Dilbert
Themes
The comic strip originally revolved around Dilbert and his “pet” dog Dogbert in their home. Many plots revolved around Dilbert’s engineer nature or his bizarre inventions. These alternate with plots based on Dogbert’s megalomaniacal ambitions. Later, the location of most of the action moved to Dilbert’s workplace at a large technology company, and the strip started to satirize technology, workplace, and company issues. The comic strip’s popular success is attributable to its workplace setting and themes, which are familiar to a large and appreciative audience; Adams said that switching the setting from Dilbert’s home to his office was “when the strip really started to take off.”
Dilbert portrays corporate culture as a Kafkaesque world of bureaucracy for its own sake and office politics that stand in the way of productivity, where employees’ skills and efforts are not rewarded, and busy work is praised. Much of the humor emerges as the audience sees the characters making obviously ridiculous decisions that are natural reactions to mismanagement.
Themes explored include:
Engineers’ personal traits
Idiosyncrasy of style
Hopelessness in dating (and general lack of social skills)
Attraction to tools and technological products
Business ethics
Esotericism
Announcement of changes in company password policy. From left: the Pointy-Haired Boss, Dilbert, Alice, and Wally (Pub. 10. Sept 2005)
Incompetent and sadistic management
Scheduling and budgeting without reference to reality
Failure to reward success or penalize laziness
Penalizing employees for failures caused by bad management
Micromanagement
Failure to improve others’ morale, lowering it instead
Failure to communicate objectives
Handling of projects doomed to failure or cancellation
Sadistic HR policies with flimsy (or purely evil) rationale
Corporate bureaucracy
ISO audits
Budgeting, accounting, payroll and financial advisors
Stupidity of the general public
Susceptibility to advertising
Susceptibility to peer pressure
Susceptibility to flattery
Gullibility in the face of obvious scams
Fourth World countries and outsourcing (Elbonia)
Dilapidation
Bizarre cultural habits
Lack of understanding of capitalism
Characters
Main article: List of Dilbert characters
See also: List of minor characters in Dilbert
Dilbert in popular culture
The popularity of the comic strip within the corporate sector has led to the Dilbert character being used in many business magazines and publications (he has made several appearances on the cover of Fortune).
The Toronto Star (in reruns), The Globe and Mail, Montreal La Presse,The Gazette, the Florida Times Union, the Indianapolis Star, the Providence Journal, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Brisbane Courier Mail, the Windsor Star, and San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications, run the comic in their business section rather than in the regular comics section, similar to the way in which Doonesbury is often carried in the editorial section due to its pointed commentary.
Criticism and parody
Media analyst Norman Solomon and cartoonist Tom Tomorrow claim that while Adams’ caricatures of corporate culture seem to project empathy for white-collar workers, the satire ultimately plays into the hands of corporate upper management itself. Solomon describes the characters of Dilbert, none of whom occupy a position higher than middle management, as dysfunctional time-wasters whose inefficiencies detract from corporate values like ‘productivity’ and ‘growth’, a very favorable outlook for managers. Though Dilbert and his office-mates often find themselves baffled or victimized by the whims of managerial behavior, they never seem to question it openly. Solomon cites the Xerox corporation’s use of Dilbert strips and characters in internally distributed ‘inspirational’ pamphlets:
“Xerox management had recognized what more gullible Dilbert readers did not: Dilbert is an offbeat sugary substance that helps the corporate medicine go down. The Dilbert phenomenon acceptsnd perversely eggs onany negative aspects of corporate existence as unchangeable facets of human nature…As Xerox managers grasped, Dilbert speaks to some very real work experiences while simultaneously eroding inclinations to fight for better working conditions.”
Adams responded in the 2/2/98 strip and in his book The Joy of Work, simply by restating Solomon argument, apparently suggesting that it was absurd and required no rebuttal.
In 1997, Tom Vanderbilt wrote in a similar vein in The Baffler Magazine:
“Labor unions haven adopted Dilbert characters as insignia. But corporations in droves have rushed to link themselves with Dilbert. Why? Dilbert mirrors the mass media crocodile tears for working peoplend echoes the ambient noises from Wall Street.”
