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Dilbert #16
A Treasury of Sunday Strips
Everyone who's in business, works for a business, or even just gives others the business is amazed: Scott Adams never lacks for yet another way to lampoon the corporate world. It's not that Adams is anti-business. He's more anti-bad boss than anything. But poor management practices, the effects of bad decisions, and what it all means for the average worker add up to more comedic material than even the man who created Dilbert can tame.
Since Dilbert was first syndicated in 1989, Adams has built a following that would be the envy of any corporate sales and marketing team. His work not only generates howls from readers as they rush to plaster it on lunch-room refrigerators and scan it into interoffice e-mails, it has those same fans reading about "their" workplaces every Sunday in a multiple-panel, color format. And that's what this treasury, Dilbert : A Treasury Of Sunday Strips, provides. This collection offers yet another glimpse into the zany life of Dilbert, Dogbert, Ratbert, and the rest of the crazy cube crew through the masterpiece Sunday comics. Here's even more of the great Adams's irony, sarcasm, and satire that so many have come to depend upon to cope with the corporate workplace. Dilbert : A Treasury Of Sunday Strips humorously continues the tradition of poking fun at the world of business from which we all seek to temporarily escape.
Since Dilbert was first syndicated in 1989, Adams has built a following that would be the envy of any corporate sales and marketing team. His work not only generates howls from readers as they rush to plaster it on lunch-room refrigerators and scan it into interoffice e-mails, it has those same fans reading about "their" workplaces every Sunday in a multiple-panel, color format. And that's what this treasury, Dilbert : A Treasury Of Sunday Strips, provides. This collection offers yet another glimpse into the zany life of Dilbert, Dogbert, Ratbert, and the rest of the crazy cube crew through the masterpiece Sunday comics. Here's even more of the great Adams's irony, sarcasm, and satire that so many have come to depend upon to cope with the corporate workplace. Dilbert : A Treasury Of Sunday Strips humorously continues the tradition of poking fun at the world of business from which we all seek to temporarily escape.
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2000
46 people are currently reading
143 people want to read
About the author
Scott Adams
284 books1,275 followersLibrarian 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
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August 24, 2015Once upon a time I heard a story, probably from one of Plato's dialogues, anyhow there's a party going on, beautiful Alcibiadis is eyeing up ugly Socrates, or visa versa, drinking, singing, and Aristophanes the funniest man in the entirety of the city of ancient Athens is having a deadly serious conversation with nobody.
This often pops into my head as a reminder of the interrelationship between being serious and joking. How many serious points can be contained in a joke, how much a joke is a serious attempt to communicate something important.
The way in which Scott Adams maintains his Dilbert strip is a remarkable comment on the contemporary economy. He long ago stopped working in an office environment but purely on the strength of his comic strip people freely email him stories about their work experiences in office which get recycled into his comic strips thus earning him money enabling him not to work in an office, except one of his own creation. I suppose he could, in the spirit of the times, go a stage or two further and outsource the business of creating the strips and doing the drawings, but then he'd need some kind of pass-time or other to fill his days. How tiresome to lead a life of abject leisure.
These comic strips are set in a hapless technology firm that is always doing badly. Never so badly as to be actually in risk of going out of business, apparently people are always prepared to buy its products, in any-case, as you notice from time to time in the real economy big companies protect themselves through the convenient expedient of buying up interesting looking minnows. Did I mention that Adams is a fan of capitalism? I suppose that is fair enough since it provides him with the material that gives him a good income, although since he is an American business school graduate perhaps he believes in some 'red in tooth and claw' sprightly entrepreneurial capitalism...but then we are in the world of satire, and the problem often enough with satirists is that they are conservative types with a Romantic belief in the premises of their society with an inability to accept how they have led to the unsatisfactory state of the society around them.
Those self same sprightly entrepreneurs operating out of garages and bedrooms who through the difficulties of dealing with success ended up creating the kind of companies that create the endless supply of tragic-comic stories that will continue to fuel Dilbert, as much as the established older companies.
