Originally published in Verbicide issue #18

David Rees would be the first person to tell you that the Bush administration is an easy target. He’d also be the first to admit that his controversial comic strip, Get Your War On, is in danger of losing the resonance it once had as a tool for exposing our flawed American values. That’s why, after five years of fighting a war on paper, he’s ready to give it up.

“I feel like I’m at the point now that people are rolling their eyes at the comic,” Rees explains. “I don’t want them to get to the point where they’re throwing bricks through my window.” He’s joking, of course. But if that did happen, he wouldn’t be surprised.

The climate wasn’t always so hostile. When Rees began the comic and others like it in 2001, he was creating strips for himself. The office humor that characterized those first comics was borne of the boredom that comes with working a mindless job. Later, Rees let his coworkers and friends in on the joke, regularly sending out strips that he eventually packaged as My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable, and later, My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable. Back then he used the boring, generic clipart he had access to around the office. It’s the same clipart he uses today.

If graphic art purists try to call out Rees for cheating, they will receive no argument from the author. He freely admits that using the same clip art over and over again is ethically problematic. But, in the past, he had spent time drawing comics and quickly came to see it as a waste of time. Only then did he seek out a method to extract “the greatest reward for the least amount of work.” Once he found the pre-existing digital artwork right at his fingertips, he never looked back.

“I don’t concern myself too much with whether comic strips are taken seriously as an art form. That thinking just leads to really boring comic books,” he comments dryly. “Sometimes, I don’t know how I fit into this world of comic artists because I don’t draw anything. It’s mostly just a vehicle for the writing, and that’s why I started using clipart in the first place.”

Despite his reluctance to be categorized as an artist, Rees became a small press champion to the locals who bought his collected strips from area shops. Soon, he became more controversial with his subject matter, evolving from office humor to political commentary. He created a website and pointed people in its direction. Yet none of that would have mattered if it weren’t for the tragic events of September 11. After that, Rees unwittingly found himself and his personal comic at the forefront of American political commentary. It wasn’t long before Rolling Stone magazine came calling.

After five years, several publications, one Get Your War On stage show, and a slew of angry letters, David Rees is just as jaded now as he was back in 2001. He believes that our party system is “kinda stupid, and does more harm than good.” He ducks compliments, crediting his current success to an ability “to stay angry and scared all the time.” An ability that, he admits, is getting harder and harder as time goes by. In fact, he sounds downright tired of being jaded and he’s afraid his message is suffering as a result. Rees explains, “The challenge is to keep the writing strong enough so that people come back and read it even though they probably know what it’s going to be about.” It’s a task that he’s not sure he’s up to anymore.

But there’s still hope for fans of Get Your War On. Despite Rees’s claims of battle fatigue, he still has faith in the society he has satirized for the past five years. While not really politically affiliated, he admits, “I’m not interested in people who throw up their hands and decide not to vote at all because all politicians are crooks. That’s the best way to ensure that they continue to stay crooks. People shouldn’t think they’re too hip or too smart to play the two-party system, because it’s the only game in town right now.”

Rees doesn’t think that the barrier of corruption in politics is insurmountable, believing the first step is for Democrats to take back the issues of class, poverty, and morality that were their legacy — and to “stop being afraid of being called unpatriotic.” Rees never intended to make a living poking fun at the government, and he’s hoping that the Democrats will put him out of a job.

When asked about his plans after he ceases to create Get Your War On, he says he has none. And he’s not in a hurry to make any.

“I’ve got two years to figure it out,” he jokes. “I’ll spend my first year under the bed not reading the newspaper. Then I’ll go out and get a job. See if I can go back and proofread documents for Citigroup.” Again, Rees sounds like he’s not really kidding. Here’s hoping that he is.