Get Your War on

A first collection of the website cartoonist's observations on the war on terrorism and other contemporary issues critiques such subjects as the anthrax mailings, Enron, the Office for Homeland Security, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Original. 40,000 first printing.

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
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