Dilbert creator Scott Adams dies at age 68
Mark Kennedy
Popular comic strip by Scott Adams dilbert He captured the frustration of beleaguered white-collar cubicle workers and satirized the ridiculousness of modern office culture until he was abruptly dropped from the union in 2023 for his racist remarks, dead. He was 68 years old.
His first ex-wife, Shelly Miles, announced the death in a live broadcast broadcast on Adams’ social media accounts. “He is no longer with us,” he said. In 2025, Adams announced that prostate cancer had spread to his bones. Miles said Monday he was in hospice care at his home in Northern California.
“I’ve had a wonderful life,” the statement said in part. “I gave everything I had.”
At its highest point, dilbertWith its mouthless, bespectacled hero in a white short-sleeved shirt and a constantly rolled up red tie, it appeared in 2000 newspapers in at least 70 countries and 25 languages around the world.
Adams received the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award in 1997, considered one of the most prestigious awards for cartoonists. That same year, Dilbert became the first fictional character. Time magazine’s list of the most influential Americans.
“We support him because he is the spokesman for the lessons we have accumulated in our efforts to prevent solitary killings but are afraid to express,” the magazine said.
dilbert strips were routinely photocopied, attached, emailed, and posted online; it was a popularity that would spawn best-selling books, merchandise, and animated TV series.
The collapse of the ‘Dilbert’ empire
It all came crashing down quickly in 2023, with Adams, who is white, repeatedly referring to Black people as “hate group” members and saying he would no longer “help Black Americans.” He later said he was exaggerating but continued to defend his stance.
The newspapers fell immediately dilbert and its distributor, Andrews McMeel Universal, severed ties with the cartoonist. Sun Chronicle In Attleboro, Massachusetts, he decided to keep the Dilbert space empty for a while “as a reminder of the racism that pervades our society.” A planned book was scrapped.
Adams relaunched the same daily comic as Dilbert Reborn through the Rumble video platform, popular with conservatives and far-right groups. He also hosted a podcast. Real CoffeeHe talked about various political and social issues.
How did ‘Dilbert’ begin?
Adams, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Hartwick College and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, worked a corporate job at the Pacific Bell telephone company in the 1980s and shared his cartoons to entertain his co-workers. he drew dilbert He was working as a computer programmer and engineer at a high-tech company and sending mass mailings to cartoon unions.
“The embrace of office life was fresh, targeted and insightful,” said Sarah Gillespie, who helped discover. dilbert It was said in United Media in the 1980s: Washington Post. “First I looked at humor and then at art. dilbert “That was a good thing, because art, as is universally acknowledged… is not great.”
First dilbert The comic officially debuted on April 16, 1989, long before these workplace comedies: Office Space And Office. He described corporate culture as follows: severance pay-Like the Kafkaesque world full of heavy bureaucracy and meaningless comparisons, where the efforts and skills of employees are not appreciated enough.
The strip will feature the “Dilbert Principle”: The most ineffective employees will be systematically moved to where they can do the least harm: management.
“There have been times throughout history when it was very clear that managers had all the power and workers had no power,” Adams said. Time. “From beginning to end dilbertI think the balance of power has shifted a bit.
Other strip characters include Dilbert’s spiky-haired boss; Asok, a young, naive intern; Wally, a middle-aged slacker; and Alice, an irritable worker who is prone to frequent outbursts of anger. Then there was Dilbert’s pet megalomaniac Dogbert.
“There’s a certain amount of anger you have to absorb dilbert comics,” Adams said. Contra Costa Times In 2009.
In 1993, Adams became the first cartoonist to include his email address in his strip. This triggered a dialogue between the artist and his fans and provided Adams with a source of ideas for this strip.
Dilbert was also known for coining aphorisms such as “All rumors are true, especially if your boss denies them” and “Okay, let’s get this preliminary meeting started.”
“If you can make peace with the fact that you are surrounded by fools,” Adams wrote in his 1996 book, “you will realize the futility of resistance, your tension will dissipate, and you can sit back and have a good laugh at the expense of others.” Dilbert Principle.
In one real-life case, an Iowa employee was fired from Catfish Bend Casino in 2007 for posting a Dilbert comic on his office bulletin board. “Why do most of the decisions at my workplace seem to be made by drunk lemurs,” Adams wrote in the strip. A judge later sided with the worker; Adams helped him find a new job.
Gradual darkening
While the decline of Adams’s career appeared rapid, attentive readers of Dilbert saw the strip’s tone gradually darken and its creator drift toward misogyny, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism.
He gained attention for controversial comments in 2011, including saying women were treated differently by society than children and mentally disabled people for the same reason – “it’s easier for everyone this way.” In a 2006 blog post he questioned the number of deaths in the Holocaust.
In June 2020, Adams tweeted that the end of the Dilbert TV show in 2000 after just two seasons was “the third job I’ve lost because I was white.” But at the time, he attributed this to lower viewership and timeslot changes.
Adams’ beliefs began to seep into his strips. In a 2022 report, a boss says traditional performance reviews will be replaced by an “alertness” score. When an employee complained that this could be subjective, the boss said: “That’ll cost you two points on your alertness score, bigot.”
Adams put a brave face on his fall from grace, tweeting in 2023: “Only the dying leftist Fake News industry canceled me (for news out of context, of course). Social media and banking were unaffected. My personal life has improved. Never been more popular in my life. Zero pushback personally. Black and White conservatives solidly support me.”
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump remembered Adams as a “Big Influencer.”
“He was a great man who loved and respected me even though it wasn’t fashionable. He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease,” the president said on social media platform Truth Social.
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