By Scott Adams
Publisher: Andrews McMeel
ISBN: 978-0-7407-7365-5
Scott Adams is a cartoonist who, by his own admission, can't draw, so considering his Dilbert cartoons have been running for 20 years and are now in 23 languages, it must be the sense of humour that's winning through.
I've not picked up a Dilbert collection for a couple of years now, so I was looking forward to re-familiarising myself with the cast of characters and too-close-to-the-truth world he inhabits. There is something immensely refreshing about a strip that confidently and accurately points out the contradictions and absurdities of working for big business. I used to have a strip on my wall for almost a decade at the ad agency I worked at that featured the stupid and self-defeating comments of Dilbert's pointy-haired boss that exactly mirrored a continuing problem at our own office. The fact that my equivalent of the pointy-haired boss never understood why it was there underscored the fact that my tiny act of rebellion was utterly justified.
Many newspaper strips follow weekly story arcs, but this collection also carries a broader theme reflecting the financial downturn, so plenty of raw material there. A personal favourite, though, is Dilbert trying to make a Powerpoint presentation with a hideously disgusting and inappropriate graphic projected on to the wall beside him after pushing the graphics department too far.
Dilbert is welcome satire and relief for anyone who has ever had to suffer the relentless corporate machine, and I'm glad to say that after my few years away it still delivered the humour and the smiles.
And if you liked that: There are 20 years of collections out there to discover.
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