Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, said a number of business partners have dropped him in the aftermath of his controversial remarks about Black people on a podcast last week.
(Bloomberg) — Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, said a number of business partners have dropped him in the aftermath of his controversial remarks about Black people on a podcast last week.
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Dilbert has been pulled from all newspapers, websites, calendars and books, the author said in a series of tweets Monday. Adams said his book agent dropped him and the publisher of a non-Dilbert related book shelved that project as well. He plans to continue publishing the strip on his own website.
Andrews McMeel Universal, the main distributor of the Dilbert comics to newspapers, said in a tweet late Sunday that it severed the company’s relationship with the illustrator.
“As a media and communications company, AMU values free speech,” the company said. “But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate.”
Adams got into trouble for comments on Twitter and elsewhere about a poll by Rasmussen Reports that found 53% of Black people surveyed agreed with the comment: “It’s okay to be White.”
“If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people, according to this poll, not according to me, that’s a hate group, and I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” Adams said Feb. 22 on his Coffee With Scott Adams podcast.
The distributor’s decision to drop Dilbert came after multiple newspapers said they will stop publishing the comic strip, which Adams has written for three decades. His drawings feature the frustrating office life of a mid-level engineer who is the title character.
Reframe Your Brain, a self-help book, was scheduled to be published by Penguin Random House in September.
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