https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-dilbert-apos-author-scott-001605663.html
September 20, 2022

'Dilbert' author Scott Adams says comic strip about corporate office culture removed from 77 newspapers

The "Dilbert" comic strip named after its title character struggling to make it up the corporate ladder and often pokes fun at office culture with satirical humor and social commentary has been canceled in nearly 80 markets, its author told Fox News.

Scott Adams, who has written and illustrated the popular comic since 1989, said Lee Enterprises stopped printing it this week. The media company owns nearly 100 newspapers throughout the United States.

"It was part of a larger overhaul, I believe, of comics, but why they decided what was in and what was out, that's not known to anybody except them, I guess," he told Fox News.

Fox News has reached out to Lee Enterprises.

Adams noted that other comic strips were also permanently canceled but the decisions on which ones to get rid of were made individually.

"Dilbert" appears in thousands of newspapers across 57 counties in 19 languages, according to Adams' website. The comic strip has been one of the most popular for many years and more than 20 million "Dilbert"-themed books and calendars have been printed.

In recent years, Adams has poked fun at themes related to the workplace, most recently Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues and the introduction of a new character named "Dave," who is Black but identifies as White.

Dave, who is named after Adams' brother, is a prankster who likes to mess with the boss, who is happy he has met his diversity quota, Adams said of the cartoon.

"All of the wokeness and anything that permeated from ESG… so that stuff made its way into the business world, and then it became proper content for Dilbert," Adams said. "The problem is that people see that even though it's a workplace-related joke, but it's more about how they implement it.."

He said some newspapers voiced concerns after receiving complaints about the content, but he was not sure if that had anything to do with the removal of "Dilbert."

In Tuesday's strip, the supervisor is seen explaining to Dave how to increase the company's ESG rating.

"Dave, I need to boost our company's ESG rating, so I'm promoting you to be our CTO. I know you identify as White, so that won't help our ESG scores, but would it be too much trouble to identify as gay?" his boss asks.

"Depends on how hard you want me to sell it," Dave responds.

"Just wear better shirts," the supervisor replies.

https://i.postimg.cc/JhctRT6z/Dilbert-ESG.gif

"What I do is I talk about how the employees handle the situation. It's not about the goal of it. But that's enough to make people think that I must be taking sides politically," he said.

Overall, the cancelation has dealt him a financial blow, Adams said.

"It's substantial," he said.

In article <1271166d-8923-4421-8b30-55d5210214abn@googlegroups.com>, Ed
Stasiak <edstasiak1067@gmail.com> wrote:

> https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-dilbert-apos-author-scott-001605663.html
> September 20, 2022
>
> 'Dilbert' author Scott Adams says comic strip about corporate office culture
> removed from 77 newspapers
>
> The "Dilbert" comic strip named after its title character struggling to make
> it up the corporate ladder and often pokes fun at office culture with
> satirical humor and social commentary has been canceled in nearly 80 markets,
> its author told Fox News.
>
> Scott Adams, who has written and illustrated the popular comic since 1989,
> said Lee Enterprises stopped printing it this week. The media company owns
> nearly 100 newspapers throughout the United States.
>
> "It was part of a larger overhaul, I believe, of comics, but why they decided
> what was in and what was out, that's not known to anybody except them, I
> guess," he told Fox News.

I'd like to know how much the papers were paying for the strip, and if
there was any attempt to negotiate the fee before cancellation.

A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
> In article <1271166d-8923-4421-8b30-55d5210214abn@googlegroups.com>, Ed
> Stasiak <edstasiak1067@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-dilbert-apos-author-scott-001605663.html
>> September 20, 2022
>>
>> 'Dilbert' author Scott Adams says comic strip about corporate office culture
>> removed from 77 newspapers
>>
>> The "Dilbert" comic strip named after its title character struggling to make
>> it up the corporate ladder and often pokes fun at office culture with
>> satirical humor and social commentary has been canceled in nearly 80 markets,
>> its author told Fox News.
>>
>> Scott Adams, who has written and illustrated the popular comic since 1989,
>> said Lee Enterprises stopped printing it this week. The media company owns
>> nearly 100 newspapers throughout the United States.
>>
>> "It was part of a larger overhaul, I believe, of comics, but why they decided
>> what was in and what was out, that's not known to anybody except them, I
>> guess," he told Fox News.
>
>
> I'd like to know how much the papers were paying for the strip, and if
> there was any attempt to negotiate the fee before cancellation.
>

Another article continues

Cleveland’s Morning News with Wills And Snyder
Dilbert Comic Strip Is Canned By 77 Newspapers After Anti-Woke Plotline
Sep 22, 2022

