Dilbert - C or D?

if he's using hypnosis to trick us into believing he is stupid and/or insane, it's working

what if dogbert is the embodiment of a cocaine demon

good thing you didn't read his article about the Trump tape, it's a doozy:

8. If the LGBTQ community wants to be a bit more inclusive, I don’t see why “polyamorous alpha male serial kisser” can’t be on the list. If you want to label Trump’s sexual behavior “abnormal” you’re on shaky ground.

the worst part about power and relating to other people is that those with it, or are perceived to have it, can do things to those without it without fear of repercussion. there's no doubt that women shut up when a truly disgusting human groped, kissed, and commented on them as if they were property because they could lose what little they did have

on the other hand, a great thing is that creating Dilbert confers very little power on a human being. even if money imparts some influence, it's somewhat balanced by the fact this guy's claim to fame is Dilbert

and being a trained hypnotist

My favourite thing about his writing is the equivatory little disclaimers he puts everywhere:

"I don’t think any of us is smart enough to evaluate the relative risk of either candidate..."
"That doesn’t mean I’m always right, but..."
"It’s simplistic to think that a total ban on immigration plus a high level of male gun-ownership helps Switzerland have no real problems. But..."
"foes that make me directly responsible for the coming economic collapse in Europe? Well, probably yes, and probably no..>"

And his use of the word literally.

"That creates millions of young male zombies willing to die for a chance to get laid in heaven. Literally."
"I mean that literally. And remember that I’m a trained hypnotist. "
"In my view – and I mean this literally, not satirically – marriage is the biggest contributor to mental health problems"

In any case it's completely untrue that Switzerland has a "total ban on immigration", there are large communities of people in Switzerland from e.g. Portugal and the various successor nations of the Former Yugoslavia.

remember that i'm a trained hypnotist

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/m1hmgZFY9w8/maxresdefault.jpg

good research work, Chuck

A work lunchtime well spent, ugh.

My favourite thing about his writing is the equivatory little disclaimers he puts everywhere:

yeah I absolutely hate this about him, he effectively says "you're an idiot if you believe me" and "you're an idiot if you disagree with this" at the same time

lately ppl have been asking him on Twitter if his "98% chance Trump wins" still stands and he replies "sure, but you have to figure out if that was a prediction I was serious about" and it's just like...fuck off, old man

explains why he's divorced

"What do you want for dinner?"
"I'd love pizza!"
*half an hour later*
"This pizza is horrible!"
"You said you wanted pizza!"
"Yeah, but is that what I meant, or what I wanted you to think?"

Somewhere Dave Sim seethes -- "Why am I broke and he's a millionaire? We're saying the same things!"

hey man Dave is kind of crazy but he's a much better writer of rants

also sim's work is significantly better looker and more interesting than anything adams has ever done

idk if there's something about being a cartoonist/writer that lends to really evaluating interpersonal relationships post-breakup or divorce but it's definitely a common theme. maybe lots of people have these thoughts and just lack the creative outlet

now I'm imagining Dilbert strips with Gerhard backgrounds and giggling

http://i.imgur.com/GvzKNdb.png

you're just looking for my praise now!

idk if there's something about being a cartoonist/writer that lends to really evaluating interpersonal relationships post-breakup or divorce but it's definitely a common theme. maybe lots of people have these thoughts and just lack the creative outlet

I suspect for people who have become accustomed to a creative schedule that demands fairly constant output, it's really difficult to separate any personal obsessions from sucking the work into their orbit, and maybe at a certain point that self awareness that serves as a barrier starts to crack, and then whoop bop a loo bop the snake eats itself.

And of course for a lot of creative people a failed relationship or other really upsetting events can be fuel for genuinely valuable insights and expression that don't come across like a dog preaching that his own butthole contains the secrets of existence, but if your thing is pencil drawings of stubby dudes being sarcastic about society, the odds maybe aren't great

Didn't he have some weird stroke or aphasia that made him unable to talk?
Any speculation that his jerk logorrhea is an untreated medical symptom?

I think he's always been this way; you can definitely see the signs in his early writing, which at least held it together by attempting to be funny most of the time.

