Dilbert is an American comic strip which was written and illustrated by Scott Adams, first published on April 16, 1989. It is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office with engineer Dilbert as the title character. It has led to dozens of books, an animated television series, a video game, and hundreds of themed merchandise items. Dilbert Future and The Joy of Work are among the best-selling books in the series. In 1997, Adams received the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award and the Newspaper Comic Strip Award for his work. Dilbert appears online and as of 2013 was published daily in 2,000 newspapers in 65 countries and 25 languages.
In 2023, Dilbert was dropped by numerous independent newspapers as well as its distributor, Andrews McMeel Syndication (which owns GoComics, from where the comic was also removed), after Adams published a video where he called Black Americans who disagreed with the slogan "It's okay to be white" a "hate group" and said White Americans should "get the hell away from" them. The video was widely described by sources such as The Economist and Reuters as containing "racist comments" and being a "racist rant". Adams stated that he disavowed racism. The following month, Adams relaunched the strip as a webcomic on Locals under the new name Dilbert Reborn. Adams died in January 2026.
Publication history
Dilbert began syndication by United Feature Syndicate (a division of United Media) in April 1989.
On June 3, 2010, United Media sold its licensing arm, along with the rights to Dilbert, to Iconix Brand Group. This led to Dilbert leaving United Media. In late December 2010, it was announced that Dilbert would move to Universal Uclick (a division of Andrews McMeel Universal, known as Andrews McMeel Syndication) beginning in June 2011,Gardner, Alan. "DILBERT LEAVES UNITED MEDIA FOR UNIVERSAL UCLICK (UPDATED)," The Daily Cartoonist (December 28, 2010). where it remained until 2023.
In September 2022, Lee Enterprises ceased running the strip in what Scott Adams reported as 77 newspapers as the publisher declined to include the strip in a new comics page that was instituted throughout the company. He said that he had received complaints about Dilbert mocking the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, but that he was not sure if that was the reason for the cancellation. The San Francisco Chronicle, owned by Hearst Media dropped Dilbert in October 2022 saying the move came after strips joked that reparations for slavery could be claimed by underperforming office workers.
In February 2023, hundreds of newspapers owned by media conglomerates including Andrews McMeel Syndication dropped the comic in response to a YouTube video published by Adams on February 22, 2023, during which he advised white people to "get the hell away from black people" following publication of a Rasmussen Reports poll which Adams said showed that African-American people collectively form a "hate group". The poll asked whether respondents agreed with the statement "It's okay to be White", a slogan associated with white supremacy. The poll found that 53% of African Americans agree with the statement "It's okay to be White", while 26% disagreed, and 21% responded they were "not sure". Gannett, including its USA Today network (including the Detroit Free Press, The Indianapolis Star, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and The Arizona Republic) also dropped the strip following Adams's comments. Such major newspapers as The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Plain Dealer all ceased to syndicate Dilbert and published editorials denouncing Adams. The Los Angeles Times also stated it had removed four Dilbert cartoons from its pages in the preceding nine months when they did not meet the newspaper's standards. In response, Adams announced that on March 16, 2023, he would launch Dilbert Reborn on the subscription website Locals, describing it as "spicier than the original".
Adams died in January 2026 from prostate cancer at the age of 68.
Themes The comic strip originally revolved around the character Dilbert and his "pet" dog Dogbert in their home. Many early plots revolved around Dilbert's engineer nature, bizarre inventions, and megalomaniacal ambitions. Later, the setting of most of the strips was changed to Dilbert's workplace and the strip began to satirize technology, workplace, and company issues. The 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". The workplace location is Silicon Valley.
Dilbert portrays corporate culture as a Kafkaesque world of bureaucracy for its own sake, where office politics preclude productivity, employees' skills and efforts are not rewarded, and busy work is praised. Much of the humor involves characters making ridiculous decisions in reaction to mismanagement.
Characters
Dilbert
The strip's central character, Dilbert is depicted as a technically minded engineer. Until October 2014, he was usually depicted wearing a white dress shirt, black trousers and a red-and-black striped tie that inexplicably curved upward. After October 13, 2014, his standard apparel changed to a red polo shirt with a name badge on a lanyard around his neck. He is a skilled engineer but has poor social and romantic lives.
