While a number of cartoonists are unhappy about the decision by Lee Enterprises to downsize their newspapers’ comics pages, the conservative press sees it as cancel culture of the “woke” kind when it comes to Scott Adams and Dilbert.
When we updated our report about the reaction to Lee Enterprises comics cuts this morning with Scott Adams’ voice we never thought that the issue would blow up this way. But it seems the conservative media has taken the loss of Dilbert in Lee newspapers as a personal affront and just one more example of political correctness taken to extremes.
A popular comic strip has been canned by 77 newspapers after its creator Scott Adams started incorporating anti-woke plotlines, including a character black that identifies as white.
Adams’ much-loved ‘Dilbert’ comics have been in circulation since 1989 and frequently poke fun at office culture, but he announced he was sensationally dropped by publisher Lee Enterprises.
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. (That I know.)
© Scott Adams
Scott Adams, who has been drawing the comic since 1989, said that the removal began after he started putting stories that included “wokeness” in the comic strip.
Adams said that Lee Enterprises stopped printing the comic this week.
Adams told [Fox News] that some newspapers noted concerns after receiving complaints about the comic strips’ content. However, he said he was unsure if that played into newspapers dropping the comic strip.
From The Colorado Gazette as writ by The Washington Examiner:
The creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, announced Tuesday that his comic has been canceled by nearly 77 newspapers, which he says are owned by one media company.
Dilbert follows the titular character as he navigates American office culture. Recently, as “woke” culture has permeated workplaces, it has been addressed in Adams’s comics.
Coincidentally, Adams announced on Twitter that his comic is being stripped from 77 newspapers, which is coming as a “substantial” financial blow to the creator.
The New York Daily News took a more measured response:
“Dilbert was cancelled in 77 newspapers this week,” cartoonist Scott Adams tweeted Tuesday.
The elimination of the 33-year-old strip appears to be one of many cuts made by Lee Enterprises, which is reportedly scaling back its cartoon pages overall. The reaction to Adams announcement on Twitter was divided between fans who will miss seeing “Dilbert” in their funny pages and critics who don’t find it funny.
We Got This Covered followed some Twitter threads:
[P]rint media is sadly not what it once was, and in an apparent cost-cutting measure this week, Lee Enterprises, a North American publisher which provides local news in 77 markets across 26 states, drastically cut back on comics sections.
Not shockingly, Dilbert was a victim of those apparent measures, which led the strip’s creator Scott Adams to sound off accordingly on Twitter. However, Adams, who was a supporter of President Donald Trump and has gone full red pill in recent years, tweeted about the cancellation in a vague way — seemingly insinuating that the strip’s cancellation was a result of so-called “cancel culture.”
Or, at least that’s what he left his fans to determine, anyway.
Sure enough, his mentions were soon flooded with fans who blamed the “Woke New World” for not being able to “handle this kind of edgy humor” and so on. But as “Dilbert” began trending on the platform, plenty of others jumped into the fray to point out that Dilbert was among many syndicated features that had been on the chopping block.
Newsweek also is covering the hulabaloo:
[W]hen Adams announced on September 21, 2022, that Dilbert had been “cancelled” from 77 newspapers, suggestions that the move was politically-motivated began to spread.
Although Adams did not initially make this accusation himself, tweeting only “#Dilbert was cancelled in 77 newspapers this week,” his tweet, nonetheless, appeared to initiate such commentary.
Comments such as “Thank you for being a warrior for the right things.” and “Hope Twitter doesn’t censor you” were among the replies to Adams’ initial tweet.
The Epoch Times, a right-leaning publication … provided a link to Dilbert comic strips on its website, tweeting: “#Dilbert won’t be canceled here”.
Scott Adams devoted a portion of his Real Coffee with Scott Adams podcast to the current Dilbert situation. A prelude concerning ESG starts at the 10:45 mark while the Dilbert-gets-canceled segment begins at 15:25 into the show and runs about ten minutes.
For the last 16 minutes (1:00:00 – 1:16:00) Scott talks about book and syndicate contracts and answers questions about Dilbert.
Adams himself opined on why Dilbert was canceled, it wasn’t just conservative media. Of course, under the rules or opinions of the author and publisher of this article, Adams’ opinion isn’t valid or even allowed and is just part of a right-wing conspiracy subject to mockery. Adams is the creator and he is entitled to his opinion. He may be right.
I have in my pillow documents proving that Lee Enterprises cancelled hundreds of comic strips simply as a coverup for their personal woke war on Dilbert.
After all these years, we find out that the pointy-haired boss was supposed to be the hero.
And Lee Enterprises’ removal of “Blondie” from its papers was part of its war against the traditional family.
This is fun!
Lee cut “Beetle Bailey” because it’s anti-military.
Lee cut “Family Circus” because it hates kids.
Lee cut all the King Features comics because it hates the monarchy.
But somehow it’s all about Scott.
I’ve been trying as hard as I can, scrutinizing the issue from as many different angles as possible, and I just cannot find anyone to root for in this fight.
“Of course, under the rules or opinions of the author and publisher of this article, Adams’ opinion isn’t valid or even allowed”
Jerry, I not only linked to Scott’s Twitter feed, I linked to his podcast with instructions to get to the pertinent portions.
D.D. I give you credit for publishing the other side, which most don’t even consider. Adams may be right or Lee may have cut all the comics for financial reasons or a combination of the above. We’ll never know.
Of course. The sensitive woke crowd can’t listen to any opinion but their own and move to eliminate any other discussion, even satire.
Pretty sure I’m the only conservative cartoonist -both editorial and feature who posts here. I just spent 12 years w WASHPOST NEWS SERVICE AND SYNDICATE and while I was able to publish right editorial opinion my feature “Mike du Jour” was often warned that the syndicate wouldn’t publish / distribute many story arcs. No knowledge or comment on SA’s situation only my own experience and that is -it’s not appropriate comic fodder to satirize imaginary dept of “WOKE RESOURCES”. But I may try again.
I’ve worked for Lee, and not just in the newsroom but down in the belly of the beast where decisions are made. Like this one.
Excellent example of Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
I’ve also worked for an Alden paper. I’m an expert in Hanlon’s Razor.
I’m going to go with Mike on this one — Peterson, that is.
Adams is right up there with so many rich celebrities who don’t care about a disease until it affects them directly, and then it’s all about them. Newspapers have been gutting comics pages like fish for years — including, recently, a certain Rupert Murdoch-owned chain in Australia that killed them all — but sure, it was the woke mob that came just for Dilbert. Everyone else was just collateral damage in Warren Buffet’s socialist scheme to take out Scott Adams personally.
It seems to be lost in these comments that newspapers and social media platforms are in the business of selling advertising. That requires editorial policies that attract the largest audiences. Publishing content that is controversial must be weighed against the goal of the generating advertising revenue. WHY would any platform/newspaper want to become a lightening rod over a comic? What is in it for the business?
I’ll give Scott Adams this much: Lee dumped all the KFS stuff, but Dilbert is with McMeel. So an editorial choice was made. Now whether that choice was political or just a factor of Dilbert going downhill ever since Adams quit his job at AT&T and lost touch with his source material is a separate matter. I won’t attribute to the man who inflicted the Dilburrito (Dilberito?) on the world the insight to consider the latter, however.
Dilbert is one of the very few politically-grounded comic strips that is genuinely witty—right up there with Doonesbury, in my opinion. (Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But pretty far up there.) It’s a shame to see Adams give in to self pity like this.