Bill Griffith, in his daily strip Zippy the Pinhead, used his strip as a forum to criticize Adams’ artwork as simplistic.[citation needed] Adams responded on May 18, 1998, with a comic strip called Pippy the Ziphead, ramming as much artwork in as possible so no one will notice there only one joke…[and] it on the reader. Dilbert notes that the strip is othing but a clown with a small head who says random things and Dogbert responds that he is aintaining his artistic integrity by creating a comic that no one will enjoy.4] In September of the same year, Griffith mocked Adams by mimicking his “Pippy the Ziphead” creation with a strip showing stiff, Dilbert-like creations in an office setting and one of the characters saying, “I sense a joke was delivered.”
In the late 1990s, an amateur cartoonist named Karl Hrnell began submitting a comic strip parodying both Dilbert and the Image Comics series The Savage Dragon to Dragon creator Erik Larsen. This soon became a regular feature in the Savage Dragon comic book, titled The Savage Dragonbert and Hitler Brainbert (itler Brainbert being both a loose parody of Dogbert as well as the Savage Dragon villain identified as Adolf Hitler disembodied, superpowered brain). The strip began as a specific parody of the comic book itself, set loosely within the office structure of ‘Dilbert’, with Hrnell doing an emulation of Adams’ cartooning style.
Dilbert has occasionally been panned for alleged “insensitivity” and off-color jokes, as documented by Adams in The Joy of Work. One of the most widely-attacked strips involved the Pointy-Haired Boss being saved in an airplane crash due to nuns being onboard (“You were saved by prayer?” “No, padding. They don’t do a lot of aerobics at the nunnery.”). The comic was published the same week as the death of Mother Teresa, leading to a huge backlash. His depiction of Elbonia has also drawn criticism from a variety of corners.
In It’s Not Funny If I Have To Explain It, Adams recounts having been attacked for the alleged political content of his work (he is a self-described Libertarian), although in the case of one such strip (where oil drilling kills an endangered species) he excuses himself by saying “I just thought the image was funny.” In particular, a series of strips in which Dogbert worked as a talk radio host drew criticism from conservatives for his supposed attack on Rush Limbaugh (which Adams denied in Seven Years of Highly Defective People). Earlier strips did engage in a degree of low-key political satire (for instance, a series of strips in 1992 where Dogbert runs for President), but since the early ’90s Adams has mostly focused the strip on corporate issues.
Language
Terms invented by Adams in relation to the strip, and sometimes used by fans in describing their own office environments, include nduhvidual. This term is based on an American English slang expression uh! The conscious misspelling of individual as induhvidual is a pejorative term for people who are not in the DNRC (Dogbert’s New Ruling Class). Its coining is explained in Dilbert Newsletter #6.
The strip has also popularized the usage of the terms ow-orker and PHB. The word rooglepoopillion is occasionally used for an extremely large number, a word coined by the marketing department at the company where Dilbert works, in a strip where it was revealed that the company owed so much money that no word existed to describe the number.
Some fans have used ilbertian or ilbertesque to analogize situations in real life to those in the comic strip.
The lamentation “You had ones? Lucky you, all we had were zeros!”, commonly used in IT industry, also originated in a Dilbert’s comic strip.
Management
In 1997, Scott Adams masqueraded as a management consultant to Logitech executives (as Ray Mebert), with the cooperation of the company vice-chairman. He acted in much the way he portrays management consultants in the comic strip, with an arrogant manner and bizarre suggestions, such as comparing mission statements to broccoli soup. He convinced the executives to replace their existing mission statement for their New Ventures Group, o provide Logitech with profitable growth and related new business areas, with o scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission-inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings.8]
To demonstrate what can be achieved with the most mundane objects if planned correctly and imaginatively, Adams has worked with companies to develop ream products for Dilbert and company. In 2001, he collaborated with design company IDEO to come up with the erfect cubicle, a fitting creation since many of the Dilbert strips make fun of the standard cubicle desk and the environment it creates. The result was both whimsical and practical.
