How low Dilbert, once one of my favorite cartoons, has sunk. All he seems to do now is bring in weird characters. I suppose it is inevitable that cartoonists eventually run out of ideas, but it is sad that they keep going anyway.
On the other hand, I remember a lot of lamenting and gnashing of teeth when Watersson & Larson stoped drawing Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side. Can’t have it both ways.
Bringing in weird characters has been a part of Dilbert since the get-go.
Last weekend’s strip was hilarious. If a comic strip is funny once a week, that’s better than most.
I agree, Dilbert’s often been about weird characters. Not as much as Pearls Before Swine, though, which is probably why I love the bad puns and surrealism of Pearls Before Swine.
Personally, I think the crash of the tech market in the late 90s hurt Dilbert. In Adams’ favor, business is always coming up with stupid ideas. But it seems like the 90s were really good at providing fodder for Dilbert.
I agree with this. Dilbert has in fact become somewhat less weird with time. Bob the Dinosaur or the Accounting Trolls, for example, rarely put in an appearance these days.
While Dilbert may not hit as often as it once did, it often still amusing and occasionally very funny. It is still much better than 90% of the other strips out there.
Agreed. “Try not to blow the sale!”
This recent strip is one that I really identify with.
The recent coffee strips are funny, but on the whole I agree with the OP. Dilbert plateaued years ago, and has generally been going downhill recently. There are too many one-joke characters now, like the skunk-guy who farted.
One recent strip that I thought was dead-on was the one where Alice has spent the past six months looking for the perfect pair of shoes to wear to Ted’s wedding, and she freaks out when she learns that Dilbert is just going to wear “whatever comes up next in the rotation.” I’m so Dilbert there. I have a selection of nice shirts, and I’ll just take the next one in the rotation, and choose a pair of pants that go with them 
I find Dilbert reads better in the collected formats. You get more when the jokes build over a few strips.
Name 10 strips that are consistently better than Dilbert. Out of the hundreds out there, I would be hard pressed to name more than a few. And how many of the good ones have been around as long as Dilbert?
Of course, this may just indicate how inane most comic strips are; or how hard it is maintain quality over time. Dilbert may have declined; but if it were just starting now, with the strips that are currently coming out, it would certainly be regarded as one of the better ones stilll
I laughed my ass off for the ones with the Southern Guy. My team lead is a po’ dumb country boy who says phrases like that. Didn’t understand why we all had the same strips posted in our cubicles.
Weird characters are new? Seen Bob the Dinosaur lately? How do you like the talking dog?
The OP is generally referring to one-joke short term characters, not regulars like Dogbert and Bob.
But the one-joke characters aren’t new, either. Techno-Bill, Hammerhead Bob, Carl the Cubicle Dweller, Rex Tangle, and the Bungee Boss (who appeared for only one FRAME) - they’ve always been a Dilbert staple. If there is a weird or irritating thing someone can do in the office, Dilbert has had a character who does it.
Don’t forget Bob’s wife and Rex their son.
I’d say my problem with Dilbert is that it has become less broad. In the early days he did strips about all aspects of Dilbert’s life. Things like he and Dogbert go on vacation, his girlfriend Liz, the robots he used to build, Dogbert’s difficulties with the pound and other fun stuff but now the office aspect has completely taken over.
Also I say we expect people to grow and when things are set up so that they don’t ever grow then it’s much easier to run out of things to do.
I don’t think Dilbert has slipped at all. In fact, I think it’s been at it’s funniest in the past two years or so.
My favorite from the last month is this one:
http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2006203590921.gif
Scott Adams acknowledges this but claims that he focuses on the office because that’s what people seemed to like. Still, I agree; the office stuff is good…but everyday? No reason he can’t broaden things up at a later date if he runs short of ideas, though.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a Dilbert posted in a cubicle at work. During the early 1990’s they were all over the place.
I haven’t enjoyed the strip at any time since Adams quit his job at Pactel.
That’s the reason we had so many game shows and so many reality show recently. Although I still think he can be funny. And I don’t blame him, I’m sure the money is great. But for some people it loses some charm and leaves us to go find better things to do.
At this point, Dilbert is a niche comic (office/geek humor) in the same way that Baby Blues and Garfield are niche comics. Not that I dislike Dilbert, but expecting Scott Adams to broaden its scope is a pipe dream.
For a good taste of Adams’ comedic talents (and they are non-trivial), check out The Dilbert Blog, where he humorously opines on stuff besides office/geek humor.
I found an interesting quote in the Washington Post article about Gary Trudeau (“Doonesbury”):
THE TYPICAL DAILY NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIP HAS A DEGENERATIVE ARC. The cartoonist’s best years come early, when the ideas are fresh, the gimmick is still a novelty and the grind of daily deadlines has not yet taken its toll on creativity. Three years of excellence is a pretty good run before the inevitable decline, as the cartoonist runs out of new things to say and becomes content to imitate himself. It’s easy to forget, but many of today’s formulaic, intellectually listless strips, such as “B.C.,” “Cathy” and “Dennis the Menace,” were once lively and daring and different. They’re still around because their bland familiarity becomes a sort of comfort food, and newspaper editors are loath to drop them.