‘Dilbert’ cartoonist Scott Adams dies : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3527x2645+0+103/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F66%2Fc5%2Fcabf24e14e8c99bdbe295b55dd15%2Fgettyimages-1322061055.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3527x2645+0+103/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F66%2Fc5%2Fcabf24e14e8c99bdbe295b55dd15%2Fgettyimages-1322061055.jpg" class="img" alt="Cartoonist Scott Adams poses with his a life-size cutout of his creation, Dilbert, in 2014." fetchpriority="high"/> Cartoonist Scott Adams poses along with his a life-size cutout of his creation, Dilbert, in 2014. Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Photographs conceal caption

toggle caption

Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle by way of Getty Photographs Scott Adams, the controversial cartoonist who skewered company tradition, has died at age 68, He introduced in Might 2025 that he had metastatic prostate most cancers and solely months to stay.

Months later, in November, Adams took to X to request — and obtain — some very public assist from President Trump and Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in addressing medical insurance points that had delayed his remedy with an FDA-approved most cancers drug known as Pluvicto.

Adams mentioned he was capable of e-book an appointment the subsequent day. Regardless of the Trump administration's public intervention, Adams shared on his YouTube present in early January 2026 that "the percentages of me recovering are primarily zero."

Adams' former spouse, Shelly Miles, introduced his dying Tuesday throughout a YouTube livestream, after which learn a press release from Adams who mentioned, "I had a tremendous life. I gave it every little thing I had. In case you bought any advantages from my life, I ask you pay it ahead as greatest you possibly can."

Adams rose to fame within the early Nineteen Nineties along with his caricature Dilbert, satirizing white-collar tradition based mostly on his personal experiences working in firm places of work. He made headlines once more within the remaining years of his life for controversial feedback about race, gender and different subjects, which led to Dilbert's widespread cancellation in 2023.

Dilbert, which at its peak was syndicated in some 2,000 newspapers throughout 65 nations, spawned plenty of books, a online game and two seasons of an animated sitcom.

"I believe it's a must to be essentially irrational to assume which you can earn a living as a cartoonist, and so I can by no means reply succinctly why it's that I assumed this might work," Adams informed NPR's Weekend Version in 1996. "It was about the identical value as shopping for a lottery ticket and about the identical odds of succeeding. And I purchase a lottery ticket, so why not?"

He mentioned that he had "just about all the time wished to be a well-known cartoonist," even making use of to the Well-known Artists College, a correspondence artwork course, as a pre-teen.

"I used to be 11 years outdated, and I might stuffed out the appliance saying that I wished to be a cartoonist," he mentioned. "It seems, as they defined of their rejection letter, that it's a must to be at the least 12 years outdated to be a well-known cartoonist."

Turning to extra sensible issues, Adams studied economics at Hartwick Faculty in Oneonta, N.Y. and earned an MBA from UC Berkeley. He additionally educated as a hypnotist on the Clement College of Hypnosis within the Eighties.

Adams started his profession at Crocker Nationwide Financial institution, working what he described in a weblog submit as a "variety of humiliating and low paying jobs: teller (robbed twice at gunpoint), pc programmer, monetary analyst, product supervisor, and business lender."

He then spent practically a decade working at Pacific Bell — the California phone firm now owned by AT&T — in varied jobs "that defy description however all contain know-how and funds," as Adams put it in his biography. It was there that he began drawing Dilbert, engaged on the strip on mornings, evenings and weekends from 1989 till 1995.

"You get actual cynical when you spend greater than 5 minutes in a cubicle," he informed NPR's Weekend Version in 2002. "However I definitely all the time deliberate that I'd escape sometime, as quickly as I bought escape velocity."