This project was followed in 2004 with designs for Dilbert Ultimate House (abbreviated as DUH). An energy-efficient building was the result, designed to prevent many of the little problems that seem to creep into a normal building. For instance, to save time spent buying and decorating a Christmas tree every year, the house has a large (yet unapparent) closet adjacent to the living room where the tree can be stored from year to year.
Awards
In addition to the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Awards won by Adams, the Dilbert strip has received a variety of other awards. Adams was named best international comic strip artist of 1995 in the Adamson Awards given by the Swedish Academy of Comic Art.
Dilbert was named the best-syndicated strip of 1997 in the Harvey Awards and won the Max & Moritz Prize as best international comic strip for 1998. In the Squiddy Awards, Dilbert was named the best daily strip of 1996 and 1997, and the best comic strip of 1998 and 2000. The strip also won the Zombie Award as the best comics strip of 1996 and 1997, and the 1997 Good Taste Award as the best strip of 1996.
Media
Comic strip compilations
Books in bold indicate special compilations or original strips.
Always Postpone Meetings with Time-Wasting Morons April 16, 1989 (first strip) to October 21, 1989
Build a Better Life By Stealing Office Supplies
Dogbert’s Clues for the Clueless
Shave the Whales October 22, 1989 to August 4, 1990
Bring Me the Head of Willy the Mailboy! October 5, 1990 to May 18, 1991
It’s Obvious You Won’t Survive By Your Wits Alone May 19, 1991 to December 13, 1992
Still Pumped from Using the Mouse December 14, 1992 to September 27, 1993
Fugitive From the Cubicle Police September 28, 1993 to February 11, 1995
Casual Day Has Gone Too Far February 5, 1995 to November 19, 1995
Seven Years of Highly Defective People 1997; strips from 1989 to 1995, with handwritten notes by Scott Adams
I’m Not Anti-Business, I’m Anti-Idiot November 20, 1995 to August 31, 1996
Journey to Cubeville September 1, 1996 to January 18, 1998
Don’t Step in the Leadership January 12, 1998 to October 18, 1998
Dilbert Gives You the Business Collection of favorites before 1999.
Random Acts of Management October 19, 1998 to July 25, 1999
A Treasury of Sunday Strips: Version 00 1999; color version of all Sunday strips from 1995 to 1999
Excuse Me While I Wag July 26, 1999 to April 30, 2000
When Did Ignorance Become A Point Of View? May 1, 2000 to February 4, 2001
Another Day In Cubicle Paradise February 5, 2001 to November 11, 2001
What Do You Call A Sociopath In A Cubicle? Answer: A Coworker – A compilation of strips featuring Dilbert’s coworkers
When Body Language Goes Bad November 12, 2001 to August 18, 2002
Words You Don’t Want to Hear During Your Annual Performance Review August 19, 2002 to May 25, 2003
Don’t Stand Where the Comet is Assumed to Strike Oil May 26, 2003 to February 29, 2004
It’s Not Funny If I Have To Explain It 2004; strips from 1997 to 2004, with more of Adams’ handwritten notes
The Fluorescent Light Glistens Off Your Head March 1, 2004 to December 5, 2004
Thriving on Vague Objectives December 6, 2004 to September 11, 2005
What Would Wally Do? 2006; strips focused on Wally.
Try Rebooting Yourself September 12, 2005 to June 18, 2006
Positive Attitude June 19, 2006 to March 25, 2007
Cubes and Punishment 2007; a collection of comic strips on workplace cruelty.
