Dilbert and Me

Cartoonist Scott Adams and his creation in happier times. © Business Insider

I love Dilbert. It's the only comic strip I read.

My wife Carol does not love Dilbert. It's mean, she says.

Right. That's why I love it.

But now Dilbert has been pulled from The Washington Post and a kajillion other newspapers because of cartoonist Scott Adams' widely expressed views on Black people, women and other hot-button topics.

Adams seems to be want to become known as the Elon Musk of cartoonists.

I'd say he's pretty wide of the mark.

Adams' comments have offended a lot of people, including me. So have Musk's, for similar reasons. But Adams makes cartoons while Musk makes, um, cars. This seems to put Musk in a different league.

Not that Adams is just any cartoonist. He was right up there with the greats -- Charles Schulz ("Peanuts"), Gary Larson ("The Far Side"), Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes"). Adams' spoofs of cubicle culture keep finding new lambs to slaughter.

But after Adams' offensive comments went public, some 2,000 newspapers cancelled Dilbert. You can still read it on line but not many other places.

On the other hand, when Musk was stirring us up with dumbass comments about similar things, Tesla stock plummeted from a six-month high of $313.80 to a low of $101.81. But on Monday Tesla was back up to $193.81, and we thrill-seekers were moving on to such amusements as the true-crime saga of Alex Murdaugh.

Both Musk and Adams strike me as pigs. But I'd drive a Tesla if I had one. And I've been reading Dilbert on line.

Shame on me? Let's talk.

Pablo Picasso was said to be a pig too, but he revolutionized visual art again and again during his lifetime. Today he is revered as a giant of art and his works are collected in the major museums of the world.

Ernest Hemingway could be a nasty man, petty and jealous and cutting to close friends, and his star has fallen in recent years. It will rise again though because Hemingway's plain direct prose spoke from the heart in ways none had done before. He revolutionized the way we read, write, even think.

Harvey Weinstein, who languishes in jail for sex crimes, made some great movies. R. Kelly, who languishes in jail for sex crimes, made some great music. I could go on.

And y'know something? I will. Back to Elon Musk.

He really has been offensive lately.

Since buying Twitter, he has gotten nothing but rotten eggs and tomatoes for comments that seem ... unhinged. Not only offensive but weird. Here's something he just retweeted:

I didn't make this up. I couldn't make this up. No wonder Musk calls himself "Chief Twit."

But Elon Musk revolutionized money itself when he cofounded PayPal. And Elon Musk made great strides toward a greener future by creating Tesla, the first real electric-car company -- not to mention revolutionizing personal transportation. Finally, in SpaceX, Elon Musk is revolutionizing space travel and proving that private enterprise, not government alone, has a role to play. That's a lot for one guy.

If you, Dear Reader, would boycott the works of Picasso or Hemingway or Weinstein or R. Kelly or Musk because of their personal sins and peccadilloes, I'd be the last person to call you down for it.

And I fully understand the defenestration (look it up) of Scott Adams. If I were a comics editor, I'd probably have defenestrated him myself.

Finally, I reserve the right to do my own boycotting when appropriate. I don't think I'd buy a Tesla if, say, I discovered the batteries were made with slave labor. (They're not, to my knowledge.)

But I do think I'll keep reading Dilbert on line.

Frank S Joseph Author

P.S. Still seeking advance reviews of To Do Justice, the award-winning final novel in my Chicago Trilogy (forthcoming from Touchpoint Press). Email me at frank@frankjoseph.com for details.

P.P.S. ChatAI has improved its creative-wriiting skills! Stand by for a Friend of Frank extra.