Adams satirized company tradition for many years <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3504x2336+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F83%2F6c%2Fbf7b859f41e7a9947c6aa3a46367%2Fap23058583953031.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3504x2336+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F83%2F6c%2Fbf7b859f41e7a9947c6aa3a46367%2Fap23058583953031.jpg" class="img" alt="Scott Adams works on his comic strip in his California studio in 2006. " loading="lazy"/> Scott Adams works on his caricature in his California studio in 2006. He introduced in Might that he was dying of metastatic prostate most cancers. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP conceal caption

toggle caption

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Dilbert revolves round its eponymous white-collar engineer as he navigates his firm's comically dysfunctional paperwork, alongside his sidekick: an anthropomorphized, megalomaniac canine named Dogbert.

"Dilbert is a composite of my co-workers over time," Adams wrote on his web site. "He emerged as the principle character of my doodles. I began utilizing him for enterprise displays and bought nice responses … Dogbert was created so Dilbert would have somebody to speak to."

Dilbert — along with his trademark curly head, spherical glasses and always-upturned purple and black tie — fights a continuing battle for his sanity amidst a micromanaged, largely illogical company setting filled with pointless conferences, technical difficulties, too many buzzwords and an out-of-touch supervisor identified solely as Pointy-haired Boss.

Even after Adams give up his day job, he stored a agency grasp on the absurdities and mundanities of cubicle life with assist from his devoted viewers.

He included his e mail deal with on the strip and mentioned he bought a whole lot of messages every day. Recurring reader recommendations ranged from stolen fridge lunches to bosses' unrealistic expectations.

"So all of them, for instance, say, 'I would like this report in per week, however guarantee that I get it two weeks early so I might take a look at it,'" Adams mentioned. "Simply weird tales the place it is clear that they both have by no means owned a watch or a calendar or they're in some type of a time warp."

Dilbert's storylines developed alongside workplace tradition, taking purpose at a rising vary of societal and technological subjects over time. In 2022, Adams launched Dave, the strip's first Black character, who identifies as white — a selection critics interpreted as poking enjoyable at DEI initiatives.

That ushered in an period of anti-woke plotlines that noticed dozens of U.S. newspapers drop the strip in 2022, foreshadowing its widespread cancellation only a yr later.

The caricature was cancelled over Adams' feedback Adams did not restrict himself to cartoons. He was a proponent of what he known as the "expertise stack," combining a number of frequent abilities in a singular and invaluable means: like drawing, humor and threat tolerance, in his case.

He ventured briefly into meals retail on the flip of the millennium, promoting vegetarian, microwavable burritos known as Dilberitos. He revealed a number of novels and nonfiction books unrelated to the Dilbert universe over time.

Adams was open about his well being struggles all through his profession, together with the motion dysfunction focal dystonia — which significantly affected his drawing hand — and, years later, spasmodic dysphonia, an involuntary clenching of the vocal cords that he managed to remedy by an experimental surgical procedure.

And he opined on social and political occasions on "Actual Espresso with Scott Adams," his YouTube speak sequence with over 180,000 subscribers.

His commentary, which frequently touched on race and different hot-button points, led to Dilbert's widespread cancellation in February 2023.

In a YouTube livestream that month, Adams — whereas discussing a Rasmussen public opinion ballot asking readers whether or not they agree "It is OK to be white" (which is taken into account an alt-right slogan) — urged white individuals to "get the hell away from Black individuals," labeling them a "hate group." The backlash was swift: Dozens of newspapers throughout the nation ditched Dilbert, and the comedian's distributor dropped Adams.

The incident additionally renewed concentrate on quite a few controversial feedback Adams had made prior to now, together with about race, males's rights, the Holocaust and COVID-19 vaccines. Adams defended his remarks as hyperbole, and later mentioned getting "canceled" had improved his life, with public help coming from conservative figures like Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk.

Adams, in his remaining years, was a vocal supporter of President Trump and a critic of Democrats.

However he prolonged his "respect and compassion" to former President Joe Biden in a video the day after Biden's prostate most cancers analysis grew to become public in Might 2025.

The prognosis was private for Adams: He shared that he too had metastatic prostate most cancers and solely months to stay, saying he anticipated "to be trying out from this area someday this summer season."

"I've simply kind of processed it, so it simply kind of is what it's," he mentioned on his YouTube present. "All people has to die, so far as I do know."