For David Rees, the Bush administration is a laughing matter.
As author of the satirical comic strip “Get Your War On,” Rees has spent the last year goofing on the President’s War on Terror. In the strip, clip-art cartoons of white-collar workers banter soullessly about foreign policy, often cursing Al-Qaeda and office pot-luck in the same breath.
“I want all my Americans who think this is our finest hour to just throw your hands in the air!” says one desk jockey to his coworker.
She answers without missing a beat, “I want all my Americans who can now be detained indefinitely with no lawyer to wave ’em like you just don’t care!”
In another strip, two company men express their frustration about politics over the phone.
“Why doesn’t anyone like us? Don’t they want to join us on the path of peace, under God?” says the first man.
“Remember when a reporter asked George W. Bush who his favorite political philosopher was, and he answered, ‘Jesus Christ?’ Do you think Jesus would have rolled over in his grave, if he hadn’t risen from it?” replies his friend.
After Sept. 11 America seemed an unlikely target for biting humor, but Rees, a North Carolina native, couldn’t resist.
“I was just trying to churn up all this stuff,” he said recently. “I went online searching for some kind of humor about this horrendous situation. Nobody seemed to be digging, trying to dredge up all these feelings.”
That’s when he decided to channel his War On Terror apprehensions into the strip. Initially, “Get Your War On” was viewable only at Rees’ web page, www.mnftiu.cc, but New York City weekly “The Village Voice” picked up the strip. Since “Get Your War On” gained national momentum, Rees has become the toast of the left wing. Various film studios and MTV are currently trying to court him as a screen-writer.
Syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, of “The Los Angeles Times” and “The Boston Herald,” jumped in Rees’ corner when she stumbled upon a strip aimed against land mines. The strip questioned the idea of dropping food and supplies in Afghanistan where land mines checker the ground.
“You know what I love?” asks one worker, “I love how we’re dropping food aid packages into a country that’s one big f–king minefield! That’s good!”
When Huffington keyed in on Rees’ sentiments, she allied herself with Rees to work for landmine relief in war-torn Afghanistan.
“When I made a strip about people getting blown up trying to retrieve food aid packages, it felt like a wave of relief just swept through me, like I was finally looking at the comic I had been searching for, or like I had summed up all the pain and absurdity I had been feeling using these three little stupid cartoon panels,” Rees said. “It was a powerful moment.”
Check out Rees’ strip online or in “The Village Voice.”