My own favourite strip is the one in which Dilbert, urged to go home despite an impending project deadline, is sucked into the Boss zone, where time and logic do not apply.
This often pops into my head as a reminder of the interrelationship between being serious and joking. How many serious points can be contained in a joke, how much a joke is a serious attempt to communicate something important.
The way in which Scott Adams maintains his Dilbert strip is a remarkable comment on the contemporary economy. He long ago stopped working in an office environment but purely on the strength of his comic strip people freely email him stories about their work experiences in office which get recycled into his comic strips thus earning him money enabling him not to work in an office, except one of his own creation. I suppose he could, in the spirit of the times, go a stage or two further and outsource the business of creating the strips and doing the drawings, but then he'd need some kind of pass-time or other to fill his days. How tiresome to lead a life of abject leisure.
These comic strips are set in a hapless technology firm that is always doing badly. Never so badly as to be actually in risk of going out of business, apparently people are always prepared to buy its products, in any-case, as you notice from time to time in the real economy big companies protect themselves through the convenient expedient of buying up interesting looking minnows. Did I mention that Adams is a fan of capitalism? I suppose that is fair enough since it provides him with the material that gives him a good income, although since he is an American business school graduate perhaps he believes in some 'red in tooth and claw' sprightly entrepreneurial capitalism...but then we are in the world of satire, and the problem often enough with satirists is that they are conservative types with a Romantic belief in the premises of their society with an inability to accept how they have led to the unsatisfactory state of the society around them.
Those self same sprightly entrepreneurs operating out of garages and bedrooms who through the difficulties of dealing with success ended up creating the kind of companies that create the endless supply of tragic-comic stories that will continue to fuel Dilbert, as much as the established older companies.
My own favourite strip is the one in which Dilbert, urged to go home despite an impending project deadline, is sucked into the Boss zone, where time and logic do not apply.
July 2, 2022
Ridiculous!
I don’t really understand how Dilbert and his co-workers can continue to work with an imbecile.
I would have been racing for the doors.
I don’t really understand how Dilbert and his co-workers can continue to work with an imbecile.
I would have been racing for the doors.
June 10, 2020
Though many kids--especially those who grew up in the latter half of the twentieth century--were raised on newspaper comics, Dilbert features humor that centers around the workplace, which may be a bit difficult for the Disney Channel crowd to understand. While I am currently employed, I've never worked in an office, so, some of the jokes here were lost on me. Still, I mostly enjoyed this compilation of strips; for those who don't read the funny pages, Sunday has always been a special day for comic strips, as not only were they longer that day, but it used to be the only time of the week they were in color. With improvements in technology, multi-chromatic printing has become cheaper and more common; still, Sunday strips will always hold a special place in my heart. There was some crudity here, but it was only occasional and mild; even in the funny pages, I've seen a lot worse.
August 15, 2011
I have an interesting relationship with Dilbert comic strips. They’ve been around basically forever and are virtually unchanged from the day Scott Adams drew the very first one. What’s changed over time is myself. When I first read Dilbert I was in High School and I don’t think that I was the target audience for the comic. I didn’t get most of the jokes and when I thought it was funny it was only because of the ridiculous situations the characters were in.
A couple years ago I got a job working in a cubicle at a large corporation. I rediscovered Dilbert and realized that suddenly all the jokes made perfect sense. Scott Adams has really captured corporate America in this comic strip.
This bring me to the third stage of my experience. Corporate America is represented so well – and in such a satirical way – that it almost makes me uncomfortable to read it. The antics of the pointy-haired boss have gone from funny to achingly frustrating as I’ve witnessed similar behavior myself.
It’s still funny and Scott Adams expresses a knowledge of management, HR and the corporate infrastructure that implies that he spent a good deal of time involved in it. He also has a talent for showing things that really happen but with a slightly ridiculous spin on them to make them funny instead of horrific.
