| David Rees | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Rees in 2012 | |
| Born | (1972-06-22)June 22, 1972 (age 52) Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist, writer, artist, television host |
Notable works | Get Your War On |
| Spouse(s) | |
| mnftiu | |
David Thomas Rees (/riːs/REESS;[1] born June 22, 1972) is ahumorist andcultural critic. He first rose to prominence as acartoonist whose best-known work combined blandclip 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 seriesGoing Deep with David Rees.[2] He is also the co-creator and co-host of the podcastElection Profit Makers.[3]
Rees grew up inChapel Hill, North Carolina,[citation needed] and was an avid reader ofRex 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".[4]
He is a graduate ofOberlin College, and drew comics for the school's newspaper,The Oberlin Review.[5]
Rees first became known for hisoffice-cubiclehumor that was inspired by his experience working in a basement forCiticorp. He also pulled his humor from his experience as apart-time fact-checker forMaxim andMartha Stewart Weddings magazines.
There are five collected volumes of his work. His best known and most controversial comic isGet Your War On, which has been translated intoFrench,Spanish andItalian.[6] When the follow-up volume,Get Your War On II was published, Rees donated all theroyalties of both books (more than $100,000) toAdopt-a-Minefield,[7] an organization that works to remove landmines from post-conflict areas. He is also the author of the comic stripsMy New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable,My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable, andAdventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear.
In 2010, Rees worked as acivil servant for theUnited States Census Bureau, a position that revitalized his interest in pencils.[8]
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.[9][10][11] According toThe New Yorker, "This was before parody menus offarm-to-table restaurants had come out, before it was a cliché to make jokes aboutMason 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".[12]
Rees released a book entitledHow 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.[13]
In 2016 Rees 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.[14]
In July 2014 the TV showGoing Deep with David Rees launched on theNational Geographic Channel. The show featured Rees humorously investigating thescience and process behind very basic tasks such as making ice, lighting matches and the tying of shoelaces.[15] For the second season, the show moved to theEsquire Network.[16]
Rees hosts the weekly podcastElection Profit Makers with his childhood friend Jon Kimball andStarlee Kine in which they discuss the prediction market websitePredictIt.org.[17] The podcast first appeared as a series of 17 episodes before the2016 U.S. presidential election and returned in the months before the2020 U.S. presidential election.
Rees co-created the animated television seriesDicktown withJohn Hodgman, and starred as the character David Purefoy. It was released in 2020.[18]Dicktown was renewed for a second season, which premiered in 2022.
In late 2014 via hisSoundCloud page, Rees releasedAphex Swift, a collection of eight songs that combined the vocals ofTaylor Swift and the electronic music ofAphex Twin. The collection received positive mentions ranging fromThe Verge, which called it "bizarrely good",[19] toThe A.V. Club[20] andTime.[21] In 2021, Rees released his first album of original noise music titled,YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, on the flower sounds music label.[22]
Over his career Rees has written for a variety of publications. Since May 2005, Rees has been a contributingblogger atThe Huffington Post. In 2013, Rees began writing forWired's first scriptedweb seriesCodefellas.[23][24][25]
Rees married Sarah Lariviere[26] in 2002; theydivorced in 2012.[27]
In 2010, Rees lived inBeacon, New York.[28]
Rees married writer and filmmaker Emily Yoshida in 2018. They divorced in 2022.[29]
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