David Rees
David Thomas Rees (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.
Also recorded as David Thomas Rees · Rees, David
David Rees

RangerRick (Benjamin Reed) · cropped from · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Name
- David Rees
- Born
- 22 June 1972
- Birthplace
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- comics artist · blogger · writer · actor · cartoonist · humorist
- Education
- Oberlin College
- Languages
- English
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Documentary summary
David Thomas Rees (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.
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wikidata · Q3018669
In this article
Biography
Biography
He co-created and hosted two seasons of the television series Going Deep with David Rees. He is also the co-creator and co-host of the podcast Election Profit Makers.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — David Rees • Born — 22 June 1972 • Birthplace — Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States • Area — Cartoonist, writer, artist, television host • Notable Works — Get Your War On • Website — http: mnftiu.cc
Early life
Early life
Rees grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 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". He is a graduate of Oberlin College, and drew comics for the school's newspaper, The Oberlin Review.
Cartoonist
Cartoonist
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. 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, 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
Artisanal Pencil Sharpening
In 2010, Rees worked as a civil servant for the United States Census Bureau, a position that revitalized his interest in pencils. 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. 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". 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. 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.
Television and podcasting
Television and podcasting
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. For the second season, the show moved to the Esquire Network. 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. 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. Dicktown was renewed for a second season, which premiered in 2022.
Music
Music
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", to The A.V. Club and Time. In 2021, Rees released his first album of original noise music titled, YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, on the flower sounds music label.
Writing and blogging
Writing and blogging
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.
Personal life
Personal life
Rees married Sarah Lariviere in 2002; they divorced in 2012. In 2010, Rees lived in Beacon, New York.
Identity
Identity
David Rees is recorded with the occupation comics artist. Recorded with the occupation voice actor. Recorded as comics artist, blogger, writer, actor and cartoonist. Established in Library of Congress under no2002111577.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1972
David Rees was born on 22 June 1972.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.MotherboardTV: "The Finer Points of David Rees".
- 2.Rees, David. David Rees on How to Make Your Own TV Show. Vulture. 25 August 2014.
- 3.Election Profit Makers. podnews.net. 2024-09-01.
- 4.Pet Store, Post Robbery, episode #41 of SPONTANEANATION with Paul F. Tompkins on Earwolf. www.earwolf.com.
- 5.Higgins, Chris. Pooters, SkyMall, and Haterade – The David Rees Interview. Mental Floss. August 24, 2014.
- 6.Get Your War On. Soft Skull Press.
- 7.Jory, John. The Rumpus Interview with David Rees. The Rumpus. 11 September 2012.
- 8.Miller, Jenni. Interview with David Rees, Author of How to Sharpen Pencils. GQ. 10 April 2012.
- 9.Artisanal Pencil Sharpening website
- 10.Three Questions for David Rees About His New Artisanal Pencil-Sharpening Project, Daily Details
- 11.For the person who has everything: artisanal pencil sharpening, Los Angeles Times
- 12.Larson, Sarah. David Rees: Going Deep and Going Ridiculous. The New Yorker. 15 August 2014.
- 13.McCall, Bruce. Honing Skills. The New York Times. 2012-07-27. 0362-4331.
- 14.Artisanal pencil sharpener calls it quits. CBC Radio. 2016-04-08.
- 15.Modell, Josh. Get Your War On's David Rees wants to teach you fun but useless things on his new TV show. The A.V. Club. July 14, 2014.
- 16.Esquire
- 17.Election Profit Makers website
- 18.Greene, Steve. 'Dicktown': The Year's Funniest Animated Comedy Bloomed from a Real-Life Friendship. IndieWire. 2020-09-03.
- 19.Kastrenakes, Jacob. Listen to the bizarrely good Aphex Twin / Taylor Swift mashup album. The Verge. 27 October 2014.
- 20.Hughes, William. Here's a great Taylor Swift/Aphex Twin mash-up by David Rees. AV Club. The Onion. 24 October 2014.
- 21.Waxman, Olivia B. Taylor Swift Mashed Up With Aphex Twin Is Surprisingly Catchy. Time.
- 22.YOU AINT GOIN NOWHERE, by David Rees. flower sounds.
- 23.David Rees. www.mnftiu.cc » Blog Archive » CODEFELLAS. WordPress. 21 June 2013.
- 24.Todd Spangler. Wired's 'Codefellas' Plays NSA Privacy Flap for Laughs. Variety. 21 June 2013.
- 25.Camilleri, Ricky. John Hodgman LIVE – HuffPost Live. The Huffington Post. 20 June 2013.
- 26.Leland, John. Like 'Dilbert,' But Subversive And Online. The New York Times. 21 April 2002.
- 27.Jory, John. "The Rumpus Interview with David Rees", Rumpus Magazine (September 11, 2012). Accessed November 19, 2016.
- 28.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.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 7
- Get Your War On. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2002. .
- My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable. New York: Riverhead, 2003. .
- My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable. New York: Riverhead, 2004. .
- Get Your War On II. New York: Riverhead, 2004. .
- Get Your War On: The Definitive Account of the War On Terror, 2001–2008. Brooklyn: Soft Skull, 2008. .
- How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening. Melville House, 2012. .
- Harrigan, Chris. A sharp mind. Smith Journal. 12. 40–42. Sep 2014.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
institutional register
Wikidata, structured authority record Q3018669: David ReesWikimedia Foundation
General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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