and Tom Daschle combined.