‘Dilbert,’ Scott Adams Draw Ire From Fellow Cartoonists

NEW YORK (AP) — Cartoonists are pushing again in opposition to racist remarks made by “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams, with one artist even utilizing his personal strip this week to lampoon the disgraced cartoon now dropped by newspapers nationwide.

Darrin Bell is remodeling his strip “Candorville” — which normally options younger Black and Latino characters — right into a technique to handle Adams’ racism by mimicking the look and elegance of “Dilbert,” full with wayward necktie.

“The only reason anyone knows who Scott Adams is because of the comics page. So I thought somebody on the comics page should respond to him on the comics page,” Bell, the 2019 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary, informed The Associated Press.

In the strips operating Monday to Saturday, Bell paired Dilbert with one in every of his personal characters, Lemont Brown. In one, Dilbert hopes Lemont will facet with him in his quest to get a laundry room put in at work.

“You could wash your hoodie,” says Dilbert. Responds Lemont: “And you could wash your hood?”

Adams, who’s white, was an outspoken — and controversial — presence on social media lengthy earlier than describing Black individuals as a “hate group” on YouTube final month. Adams repeatedly referred to people who find themselves Black as members of a “hate group” and stated he would now not “help Black Americans.” He later stated he was being hyperbolic, but continued to defend his stance.

“When somebody goes too far like Scott Adams did, everyone who knows better should stand up and use their First Amendment to draw a line — to say that this is unacceptable,” stated Bell, whose new graphic novel “The Talk” explores rising up as a biracial man in white tradition.

Other cartoonists have stepped ahead to denounce Adams, like Bill Holbrook, the creator of “On the Fastrack,” a strip that options an interracial household and — like “Dilbert” — focuses on a contemporary office.

“One of the things I wanted to spotlight with my characters is that people do rise above their differences. It can work,” Holbrook stated. “That’s the spotlight I wanted to focus on and still do. It’s all a matter of where you want to put your focus.”

Holbrook stated the Adams case shouldn’t be one in every of so-called cancel tradition however of penalties.

“I am in full support with him saying anything he wants to, but then he has to own the consequences of saying them,” he stated. “He’s not being canceled. He’s experiencing the consequences of expressing his views.”

Individual newspapers have dropped “Dilbert” and Adams’ distributor, Andrews McMeel Universal, stated it was severing ties with the cartoonist. While some retailers changed “Dilbert” with one other strip, The Sun Chronicle in Attleboro, Massachusetts, determined to maintain the area clean by way of March “as a reminder of the racism that pervades our society.”

The “Dilbert” controversy has rocked a group of day by day cartoonists who usually create work of their houses a number of months forward of publication. While reliably pro-free speech, they are saying they’re additionally oriented towards a greater future — or at the very least a chuckle.

“We believe comics are a powerful medium and that cartoonists should perpetuate laughter, not racism and hate,” stated Tea Fougner, editor in chief of King Features Syndicate — which distributes such strips as “Candorville,” “Zits,” “Mutts” and “Dennis the Menace” — in an announcement to the AP.

“We are proud of our cartoonists who are using their platforms to denounce the hatred spread by Scott Adams and encourage others to join us as we stand together as a community to keep the world of cartooning a safe and welcoming space for everyone,” the assertion stated.

Bell credited King Features Syndicate and his editors for permitting him to tear up the strips supposed for this week and pivot to the “Dilbert” send-ups, an uncommon request.

“They apparently thought it was important enough to take a risk and to make sure that it goes out on time,” Bell stated.

Many comedian creators stated they’d stopped studying “Dilbert” over the previous a number of years, discovering the strip’s tone darker and its creator’s descent into misogyny, anti-immigration and racism alarming. But Adams nonetheless had a whole lot of newspaper perches earlier than final week.

“We can’t move forward and progress as a culture and as a society if there are still people in these gatekeeping roles that are holding onto these archaic ideas,” stated artist Bianca Xunise, who co-authors the strip “Six Chix” and is the second Black lady in comics historical past to be nationally syndicated.

Xunise famous the fallout was a lot faster when she drew a strip that commented on each the Black Lives Matter motion and the coronavirus pandemic. More than 120 publications instantly dropped the strip.

She stated being Black within the cartooning world appears to all the time set off pushback from hateful readers and people terrified of “woke” messages, however is heartened that “Heart of the City” — now authored by the Black cartoonist Steenz — changed “Dilbert” in The Washington Post.

“We don’t want to push so far that it becomes a different form of fascism over censoring everybody’s ideas just out of fear of being offensive,” Xunise stated. “But some things do not need to be said, and especially if they are a directly punching down towards those who are marginalized.”

“Macanudo” creator Ricardo Liniers Siri, recognized professionally as Liniers, stated Adams was shifting into unfunny territory and that’s a cartoonist’s third rail.

“Grievance generally is not fun. The funniest guy at a party is not the one just complaining about everything. That’s the annoying guy,” he stated.

“I don’t do grievance. I’m just trying to focus on whatever is good that we have around,” he added. “Because in the context of a newspaper with so much bad news, I try to have an optimistic space.”

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits