Scott Adams Dies at 68: The Creator of the Dilbert Comic Strip

There are cartoons about office life, and then there are cartoons that become office life. Dilbert was the latter.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, passed away on the morning of January 13, 2026, at the age of 68, after a long battle with metastatic prostate cancer. The news was announced by his former wife, Shelly Miles, through the video channel where Adams had shared daily updates for years. Quiet, direct, and very much in character.

Adams was not just a cartoonist. He was someone who managed to compress the absurdity of modern corporate life—meetings, managers, pointless goals—into a few panels. In his later years, he was also a figure surrounded by controversy, often as much for his words as for his work.

Learning the Office by Living in It

Born in New York in 1957, Scott Adams did not start out as a cartoon prodigy. He studied economics, earned an MBA, and worked at large corporations like Crocker National Bank and Pacific Bell. In other words, Dilbert was not imagined from the outside—it was drawn from experience.

Dilbert debuted in 1989 and spread quickly.

• Published in 57 countries
• Translated into 19 languages
• Appearing in more than 2,000 newspapers

It became one of the most recognizable office comic strips in the world. Adams won the Reuben Award in 1997. Characters like the pointy-haired boss, Wally, Alice, and Dogbert became familiar to millions of office workers who felt uncomfortably seen.

Dilbert didn’t exaggerate much. It didn’t need to. Reality was already strange enough.

Controversy and Cancellation

Adams’s career was not defined by success alone. In his later years, his political and social commentary often overshadowed his cartoons.

In 2023, comments he made based on a public poll—summarized by many as saying that white people should avoid Black people—sparked widespread backlash. Hundreds of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, dropped Dilbert simultaneously.

Adams later described his remarks as “hyperbole,” a deliberate exaggeration. It didn’t matter. Dilbert, after decades of uninterrupted publication, was effectively removed from mainstream newspapers. The episode became one of the most visible examples of “cancel culture” in the cartoon world.

The Final Chapter

In 2025, Adams publicly disclosed his cancer diagnosis, explaining that it had spread to his bones. He spoke openly about his declining health and his reliance on a wheelchair in his final months.

On January 1, 2026, he published a farewell message. It was simple:

“I lived a great life. I gave it everything I had.

If anything I created was useful to you, please pass that on to others.

That’s the legacy I want. Be useful.”

No grand statements. No dramatic ending.

A very Dilbert-like goodbye.

A Closing Note

Scott Adams will be remembered in different ways—by some as the creator of Dilbert, by others as a controversial and provocative figure. But one thing is certain: he permanently changed how office life was portrayed in comics.

As long as there are pointless meetings, bad managers, and unread emails, Dilbert will still feel familiar.