This is the Part Where You Pretend to Add Value March 26, 2007 to January 5, 2008
Freedom’s Just Another Word for People Finding Out You’re Useless January 6, 2008 to October 12, 2008
14 Years of Loyal Service in a Fabric-Covered Box – October 13, 2008 to July 25, 2009
Problem Identified: And You’re Probably Not Part of the Solution
Business books
The Dilbert Principle
Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook
The Dilbert Future
The Joy of Work
Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
Slapped Together: The Dilbert Business Anothology (The Dilbert Principle, The Dilbert Future, and The Joy of Work, published together in one book)
Other books
Telling It Like It Isn’t 1996; ISBN 0-8362-1324-6
You Don’t Need Experience If You’ve Got Attitude 1996; ISBN 0-8362-2196-6
Access Denied: Dilbert’s Quest for Love in the Nineties 1996; ISBN 0-8362-2191-5
Conversations With Dogbert 1996; ISBN 0-8362-2197-4
Work is a Contact Sport 1997; ISBN 0-8362-2878-2
The Boss: Nameless, Blameless and Shameless 1997; ISBN 0-8362-3223-2
The Dilbert Bunch 1997; ISBN 0-8362-2879-0
No You’d Better Watch Out 1997
Please Don’t Feed The Egos 1997; ISBN 0-8362-3224-0
Random Acts of Catness 1998; ISBN 0-8362-5277-2
Dilbert Meeting Book Exceeding Tech Limits 1998; ISBN 0-7683-2028-3
Dilbert Book Of Days 1998; ISBN 0-7683-2030-5
Workhe Wally Way 1999; ISBN 0-8362-7480-6
Alice in Blunderland 1999; ISBN 0-8362-7479-2
All Dressed Down And Nowhere To Go 2002; ISBN 0-7407-2931-4
Dilbert’s Guide to the Rest of Your Life: Dispatches from Cubicleland 2007; ISBN 0-7624-2781-7
Dilbert Sudoku Comic Digest: 200 Puzzles Plus 50 Classic Dilbert Cartoons 2008; ISBN 0-7407-7250-3
Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert 2008; 576 pages, 6500 strips, and Scott Adams’ notes from 1989 to 2008.
Merchandise
Corporate Shuffle by Richard Garfield 1997; A Dilbert-branded card game similar to Wizard of the Coast’s The Great Dalmuti and the drinking game President
The Dilberito, a vegetarian burrito with 100% Daily Value of 23 vitamins and minerals
There was a line of Dilbert mints which had names along the lines of Manage-mints, Accomplish-mints, Perform-mints and Improve-mints.
Dilbert: the Board Game 2006; by Hyperion Games; A Dilbert-branded board game that won Games Magazine Top 100 Games.
Day-by-Day calendars featuring the comic strip are available every year.
Animated series
Main article: Dilbert (TV series)
Dilbert was adapted into a UPN animated television series, which ran for two seasons from January 25, 1999, to July 25, 2000. The first season centered on the creation of a new product called the “Gruntmaster 6000,” including the idea process and testing by one Bob Bastard. The second season had no connecting story arc; plots varied from Wally finding disciples (“The Shroud of Wally”) to Dilbert being accused of mass murder (“The Trial”). The second season two-episode finale included Dilbert getting pregnant with the child of a cow, a hillbilly, Robot DNA, “several dozen engineers”, an elderly billionaire, and an alien, eventually ending up in a custody battle with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the Judge. Featured voice actors included Daniel Stern as Dilbert, Chris Elliott as Dogbert, and Kathy Griffin as Alice.
New Animation
On April 7, 2008, dilbert.com presented its very first Dilbert Animation. The new Dilbert animations are animated versions of original comic strips produced by RingTales and animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios. The animation videos run for around 30 seconds each and are added every weekday. On December 10, 2009 the RingTales produced animations were made available as a calendar application for mobile devices.
“Drunken Lemurs” case
In October 2007, the Catfish Bend Casino in Burlington, Iowa, notified its staff that the casino was closing and they were going to be laid off. An employee of seven years, David Steward then posted on an office bulletin board the October 26, 2007 Dilbert strip that compared management decisions to those of “drunken lemurs”. The casino called this “very offensive”; they identified him from a surveillance tape, fired him, and tried to prevent him from receiving unemployment insurance benefits. However, in December 2007 an administrative law judge ruled that he would receive benefits, as his action was not intentional misbehavior. Scott Adams said it might be the first confirmed case of an employee being fired for posting a Dilbert cartoon. On February 21, 2008, the first of a series of Dilbert strips showed Wally being caught posting a comic strip “which compares managers to drunken lemurs”. Adams later said that fans should stick to posting Garfield strips, as no one gets fired for that.
