Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert comic strip, dies at 68

Adams shared his diagnosis of prostate cancer last May, saying at the time that he didn’t expect to live through the summer. The cartoonist was fairly outspoken about the prognosis throughout the following months, with TMZ reporting yesterday that he had been in hospice care for weeks. 

Adams is best-known for creating Dilbert, a widely-syndicated comic strip that poked fun at 20th century American office life. The strip appeared in 1989 and, per The Hollywood Reporter, appeared in more than 2,000 newspapers and boasted an estimated readership of more than 150 million people across 65 countries and 25 languages. Inspired by Adams’ previous job as an applications engineer at the Pacific Bell Company in San Ramon, California, the success of the comic strip led to several books, a video game, and an animated series which ran for two seasons on UPN from 1999 until 2000. Adams also wrote multiple non-Dilbert non-fiction books. 

Dilbert‘s newspaper run ended in 2023 after Adams called Black people “a hate group.”  The strip continued later for subscribers only on Adams’ website. Those comments came after years of other controversial comments, including a widely-reported 2015 blog wherein he said being a man in America was somewhat similar to living under the rule of ISIS. The comic strip also took on some of Adams’ more “men’s rights activist” views in the years that followed. The writer also questioned how many people died during the Holocaust and spoke against the COVID-19 vaccine. 

Adams was married twice. He married Miles in 2006 and they divorced in 2014; Adams and Kristina Basham were married from 2020 until 2024, per THR. He had no children.

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