It's Obvious You Won't Survive by Your Wits Alone

Dilbert #6

by Scott Adams

Dilbert is the Everyman in the down-sized, techno-centered workplace of the nineties. He's the corporately innocent engineer who experiences the absurdities and oddities of office life from his (sometimes shrinking) cubicle. Complemented by his sarcastic and power-hungry dog, Dogbert (aspiring Supreme Ruler of the Earth whose secret to happiness is "High expectations and your own bag of chips"), Dilbert provides humor on one of life's most insidious subjects: work. It's Obvious You Won't Survive by Your Wits Alone features nearly two years of Dilbert comic strips (including color Sunday cartoons!) that have never appeared in book form.

Dilbert, created by Scott Adams, appears in more than 550 newspapers worldwide and is the Internet's number one comic strip. "The Dilbert Zone" is featured on United Media's World Wide Web site, which generates more than three million hits every week.

Genres: Humor, Comics, Fiction, Comic Strips, Comedy, Cartoon, Graphic Novels

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Adams was born in Windham, New York in 1957 and received his Bachelor's degree in Economics from Hartwick College in 1979.

He also studied economics and management for his 1986 MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

In recent years, Adams has been hurt with a series of debilitating health problems. Since late 2004, he has suffered from a reemergence of his focal dystonia which has affected his drawing. He can fool his brain by drawing using a graphics tablet. On December 12, 2005, Adams announced on his blog that he also suffers from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes the vocal cords to behave in an abnormal manner. However, on October 24, 2006, he again blogged stating that he had recovered from this condition, although he is unsure if the recovery is permanent. He claims to have developed a method to work around the disorder and has been able to speak normally since. Also, on January 21, 2007, he posted a blog entry detailing his experiences with treatment by Dr. Morton Cooper.

Adams is also a trained hypnotist, as well as a vegetarian. (Mentioned in, "Dilbert: A Treasury of Sunday Strips 00).

He married Shelly Miles on July 22, 2006.

Reviews

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ha ha, first of all, love the title!
Wally and The Pointy Hair Boss slip into the cast quietly, without fanfare. This is classic early Dilbert

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 3 out of 5]

DISCLAIMER: I purchased this book at a library sale, so the author did not receive any money from me.

Some of these comics were good, but many of them went over my head, and I was disappointed to see one that made fun of the Christian faith. Fans of the daily funnies can do better.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got quite a few chuckles out of it.

[Jsrott · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are several Dilbert comics that are genuinely funny. Most of these are pretty decent, but there's a general undercurrent of sexism and contempt that didn't land the same way they may have back when they were written. Add to that the fact that more than a few of these cartoons were recycled from another collection and you get the sense that there are better ways to spend your money than giving it to this author.

[Liam Hogan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Le Quin coined the phrase "Ethically mean" and it fits, here. Whatever I may have thought about it on first read, a goodly while ago now, it doesn't stand up to a reread. The humour is extraordinarily thin, and Scott Adams is no dispassionate eye on the rich vein of cubicle politics. His characters are depicted as stupid, cruel, and bigotted. New employees are made "fun" of for their stature, for their nerves. (and it is no fun for the reader) Even characters you might hope to have sympathy with - a dog, for example! - behave in uncaring and hostile manners towards others. A typical panel involves a woman who is pregnant pretending not to be pregnant so she can school any man foolish enough to comment. Even panels on being selected for the US Supreme Court - which at this time ought to resonate - are handled so bluntly as to fail to raise either a smile or a knowing nod.
If you want comic strips with heart, avoid. Try instead some Bloom County. It has all the failings, but does so without hating its characters. And heck, it's actually funny. Or Garfield, if you want a supercilious animal.

[cauldronofevil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t remember where, when or why I came to the conclusion, but it seems that I have always felt that it was absurd to think that every piece of art that you loved was made by people you would also love.

And again, and again we have discovered that people who made much beloved art were actually probably not all that nice people - at least in some ways.

Which is to say that I don’t really care if Scott Adams is a right-wing douchebag. His comics are still hilarious to me.

I think this must be a very early book, maybe even the first. But it still gets me to laugh out loud.

“Intelligence has much less practical application than you’’d think.”

Not much to say except that I laughed. For a beginning effort it’s excellent.

I’ll give it 3 stars and then donate it back to the world.

[Sally · Rating 2 out of 5]

One strip of Dilbert a day is amusing; a whole bookful is repetitive and mean-spirited. The same jokes about Dilbert not getting a date, being abused by his boss and his dog, and suffering all sorts of indignities are funny in small doses, but not in book form. I enjoy Dogbert and Ratbert, although they too, have their idiosyncracies that are repeated over and over again. Stick to the comics page.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic early Dilbert...you can see Wally, Alice, and the Pointy Haired Boss coming into view. The artwork will improve much in the near future, but well worth the laughs...SA figuring out corporate America, dating, and so much more...

[robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been a big fan of Dilbert. Not all the comics hit home, but many hit my funny bone big time. I read this book a long time ago and am revisiting. One can't read this non-stop but need to absorb it in tiny bites. Much more effective that way. I love Dogbert!

[Carly Kirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of laugh out loud moments

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less dogbert, more evil bosses.

[Ianju Gytnnrq30 4y3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

great world bullding

[Jaymin Ewens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always a joy

[Sarah Ehinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

The content of the comics stands up suprisingly well over time. Some make me laugh, some I don't love, but they are worth the read.

[Ryan Barretto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun comic book by Scott Adams

Enjoyed this artwork and the antics of Dogbert in particular.

[John Andreula · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me laugh more than I expected.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

LOL

[Christa Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of stuff in here that make Adams seem prescient but not everything translates well into this century.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

The scary thing about Dilbert, I’ve just realized, is not so much that it resembles the company I work for so many times, but the fact that it must resemble more than just my company alone to account for its growing appeal. I guess in my heart of hearts I was hoping that if I ever moved to another company, I could leave the Dilbertisms behind–fat chance, it seems.

Dilbert is well on its way to becoming a classic comic strip. Like the ones canonized before it, it has been able to take a segment of our society (Doonesbury) or life (Calvin and Hobbes) and relieve our tension. Adams is the one writer who can actually answer the question, “Where do your ideas come from?” because he often receives what becomes next week’s strip from a reader email. As long as there are companies searching for answers in a changing marketplace, Adams will likely have material. Me, I’m just glad someone is enjoying the situation.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book my sons gave me for Christmas some years ago. I’ve always been a Dilbert fan, so when I ran across this one I was happy to reread it. The plight of an engineer just trying to do his job amidst the incompetence, inefficiency and arrogance of a bureaucratic system. Of course, his companions Dogbert and Ratbert, who act at times as consultants, evil HR personnel, autocrats and the like, as well as occasional trips to the fictional, snow-covered third world country of Elbonia, flesh out Dilbert’s environment, along, of course, with his clueless boss, Asok the Intern, and other burned out co-workers.

One of my favorites is a strip in which Dogbert whacks his knee, and exclaims, “AAK! Crime is society’s fault…raise taxes to feed the poor…stop nuclear research…save the…” whereupon Dilbert says, “Apparently you’re a knee-jerk liberal. You can live a normal life but you’ll be annoying at parties.”

Fun read. Recommended.

[rabbitprincess · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of older Dilbert strips, so there are a lot more silly puns and plays on words than in Scott's later work (a prime example being the storyline where Dilbert kills an executive with an ear of corn). A lot of Dogbert's world domination, too, which is always fun. He's a funny little dog. But my favourite storyline may have been the one where Dilbert becomes CEO very briefly -- this book shows how he became CEO, which I'd never seen previously. Little surprises like that and the interesting perspective provided by Scott's earlier work make this book a worthwhile venture for Dilbert fans.

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's amazing how poorly I find these comics have aged. As I said, it may be that I've been reading such amazing comics recently that these pale in comparison. I mean, it's no secret that the art is horrible, something Scott Adams freely admits. At the same time, I don't find the jokes very funny either. They seem somewhat clumsy and awkward. However, these are early strips, and perhaps they get better as the series matures.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of early 90s's strips. Almost all of these are still applicable.

A bit of a transition period - old boss turning into the familiar pointy haired boss of today. Alice not existing yet. Wally not existing in a consistant form. This book is interesting from a historical perspective.

But what i really enjoyed was the raw fury on display - Adams at some of his most sarcastic/sardonic extremes.

[Ariell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book from my Mom's cousin Angeline when I was living in Massachusetts. I was 18 and really not familiar with Dilbert comics at the time.
It is probably not down my alley as far as comics go. However it turned out that I married a man who finds that sort of humor to be all too brilliant.
I have come to appreciate it more having him as my husband than I might otherwise have done.

[Frank Taranto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good laughs. I understand Dilbert a lot more since I retired from the Navy.
Military people tend to think that the military has bad management, but when you get out into the corporate world, you realize that the military is much more effecient.

[Amber the Human · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, why not? I'll give this five stars. So many good comics. This was the best time for me for Dilbert. Total nonsense. Not too much stuff about his job. The dinosaurs. Ratbert in all his nonsense ("The apple HATES the banana"). So much good stuff.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all might have started out like Calvin with a great view of life. But after hitting the workforce we all somewhat become Dilbert. Everyone knows someone like one of the characters in the strips. Highly recommended

[Sophia W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t really have what I would call “experience” with an office job, but these strips are still funny.
Great collection.

My only complaint is that the final strips offer no sense of conclusion, like Calvin and Hobbes books do. It kind of feels cut off.

[Susan]

cartoon

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

.