Pointy-Haired Boss (PHB) Dilbert's boss, known only as the Pointy-Haired Boss, is the unnamed, oblivious manager of the engineering division of Dilbert's company. Adams states that he never named him so that people can imagine him to be their boss. In earlier strips he was depicted as a stereotypical late-middle-aged balding middle manager with jowls; it was not until later that he developed his signature pointy hair and the jowls disappeared. He is hopelessly incompetent at management, and he often tries to compensate for his lack of skills with countless group therapy sessions and business strategies that rarely bear fruit. He does not understand technical issues but always tries to disguise this ineptitude, usually by using buzzwords he also does not understand. The Boss treats his employees alternately with enthusiasm or neglect; he often uses them to his own ends regardless of the consequences to them. Adams himself wrote that "he's not sadistic, just uncaring". His level of intelligence varies from near-vegetative to perceptive and clever, depending on the strip's comic needs. His utter lack of business ethics, however, is perfectly consistent. His brother is a demon named "Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light", and according to Adams, the pointy hair is intended to remind one of devil horns.
Wally One of the longest-serving engineers, Wally was originally a worker trying to get fired to obtain a large severance package. He hates work and avoids it whenever he can. He often carries a cup of coffee, calmly sipping from it even in the midst of chaos or office-shaking revelations. Wally is extremely cynical. He is even more socially inept than Dilbert (though far less self-aware of the fact). Like the Pointy-Haired Boss, Wally is utterly lacking in ethics and will take advantage of any situation to maximize his personal gain while doing the least possible amount of honest work. Until the change to "business dorky" wear of a polo shirt, Wally was invariably portrayed wearing a short sleeved dress shirt and tie. Adams has stated that Wally was based on a Pacific Bell coworker of his who was interested in a generous employee buy-out program—for the company's worst employees. This had the effect of causing this man—whom Adams describes as "one of the more brilliant people I've met"—to work hard at being incompetent, rude, and generally poor at his job to qualify for the buy-out program. Adams has said that this inspired the basic laziness and amorality of Wally's character. Despite these personality traits, Wally is accepted as part of Dilbert, Ted, Alice, and Asok's clique. Although his relationship with Alice is often antagonistic and Dilbert occasionally denies being his friend, their actions show at least a certain acceptance of him. For Asok, Wally serves as something of a guru of counterintuitive "wisdom". Wally exasperates Dilbert at times but is also sometimes the only other co-worker who understands Dilbert's frustrations with company idiocy and bureaucracy. While Dilbert rages at the dysfunction of the policies of the company, Wally has learned to use the dysfunction to cloak, even justify, his laziness.
Alice One of the more competent and highest paid engineers. She is often frustrated at work because she does not get proper recognition, which she believes is because she is female. She has a quick, often violent temper, sometimes putting her "Fist of Death" to use, even with the Pointy-haired Boss. Alice is based on a woman that Adams worked with named Anita, who is described as sharing Alice's "pink suit, fluffy hair, technical proficiency, coffee obsession, and take-no-crap attitude."
Dogbert Dilbert's anthropomorphic pet dog is the smartest dog on Earth. Dogbert is a megalomaniacal intellectual, planning to one day conquer the world. After he takes over the world, he plans to enslave all those not in Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC), his elite group of followers. He once succeeded, but became bored with the ensuing peace, and quit. Often seen in high-ranking consultant or technical support jobs, he constantly abuses his power and fools the management of Dilbert's company, though considering the intelligence of the company's management in general and Dilbert's boss in particular, this is not very hard to do. He also enjoys pulling scams on unsuspecting and usually dull customers to steal their money. Despite Dogbert's cynical exterior, he has been known to pull his master out of some tight jams. Dogbert's nature as a pet was more emphasized during the earlier years of the strip; as the strip progressed, references to his acting like a dog became less common, although he still wags his tail when he perpetrates his scams. When an older Dilbert arrives while time-traveling from the future, he refers to Dogbert as "majesty", indicating that Dogbert will one day indeed rule the world again, and make worshipping him retroactive so he could boss around time travelers.
Catbert Catbert is a cat who is the "evil director of human resources" in the Dilbert comic strip. He was supposed to be a one-time character but resonated with readers so well that Adams brought him back as the HR director. Catbert's origins with the company are that he was hired by Dogbert. Dogbert hired him because he wanted an H.R. Director that appeared cute while secretly downsizing employees.
Asok