by Scott Adams

The cartoons of Scott Adams became popular in the downsizing decade of the 1990s. This particular book was originally published in 1992, and focuses much more on the cosmic sarcasm and interaction between Dilbert and his dog, Dogbert. Most people associate Dilbert with a coterie of office workers and the foibles of office life that many who have worked a white collar job back then identify with. [Some mistakenly think Dilbert was the inspiration for Office Space, but that movie was based on a character Milton created by Mike Judge.]

So how do you review a book of cartoons?

First, let’s ask about the general condition of political humor and satire these days. When I was a young adult, primetime in the 1970s newspaper cartoons were still in vogue. We had Peanuts, in Detroit Guindon was popular, I remember Cathy, Arlo and Janis, many others, then into the 1980s, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, The Far Side by Gary Larson. And those are only off the top of my head, ones I tried to read regularly, real time. It was great. Then there was television talk-show humor, Johnny Carson, and cerebral ones like Dick Cavett, who often did political stuff. Continue reading →