David Thomas Rees 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.
Early life
Rees grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and was an avid reader of Rex Morgan, M.D. comics. As a young man, Rees 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.
Career
Cartoonist
Rees first became known for his office-cubiclehumor 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 5 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 to Adopt-a-Minefield, 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, and Adventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear.
In July 2010, Rees announced his Artisanal Pencil Sharpening service, where - for prices starting at $500.00 - people can mail in their own pencils to be sharpened by him, or receive a sharpened pencil provided by the craftsman. According to the site, "...craftsman David Rees still practices the age-old art of manual pencil sharpening. His artisanal service is perfect for artists, writers, and standardized test takers. Shipped with their shavings and a 'certificate of sharpening', these extra-sharp pencils make wonderful gifts." His book, How to Sharpen Pencils, was released on April 16, 2012.
Host/presenter
In July 2014 the showGoing Deep with David Rees launched on the National Geographic Channel. The show features 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 for a 30-episode series leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Mashup
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.
Writer/blogger
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 seriesCodefellas.