To be honest I don't think he puts much thought into Dilbert anymore, and probably hasn't for what, 15 years? I think he admitted he crowdsources most of the jokes and does it solely for the money now; he cares way more about his books/blog/Twitter account. I think he's all in on Trump now because a Trump victory would make Adams look like some kind of sage, and he might feel he can parlay that into a nice book deal and a second career as a pundit or political advisor. I think he's convinced himself that he's way too smart to just go down in history as "the Dilbert guy" and is looking for a way out.

I guess he doesn't have the chops to go the Jim Davis route and open a Dilbert fine art gallery

Why doesn't he hypnotise himself to be a better artist?

cuz he's proud of being a terrible artist - he loves to boast that he's made millions and millions as a cartoonist despite sucking at it, therefore he must be some sort of singular genius

This thread made me think of Garfield last night - so I started reading it and found out that Jon is now dating Liz, and Liz now has ginormous, poorly-drawn lips.

https://thecomicninja.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/garfield-lost-my-shoes.gif

I wonder what poor sucker is actually writing/drawing it

Davis consults heavily with the head writer, it's been drawn by Paws staff since about 1979

"plenty of foot paint" is actually a pretty good/weird line

I know, sic! Has anyone ever written about Paws, Inc. and who actually works on staff? It'd be an interesting subject for a profile/interview, at least to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC0Mi5jXg88

Yeah, there was a huge RC Harvey profile revised on the Journal a few years ago. A guy called Brett Koth is the co-writer, he and Davis each do layouts as part of the writing, and Gary Barker has been the penciller for decades.

(Koth was hired away from Marvel animation to draw US Acres, ended up writing it too, and moved to writing Garfield when it was axed. Barker also draws a Boom! Garfield comic that Mark Evanier writes. Evanier has also written and voice directed pretty much every Garfield TV cartoon since 1988. I guess Davis sticks with people as long as they want to stick with him.)

that garfield video is totally what I expected, and yet somehow edifying/clarifying. love the moment when jim davis adds his signature to three other people's work, and how they almost go out of their way to not give you a close-up of any kind of the 'thumbnail sketch' he supposedly started things off with.

omg @ Dilbert/Cerebus mashup

I guess Davis sticks with people

ha, new penciller/letterer was the letterer for over a decade before apparently levelling up

classic small office problems, no career path when there's only a few of you

I'll have to track down that Harvey profile

Body oils?

i like that the still image on that youtube of "How Garfield is Drawn" is a guy standing over what looks like a xerox machine

Jesus Christ, he is a bitter old man:

Anyway, getting to the point of this post, if Clinton wins, it will be because women voted for her in landslide proportions while men (on average) preferred Trump. And that means two things of historic importance.

1. We will elect the first woman to be President of the United States. That’s good for everyone.

and…

2. Everything that goes wrong with the country from this point forward is women’s fault.

I feel some relief about that. The next four years are likely to be some of the worst in our country’s history. The Republican establishment will make sure of that because a failed America is in their best interest in the short run. Four years from now they want to offer their chosen savior (Paul Ryan). Trump would have a good chance of bullying the Republican establishment as he has done so far. Clinton, not so much. She’ll be buried in scandals, both real and imagined.

Men had a good run. We invented almost everything, and that’s cool. But we also started all of the wars and committed most of the crimes. It’s a mixed record to be sure. Now it’s time for something different, apparently.

Hillary Clinton is all yours, ladies. She and her alleged rapist husband are your brand now. Wear them well.

leaving aside the many breathtakingly wrongheaded statements in those few paragraphs for now, if paul ryan is the best the gop have to offer in 2020 then they're super-double-fucked

Thanks, women!

He just fails on so many levels - logic, prognostication, analysis, his pathological misunderstanding of how gender works - no wonder he's a Trump fan.

he did okay when his predictions were purposely vague and outlandish like "evolution will be disproven in the next century"

problem is now he's actually predicting specific things which are easily disprovable - in fact he's getting things so blatantly, hilariously wrong that I can't imagine he'll have any reputation left when it's all over.

did he really predict evolution will be disproven? is he a christian nut too??

no, he just stated it "doesn't pass the sniff test" or whatever

it's a dumb prediction, he's just casting it out there so he can look like a genius in case any big discoveries are made

Thanks, women!

"ladies" rather

I think I've said it before but "evolution will be disproven" is such a vague assertion depending on how you define evolution that there are a half dozen studies you could point to right now and say, "hah! see, evolution is wrong!"

but nothing that disproves the fundamental idea that species have changed over time