Photo: Getty Images-HENNY RAY ABRAMS

A popular comic strip has been canned by 77 newspapers after its creator
Scott Adams started incorporating anti-woke plotlines, including a black
character who identifies as white. Adams' much-loved 'Dilbert' comics have
been in circulation since 1989 and frequently pokes fun at office culture,
but he announced he was sensationally dropped by publisher Lee Enterprises.
The media company owns nearly 100 newspapers across the country - including
The Buffalo News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Arizona Daily Sun - and
has been publishing Adams' jokes about the corporate ladder for years. One
of his most recent controversial comic strips included a black worker, who
identifies as white, being asked to also identify as gay to boost his
company's environmental, social, and governance ratings. Dave, his
reoccurring character, replies: 'Depends how hard you want me to sell it,'
before the boss responds: 'Just wear better shirts.' Adams, 65, is believed
to be worth nearly $70million - a fortune he amassed thanks to the
popularity of his characters, as well as his non-Dilbert related works.
Scott Adams, creator of the comic strip Dilbert, has called out the 77
newspapers after he was suddenly dropped One of the most recent comics
touched upon anti-woke ESG enterprises in corporate workspaces.

This comic was posted September 20, 2022 Another satire, posted on Monday,
showed the same character in charge of the fictional firm wondering how he
can open a new factory without contributing negatively to the environment.
As a solution to stop him being bashed by 'woke' commentators, the boss
concludes that he'll add a non-binary worker to his board to increase
diversity. Adams' satirical strips feature in newspapers across 57
countries, and in 19 languages - and there are over 20 million Dilbert
books and calendars in print. The character Dave, named after the creator's
brother, is a prankster who messes with his boss, Adams said. He told Fox
News that some newspapers voiced concerns after receiving complaints about
his comic content.

But he could not say for sure if that had anything to do with the removal
of 'Dilbert.' Adams said: 'It was part of a larger overhaul, I believe, of
comics, but why they decided what was in and what was out, that's not known
to anybody except them, I guess.' The Daily Cartoonist reported that the
comic strips 'Baby Blues,' 'Red and Rover,' 'Mutts' and 'Bizarrro' were
also cut. Cartoonist Dan Piraro, who created 'Bizarro,' spoke about getting
the axe. 'Lee Enterprises, a newspaper group that is majority-owned by a
large investment firm, stopped running 'Bizarro' and many other comics in
their papers this past week,' Piraro wrote on his webpage. The removal of
the strips has had a 'significant' financial impact on Adams, but it's
unclear how much money he was making from the partnership to begin with.
Responding to claims that Lee Enterprises were just making changes to their
syndication, the cartoonist added: 'Do you think they flipped coins to
decide what to keep and what to delete? It wasn't about popularity or cost.
This 'controversial' comic was posted September 13, 2022 Another one of
Adams' gaffs was published on September 7, 2022 This comic hit publication
on September 19, 2022 ANTI-WOKE COMICS: 'The more woke you are, the more
you will get paid,' published September 2, 2022 'But it could have been a
normal business decision of another type that is a huge coincidence. In
another of his anti-woke comics, one boss told workers: 'We are replacing
traditional performance reviews with a wokeness score assigned by human
resources.' They explain the idea that 'the more woke you are, the more you
will get paid.' But one confused worker buts in, saying: 'That feels too
subjective.' And the boss bites back: 'That'll cost you two points off your
wokeness score, bigot.' Lee Enterprises - who own local media outlets from
26 different states - has been contacted for comment.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

Except not. It only lost about 8% of the papers it was syndicated in.

David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Except not. It only lost about 8% of the papers it was syndicated in.

Except yeah, 'cuz this is the newspaper publishing chain that cancelled
Dilbert that's being discussed here. The cancellation was apparently in
reaction to a story line the publisher disapproved of.

Pay attention to context, Johnston.

On 2022-09-24 2:42 a.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Except not. It only lost about 8% of the papers it was syndicated in.
>
> Except yeah, 'cuz this is the newspaper publishing chain that cancelled
> Dilbert that's being discussed here. The cancellation was apparently in
> reaction to a story line the publisher disapproved of.
>
> Pay attention to context, Johnston.

Ordinarily in this newsgroup "cancelled" means "taken out of broadcast
entirely"

David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 2022-09-24 2:42 a.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>>Except not. It only lost about 8% of the papers it was syndicated in.

>>Except yeah, 'cuz this is the newspaper publishing chain that cancelled
>>Dilbert that's being discussed here. The cancellation was apparently in
>>reaction to a story line the publisher disapproved of.

>>Pay attention to context, Johnston.

>Ordinarily in this newsgroup "cancelled" means "taken out of broadcast
>entirely"

Huh? The use of "canceled" here is in relation to a reaction in a
political context resulting in restrictions on someone's speech.