David Rees (cartoonist)

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David Rees
Rees in 2012
Born (1972-06-22) June 22, 1972 (age 51)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Cartoonist, writer, artist, television host
Notable works
Get Your War On
Spouse(s)Sarah Lariviere (2002–2012)
Emily Yoshida (2018–2022)
mnftiu.cc

David Thomas Rees (/riːs/ REESS;[1] born June 22, 1972) is a humorist and cultural critic. He first rose to prominence as a cartoonist whose best-known work combined bland clip art with "trash talk". Rees later created an artisanal pencil sharpening service and published a related book on the subject. He co-created and hosted two seasons of the television series Going Deep with David Rees.[2]

Early life[edit]

Rees grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,[citation needed] and was an avid reader of Rex Morgan, M.D. comics. According to Rees, while a young man he and three of his friends recorded over 2,000 songs as members of a "secret band".[3]

He is a graduate of Oberlin College, and drew comics for the school's newspaper, The Oberlin Review.[4]

Career[edit]

Cartoonist[edit]

Rees first became known for his office-cubicle humor that was inspired by his experience working in a basement for Citicorp. He also pulled his humor from his experience as a part-time fact-checker for Maxim and Martha Stewart Weddings magazines.

There are five collected volumes of his work. His best known and most controversial comic is Get Your War On, which has been translated into French, Spanish and Italian.[5] When the follow-up volume, Get Your War On II was published, Rees donated all the royalties of both books (more than $100,000) to Adopt-a-Minefield,[6] an organization that works to remove landmines from post-conflict areas. He is also the author of the comic strips My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable, and Adventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear.

Artisanal Pencil Sharpening[edit]

In July 2010, Rees announced an Artisanal Pencil Sharpening service. Rees said that, for prices starting at $15, people could buy a sharpened pencil or mail in a pencil to be sharpened by him. Rees claimed to be a craftsman in "the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening", saying, "His artisanal service is perfect for artists, writers, and standardized test takers." He also sold art prints bundled with a sharpened pencil.[7][8][9] According to The New Yorker, "This was before parody menus of farm-to-table restaurants had come out, before it was a cliché to make jokes about Mason jars and pickle-making, and artisanal culture desperately needed to be mocked. For fifteen dollars, Rees would hand-sharpen your pencil, bag up the shavings, and send it all back to you with a certificate of authenticity. It was deeply, satisfyingly ridiculous, and he was besieged with orders".[10]

Rees released a book entitled How to Sharpen Pencils in April 2012. The New York Times called it a methodical, deliberate and gleeful subversion and satire that "capture[s] the inherently joyless tedium of conveying specialized instructional information, while tipping off the reader that the cod liver oil is laced with laughing gas." It noted the book contains sections such as a list of common and uncommon children’s names, a comparison of the taste of certain wines versus the taste of certain pencils, and a guide to impressions of Sean Connery and Robert De Niro, but the review also noted that you can actually use the book to learn how to sharpen pencils.[11]

In 2016 he announced that he would be raising his price per pencil to $500 and said he did not know if anyone would accept the new price.[12]

Television and podcasting[edit]

In July 2014 the TV show Going Deep with David Rees launched on the National Geographic Channel. The show featured Rees humorously investigating the science and process behind very basic tasks such as making ice, lighting matches and the tying of shoelaces.[13] For the second season, the show moved to the Esquire Network.[14]

Rees hosts the weekly podcast Election Profit Makers with his childhood friend Jon Kimball and Starlee Kine in which they discuss the prediction market website PredictIt.org.[15] The podcast first appeared as a series of 17 episodes before the 2016 U.S. presidential election and returned in the months before the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Rees co-created the animated television series Dicktown with John Hodgman, and starred as the character David Purefoy. It was released in 2020.[16] Dicktown was renewed for a second season, which premiered in 2022.

