David Rees Interview

mf: How do you like prose-writing in comparison to your comic-writing?

David Rees: I like it ok. Prose-writing I guess is kind of what like comics used to be. I messed around with it before in college and after college but really kind of in just a real goofy experimental way. And it's kind of a challenge to communicate a real idea - for me, at least. Maybe that's why I started doing comics in the first place - because you can get across a joke or an idea without having to write descriptions. I just find that stuff so abstract that it's a lot easier for me to see the characters on the page and then so much easier to imagine what they're saying. And there's so much less effort to get the reader to see what you see, because they're literally seeing what you see.

mf: Let's talk about your comic-book writing. Can you tell me a little about your start - back when you were photocopying and distributing your own books?

David Rees: Yeah. My real start was in eighth grade. I was making little ninja comics, and my Dad was photocopying them for me, and I would sell them to my friends and sell them back to my Dad, basically. I made comics for the college newspaper for a couple years when I was in school. And then I just got into this thing when I had these slow boring temp jobs, where I would sit at the computer and make comics using the clip art instead of actually drawing them by hand. And it started with the karate comic, My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, which I made just for myself, photocopied, stapled together, and gave to some friends for a Christmas gift. And then they said, "you know you should try selling this in the local stores." So I started selling it in local stores in Boston, and these guys at a photocopy store would give me free photocopies of it, and I would go home and staple them and sell them around town.

Then I made My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable and started doing the same thing with that book. That's kind of the stage I was at when I moved to New York and started GYWO. And then, because of GYWO, the interest in these previous two books came up again. That's why Riverhead Books republished My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, and now they're publishing a radically-different version of My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable.

mf: My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable is the first of your books that I ever saw. I found it utterly hilarious, despite the fact that at times I had no idea why I found it so funny.

David Rees: When I made that book I was just at work and I was really bored. I was definitely not over thinking anything. I never imagined it as a book, initially. The way I turned it into a book was I had all these pages and pages of the strip that I was making for myself, and I laid them out on the kitchen floor and was kind of like, "Ok, if I'm going to give this to my friends, then it has to be a book. Let's just pick out the ones that kind of make sense as a story." That was more by accident than by design.

I like it when people say it makes them laugh though, and they're not really sure why it makes them laugh, because that's kind of how I felt about it. It's amazing to me that people other than me and my friends would find that amusing. The only reason I thought my friends would like it was not so much for the cartoons but just that they would think it was so crazy that here's their buddy just sitting at work making this insane goof-off project.

So when total strangers started emailing me saying, "That karate book is so hilarious!" it was really flattering, but kind of mystifying. I thought, "Huh, I guess I'm totally normal."

mf: Let's talk about GYWO. By the way, I really like your recent take on the administration classifying McDonalds jobs as manufacturing.

David Rees: Yeah - the Economic Report of the President! Yeah, I got an email from the AFL/CIO asking if they could put the strip on their website! (laughs) I said, "Alright… it's probably going to come back to haunt you someday, but go for it!"

mf: When you're doing GYWO, how do maintain a balance of humor that's not over the line?

David Rees: I try not to have too many filters on the strip. I usually feel that if I don't find it offensive, then nobody should find it offensive. I mean, if they find this offensive then their priorities are all wrong - and I'll be willing to defend it. Especially because on the website I don't have any kind of editor.