Cartoons, curses, politics

Anti-war sentiments, Voltron references and a dissection of July 4th Sunday comics all peppered with various curse words were the highlights of the David Rees presentation Wednesday night.

Rees, the cartoonist behind the popular Internet cartoon "Get Your War On" as well as the comic strips "My New Fighting Tech-nique is Unstoppable" and "My New Filing Technique is Unstop-pable" presented his work to a group of 50 Marshall students, faculty, and Huntington citizens.

After a warning about the use of profanity, Rees put copies of his comics on an overhead projector and explained the background behind each one and how he started drawing comics on the computer.

"I had to use the computer clip art because although I had a lot of experience drawing comics, at a temp job, what your boss really wants to hear is the reassuring tapping of the keys on the keyboard," Rees said. "That's how he knows you're working."

Throughout reading his comic strips out loud to the audience, Rees kept the attention of his audience members with outlandish references to the items he was talking about.

"The most heartbreaking thing I've experienced was when I was in elementary school and I found out humans didn't actually get to live with dinosaurs," he said as a starting point for a segment regarding religion, President Bush's plan to go to Mars, and fan letters.

Rees said the war on Iraq opened a lot of people's eyes regarding the current administration. He mentioned how directly after 9/11, comedy and satire was almost completely destroyed.

"I don't think that's [fall 2001] going to go down in history as the golden age of American satire because obviously, the nation has suffered this traumatic atrocity, and nobody really knew what to think. And I kind of felt like as skeptics, and as a country that has a history of producing skeptical pop culture, I guess we weren't firing on all cylinders yet," said Rees. "However, I do think the Iraq war, for a lot of people, was the limit.

"We invaded Iraq, of course, because Saddam Hussein masterminded, financed, and planned Sept. 11," said Rees jokingly. "And if you don't know that's true, you're being lied to by the liberal media."

When questioned on his heavy use of profanity in his comics, Rees said he felt it would really help to get the message across. He also referenced his vocabulary skills.

"I have a very limited vocabulary," he said. "The only way I can express myself is by using profanity, as I was told by my mother in high school."

Rees believes after the election, things will calm down in the political world.

"People are going to be exhausted."

All of the proceeds of Rees' book sales go toward Adopt-A-Minefield, a de-mining organization in Afghanistan. Rees said it takes nearly $15,000 per month to keep his team active. The decision to give his money to the organization was a personal one, he said.

"For me, it wasn't going to be enough just to complain about it," said Rees. "It [the money] was satisfying as a cartoonist, but it wasn't satisfying as a person."

Alexis Stewart, print journalism freshman from Logan and member of White Rose, the organization that brought Rees to Marshall's campus, said she was glad Rees came to Huntington.

"He's offering another viewpoint some of the students might not be hearing from the Young Democrats or the College Republicans," she said.

Huntington resident Adam Barraclough said Rees made a good point when he talked about how his audience doesn't need converted to vote against Bush.

"I think the people who need to read Get Your War On probably aren't," said Barraclough.

Rees said that even though he's popular now, after the election he may not have anything to write about. He said if John Kerry wins, he would probably stop producing comics for awhile.

"I think the day after the election, political book sales will plummet, and nobody will be interested in hearing what I have to say for a long time," said Rees.

Marshall chapter of White Rose put on this event. It was also sponsored in part by the Office of Multicultural Affairs.