Dilbert.com’s Interactive Cartoons
In April 2008, Scott Adams announced that United Media would be instituting an interactive feature on Dilbert.com, allowing fans to write speech bubbles and, in the near future, interact with Adams about the content of the strips. Adams has spoken positively about the change, saying, “This makes cartooning a competitive sport.”
See also
Dilbert’s Desktop Games, a PC game
The Dilbert Principle
Peter Principle, the opposite (and original basis) of the Dilbert Principle
Plop: The Hairless Elbonian, another comics series by Scott Adams
Superiority, a 1951 short story by Arthur C. Clarke which anticipates some themes of Dilbert
References
^ [dead link]
^ Adams, Scott (2007-07-23). “The Loser Decision”. The Dilbert blog. http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/the-loser-decis.html.
^ “The Trouble With Dilbert: The Book”. Web.archive.org. http://web.archive.org/web/20040218235653/http://free.freespeech.org/normansolomon/dilbert/book/. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
^ “Dilbert comic strip for 05/19/1998 from the official Dilbert comic strips archive”. Dilbert.com. http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1998-05-19/. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
^ “Zippy the Pinhead comic strip for 09/20/1998 from the official Zippy the Pinhead comic strips archive”. zippythepinhead.com. http://zippythepinhead.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=20-Sep-98&Category_Code=sun1998&Product_Count=37. Retrieved 2009-12-06.
^ http://www.javaonthebrain.com/artwork/dragonbert.html
^ http://www.javaonthebrain.com/artwork/dragonbert.html
^ Dilbert Creator Fools Execs With Soap Story, Associated Press, from the webpage of the Seattle Times, 11/16/97.
^ Dilbert Creator Fools Executives, AP story, in full, preserved on MIT humor bulletin board, 11/15/97.
^ The Dilbert Doctrines: An Interview with Scott Adams, by Virginia Postrel, Reason, February 1999.
^ Porter Anderson (2001-08-28). “Fred Dust: Designing for Dilbert”. CNN Career. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/jobenvy/08/28/dilbert.fred.dust.focus/index.html. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
^ Porter Anderson (2001-08-28). “Scott Adams: Dilbert Ultimate Cubicle”. CNN Career. http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/jobenvy/08/28/dilbert.scott.adams/index.html. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
^ “Dilbert Animated Calendar”. 2009-12-10. http://www.metranome.net/calendars.php. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
^ Scott Adams (2007-10-26). “Dilbert”. http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-10-26/. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
^ Clark Kauffman (2007-12-19). “Bosses fire worker who put up ‘Dilbert’ comic”. Des Moines Register. http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/NEWS/712190360/-1/politics. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
^ Brad Stone (2008-04-18). “Scott Adams Hands ilbert Pen to Fans”. The New York Times. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/scott-adams-hands-dilbert-pen-to-fans/. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Dilbert
Dilbert home page (requires Adobe Flash, version without flash)
The Official Dilbert Daily Strip RSS feed[dead link]
The Dilbert Blog
Website for Dilbert’s Desktop Games, by DreamWorks Interactive
National Cartoonists’ Society awards page[dead link]
v d e
Dilbert
Characters:
Alice Asok Carol Catbert Dilbert Dogbert Phil Pointy-Haired Boss Ratbert Wally Minor characters
In other media:
Animated series (episodes) Books
Other:
Scott Adams Dogbert’s New Ruling Class Elbonia Dilberito Plop: The Hairless Elbonian
v d e
United Media Comics
Currently syndicated
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Categories: Dilbert | Comic strips set in the United States | Comic strips started in the 1980s | Comics featuring anthropomorphic characters | American comic strips | Workplace webcomicsHidden categories: All articles with dead external links | Articles with dead external links from September 2009 | Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from July 2008 | Articles with dead external links from October 2009
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