After September 11, the mood in the United States was somber and serious as the majority of Americans were led into supporting two failed wars by Bush II. Speaking out was unpatriotic, so those of us who were none too pleased found quiet solace and smiles in David Rees’ Get Your War On. The ironic cartoons gave us something to snicker about with co-workers — you know, the anti-American traitor types with bleeding hearts (as opposed to ones that pump oil) — around the water cooler.
In the years following, Get Your War On managed to spread around the world wide interweb faster than the swine flu, and it didn’t take long for a compilation of seven years of the hilariously un-PC drawings to be released by Brooklyn-based publisher Soft Skull Press, and for Rude Mechanicals to tour the country acting out the snarkified, curse-laden dialogue Rees was famous for.
After a brief hiatus, Get Your War On is back… sort of.
For their new animated Cubicle Picnic ad campaign, Jamba Juice has used the same clip art as Rees’ snarky, foul mouthed office-dwellers, but replaced the dialogue with their pro-Jamba corporate marketing nonsense. The intent was to capture a young, web-savvy demographic through the use of ironic imagery — and irony is exactly what they got.
Rees supporters were so outraged that they began speaking out against the image duplication for the purposes of selling Jamba’s Summer Bliss, which prompted Jamba Juice to issue a statement disassociating the company from Get Your War On. Sounds like a lesson in how to alienate just the audience they intended to corral. This explains why now they’re literally giving the stuff away.
Rees’ response to the drama? “Juice Sucks. Drink wine!” (Listen to an interview with him about it here.)
If you want to know what a Jamba Juice marketing meeting looks like, here is 40 seconds of your life you can never have back:
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5 Responses
The artwork in question is in the public domain for crying out loud! Rees didn't draw any of it so why the outrage; if his comic is so sacred to him then he should have taken the time and drawn it himself! If something is in the public domain it is free to be used in any way, if you are an artist and use public domain art you should expect it to be shared and copied and remixed or whatever. If Jamba used that clip art first and an artist like Rees created a comic afterward would there be the same outrage…i have a feeling people would be screaming for fair use and fighting for the right of the little guy to express himself — the double standard is clear. This is a non-issue, sounds like he is trying to IP squat clip art which is really lazy and low. What an ego this guy has: getting people riled up over this, all the stick-it-to-the-man anti-corporate rhetoric. Epic David Rees ego fail! Boycott IP squatting!!!
You should listen to the interview w/ Rees or read what he's written on his website. He's not mad that they've used the same clip art. It's the jacking of the comment bubble style and the ignorant laziness of corporate marketers he's annoyed with.
You are an idiot. They can use the clip art of course, but they bit his entire style of how he used it. Get a clue you wordy piece of s***.
Oh…they "bit" his style. Ahh, that style which Tom Tierney created when he drew the art, are you talking about that style? Or do you mean those special word balloons he claims to have invented? Do you mean that his attaching word bubbles to clip art is somehow unique? If you use material from the public domain it belongs to EVERYONE….what about that don't you understand? Jamba didnt use any of his dialogue did they? Rees is an egomaniac, he knows this whole thing is absurd and is milking it for all its worth…with help from people like you i might add.
dudes. calm down! this shit is funny! it's obvious jamba juice's intent was to capture the gywo demographic by emulating the comic strip. they weren't trying to capture the tierney demographic – there isn't one. yeah yeah – rees didn't invent the comic strip, but they would have never ever launched this campaign if gywo hadn't existed. getting stale, generic office workers to talk in-depth about heated political issues is funny. getting them to market your product is stupid, and rightfully offensive to actual gywo fans who associate those characters with… heated political issues that nobody would talk about honestly for the first few years of the wars, except Rees.