Working class hero: meet Scott Adams, the man behind "Dilbert." - cartoonist

Vegetarian Times, July, 1996 by Tony Jaros

MAYBE YOU KNOW HIM; he's the one who drools all over himself in morning meetings. Or the guy who sits in his office and tries to set the world record for sticking the most pencils in the ceiling in a 5-minute period. Or maybe it was even you, that day when you tried to photocopy your face--just to see what would happen. No matter where you work, there's at least one Dilbert--a person just like the lovable cartoon-strip dufus who has become the most pinned-up character in offices nationwide.

Scott Adams, a former employee at Pacific Bell, took years of experience of interacting with and watching colleagues to create Dilbert, a nerdy engineer who's become something of an office everyman. Adams characterizes him as "anyone who has ever had a feeling of powerlessness or helplessness as they sit in their cubicle." Dilbert and canine pal Dogbert have been syndicated since 1989, and now appear in hundreds of news papers nationwide. Adams also has generated several best-selling books, including Bring Me the Head of Willy the Mailboy; Dogbert's Clues for the Clueless; and Build a Better Life Stealing Office Supplies.

If you read the strip or books regularly, you've probably run across an occasional Dilbert and Dogbert deep discussion over an environmental or animal rights issue. Adams also has been known to draw strips about vegetarianism (sometimes starring his own caricature), a particularly relevant issue because he himself has been veg for about seven years. Some of the vegetarian-related strips border on the goofy, with rabid meat eaters grilling animals like dogs and squirrels to the horror of observing vegetarians. "I like to make plays on situations that could be tense, but I'm not too conservative or too liberal," he says. Angry readers sometimes write in to complain about what seems to be a strong statement in a particular strip, but Adams is an equal-opportunity satirist, poking fun at an issue from both sides. "Rarely do readers actually pick up on my point of view,"he says.

An extra plus of being a Dilbert fan is Adams. He has frequent interaction with readers, who e-mail him regularly at his America Online address (scottadams@aol.com). Adams says he gets between 200 and 300 messages a day, including tons of ideas for new strips, which he says help keep their fresh edge now that he is not working in a conventional office. "I try to respond to as many of them as I can," he says.

Dilbert's future seems bright, at least when he's not at the office; Adams says he is working on a host of new books, calendars and t-shirts. And despite the recent wave of burnout by The Far Side's Gary Larson and Calvin and Hobbes' creator Bill Watterson, Adams says that Dilbert lovers needn't worry that Dilbert will retire to seek his fortune in the Peace Corps anytime soon. "I think cartooning is a pretty good job compared to any other job you can do," he says. "I don't see any end to Dilbert in sight."