From the disparate extremes of corporate banality and his own furious imagination, Rees has crafted a world seething with humor. Following his antiwar hit Get Your War On
and his samurai spoof, My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable
, this
is a hilarious satire of workplace desperation taken to a medieval level of agony and the madness needed to survive it. Visually, the story consists of bland clip art taken from business presentation manuals, but Rees skillfully uses the same drawings over and over again to create an entire cast of characters. These doomed office drones speak in a profane gangsta patois that is anything but boring. "You're being killed by the numbers? Fuckin' count harder man!... You are real. You are better! Say that shit ten times." Tensions mount as the unnamed company tries to find a new filing technique that will neutralize the presumed boredom and incompetence of its workers. Dr. Fanderbiles, a consultant portrayed by a drawing from the 1920s, is brought in to increase productivity, but things go terribly wrong, even when he promises team members a chance to "jump out of an airplane and hold hands." This work joins Office Space
, Work is Hell
and Dilbert
as a fantastic recreation of the middle-management tedium and petty in-fighting that the workplace can become. Unlike Dilbert's
wasteland, though, this office actually seems to be a very exciting place, what with people turning invisible, databases blowing up and computers using Scotch tape to network. Rees is quickly becoming one of Gen Y's foremost humorists. (Mar.)