Music[edit]

In late 2014 via his SoundCloud page, Rees released Aphex Swift, a collection of eight songs that combined the vocals of Taylor Swift and the electronic music of Aphex Twin. The collection received positive mentions ranging from The Verge, which called it "bizarrely good",[17] to The A.V. Club [18] and Time.[19] In 2021, Rees released his first album of original noise music titled, YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, on the flower sounds music label.[20]

Writing and blogging[edit]

Over his career Rees has written for a variety of publications. Since May 2005, Rees has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. In 2013, Rees began writing for Wired's first scripted web series Codefellas.[21][22][23]

Personal life[edit]

Rees married Sarah Lariviere[24] in 2002; they divorced in 2012.[25]

In 2010, Rees worked as a civil servant for the United States Census Bureau, a position that revitalized his interest in pencils.[26] During that time, Rees lived in Beacon, New York.[27]

Rees married writer and filmmaker Emily Yoshida in 2018. They divorced in 2021.[28]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Get Your War On. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2002. ISBN 1-887128-76-X.
  • My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable. New York: Riverhead, 2003. ISBN 1-57322-373-5.
  • My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable. New York: Riverhead, 2004. ISBN 1-57322-382-4.
  • Get Your War On II. New York: Riverhead, 2004. ISBN 1-59448-048-6.
  • Get Your War On: The Definitive Account of the War On Terror, 2001–2008. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2008. ISBN 1-59376-213-5.
  • How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening. Melville House, 2012. ISBN 1-61219-040-5.

References[edit]

  1. ^ MotherboardTV: "The Finer Points of David Rees". Archived from the original on 2021-12-22. Retrieved 2013-02-07.
  2. ^ Rees, David (25 August 2014). "David Rees on How to Make Your Own TV Show". Vulture.
  3. ^ "Pet Store, Post Robbery, episode #41 of SPONTANEANATION with Paul F. Tompkins on Earwolf". www.earwolf.com. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  4. ^ Higgins, Chris (August 24, 2014). "Pooters, SkyMall, and Haterade – The David Rees Interview". Mental Floss. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  5. ^ "Get Your War On". Soft Skull Press. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
  6. ^ Jory, John (11 September 2012). "The Rumpus Interview with David Rees". The Rumpus.
  7. ^ Artisanal Pencil Sharpening website
  8. ^ Three Questions for David Rees About His New Artisanal Pencil-Sharpening Project, Daily Details
  9. ^ For the person who has everything: artisanal pencil sharpening, Los Angeles Times
  10. ^ Larson, Sarah (15 August 2014). "David Rees: Going Deep and Going Ridiculous". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  11. ^ McCall, Bruce (2012-07-27). "Honing Skills". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  12. ^ "Artisanal pencil sharpener calls it quits". CBC Radio. 2016-04-08. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  13. ^ Modell, Josh (July 14, 2014). "Get Your War On's David Rees wants to teach you fun but useless things on his new TV show". The A.V. Club.
  14. ^ Esquire Archived 2015-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Election Profit Makers website
  16. ^ Greene, Steve (2020-09-03). "'Dicktown': The Year's Funniest Animated Comedy Bloomed from a Real-Life Friendship". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 2020-09-08. Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  17. ^ Kastrenakes, Jacob (27 October 2014). "Listen to the bizarrely good Aphex Twin / Taylor Swift mashup album". The Verge.
  18. ^ Hughes, William (24 October 2014). "Here's a great Taylor Swift/Aphex Twin mash-up by David Rees". AV Club. The Onion.
  19. ^ Waxman, Olivia B. "Taylor Swift Mashed Up With Aphex Twin Is Surprisingly Catchy". Time.
  20. ^ "YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, by David Rees". flower sounds. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  21. ^ David Rees (21 June 2013). "www.mnftiu.cc » Blog Archive » CODEFELLAS". WordPress. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  22. ^ Todd Spangler (21 June 2013). "Wired's 'Codefellas' Plays NSA Privacy Flap for Laughs". Variety. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  23. ^ Camilleri, Ricky (20 June 2013). "John Hodgman LIVE – HuffPost Live". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  24. ^ Leland, John (21 April 2002). "Like 'Dilbert,' But Subversive And Online". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  25. ^ Jory, John. "The Rumpus Interview with David Rees", Rumpus Magazine (September 11, 2012). Accessed November 19, 2016.
  26. ^ Miller, Jenni (10 April 2012). "Interview with David Rees, Author of How to Sharpen Pencils". GQ. Retrieved 2020-09-07.
  27. ^ Cauthon, Phil. "Q&A with David Rees: Get Your War On creator returns to Lawrence to spread the gospel of dissent", Best of Lawrence (September 26, 2005). Accessed Oct. 7, 2008.
  28. ^ "Yoshida, Emily Vs Rees, David".

Notes[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Harrigan, Chris (Sep 2014). "A sharp mind". Smith Journal. 12: 40–42.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to David Rees.
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