Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, died Tuesday at 68.
Adams spent more than three decades skewering corporate life through the wildly popular comic strip. His career collapsed in recent years after racist remarks led to Dilbert being dropped by newspapers.
Final Announcement on His Podcast
His death is revealed by his first ex-wife, Shelly Miles, at the opening of Real Coffee With Scott Adams. In May, Adams said on the podcast that he had prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
“I expect to be checking out from this domain this summer,” he said.
Miles also reads a statement Adams wrote shortly before his death.
“Things did not go well for me,” he wrote. “My body fell before my brain.”
The Birth of Dilbert
Adams created Dilbert while working as an applications engineer at Pacific Bell in San Ramon, California. The strip debuted in 1989. At its peak, it ran in more than 2,000 newspapers across 65 countries and 25 languages. Its estimated worldwide readership topped 150 million.
The comic struck a nerve by capturing the quiet absurdity of office life. It exaggerated just enough to feel painfully accurate to white-collar workers.
A Voice for Office Workers
“That’s the amazing thing I found when I went online,” Adams told The New York Times in 1995. He said readers believed they were alone in their miserable jobs.
“Basically, there are 25 million people out there, living in cardboard boxes indoors, and there was no voice for them.”
The Characters Who Defined the Strip
The strip centered on Dilbert, a mild-mannered engineer who excelled with computers but struggled socially. His coworkers included Alice, a highly skilled engineer battling sexism; Wally, whose main goal was avoiding work; and Asok, an optimistic intern slowly crushed by corporate culture.
They all answered to the Pointy-Haired Boss, a clueless manager whose blind loyalty to company policy usually made things worse. Dogbert, a power-hungry schemer, and Catbert, the ruthless head of human resources, rounded out the cast.
Jokes That Hit Too Close to Home
Many jokes focused on workplace nonsense. In one strip, the boss proposes a pre-meeting to prepare for a meeting. Dilbert questions whether they should plan the pre-meeting first. The punchline lands with everyone stuck in an actual pre-meeting.
In another, Catbert bans the phrase “work-life balance” because it suggests employees’ lives matter. He praises Dilbert for not having one. Elsewhere, Wally convinces the boss that the internet is full, prompting him to try draining data from his computer into a wastebasket.
From Office Frustration to Syndicated Success
Dilbert grew directly from Adams’ own frustration at work. He sketched ideas during endless meetings.
“I hated my work,” Adams said. “It never seemed to me to be what I should be doing.”
He sent a portfolio of those sketches to newspaper syndicates. United Feature Syndicate picked it up. By 1991, his cartoon income surpassed his Pacific Bell salary.
Books, Merchandise, and a TV Series
Scott Adams’ first collection, Always Postpone Meetings With Time-Wasting Morons, hit shelves in 1992. Forty-eight more followed, including Random Acts of Management, When Did Ignorance Become a Point of View?, and Freedom’s Just Another Word for People Finding Out You’re Useless. Merchandise soon followed, from T-shirts and mugs to calendars, dolls, and a video game.
From 1999 to 2001, Dilbert also became an animated series on UPN. Adams developed the show with Seinfeld writer Larry Charles. Daniel Stern voiced Dilbert. Larry Miller played the Pointy-Haired Boss. Chris Elliott voiced Dogbert. Kathy Griffin starred as Alice. Jason Alexander played Catbert.