Doing this kind of satire is a dangerous game. If it’s not done right it will feel horrifying instead of funny.
This book was a collection of the ‘best’ Sunday strips that Dilbert has had over the years. I haven’t read all of Dilbert so I don’t know how accurate the description is but they were definitely funny.
A couple years ago I got a job working in a cubicle at a large corporation. I rediscovered Dilbert and realized that suddenly all the jokes made perfect sense. Scott Adams has really captured corporate America in this comic strip.
This bring me to the third stage of my experience. Corporate America is represented so well – and in such a satirical way – that it almost makes me uncomfortable to read it. The antics of the pointy-haired boss have gone from funny to achingly frustrating as I’ve witnessed similar behavior myself.
It’s still funny and Scott Adams expresses a knowledge of management, HR and the corporate infrastructure that implies that he spent a good deal of time involved in it. He also has a talent for showing things that really happen but with a slightly ridiculous spin on them to make them funny instead of horrific.
Doing this kind of satire is a dangerous game. If it’s not done right it will feel horrifying instead of funny.
This book was a collection of the ‘best’ Sunday strips that Dilbert has had over the years. I haven’t read all of Dilbert so I don’t know how accurate the description is but they were definitely funny.
July 12, 2007
It's great how the author makes strips that relate so well to the work environment.
March 21, 2008
Still can't get over the one with the big dumb guy. Or the three-legged stool.
December 13, 2008
A nice collection of the larger Sunday strips that have made up Dilbert's world. For any fan of Dilbert, this is a great read.
January 2, 2012
It's Dilbert, what could I possible say here?
April 10, 2012
So my workplace and depressingly true.
Glad I am not alone
Glad I am not alone
September 5, 2019
Dilbert.
Sunday comic strips, 200 of them, in a book. In color.
If you know about the Dilbert comic strip, that's all I need say.
If you don't, no worries. Taking Rolling Stone's 150,000,000 readership number, there's roughly 7,550,000,000 folks who aren't regular Dilbert readers. A few quotes from "A Treasury..." may give a sketchy idea of what the strip, and the book, is about. Or should that be "are about?" Never mind.
Here are those quotes:
"Suddenly Dilbert is sucked in the 'Boss Zone' where time and logic do not apply."
Dilbert, the highly-trained engineer, following a recipe for making soup: "...Corn starch...hmm...that's basically flour. ... .Marjoram...I think that's French for butter..."
Dilbert: "...but you'll insist that I handle it now because you're a sociopath." Dilbert's boss: "Wrong. I majored in Anthropology...."
I've read that many folks who toil in the corporate world find solace of a sort in the Dilbert strips. Possibly due to the "misery loves company" principle.
In my case, Dilbert doesn't seem to have greatly affected my worldview or changed my life. It has, however, failed to instill a sense of guilt for not joining the rat race. And that's another topic.
Sunday comic strips, 200 of them, in a book. In color.
If you know about the Dilbert comic strip, that's all I need say.
If you don't, no worries. Taking Rolling Stone's 150,000,000 readership number, there's roughly 7,550,000,000 folks who aren't regular Dilbert readers. A few quotes from "A Treasury..." may give a sketchy idea of what the strip, and the book, is about. Or should that be "are about?" Never mind.
Here are those quotes:
"Suddenly Dilbert is sucked in the 'Boss Zone' where time and logic do not apply."
Dilbert, the highly-trained engineer, following a recipe for making soup: "...Corn starch...hmm...that's basically flour. ... .Marjoram...I think that's French for butter..."
Dilbert: "...but you'll insist that I handle it now because you're a sociopath." Dilbert's boss: "Wrong. I majored in Anthropology...."
I've read that many folks who toil in the corporate world find solace of a sort in the Dilbert strips. Possibly due to the "misery loves company" principle.
In my case, Dilbert doesn't seem to have greatly affected my worldview or changed my life. It has, however, failed to instill a sense of guilt for not joining the rat race. And that's another topic.
October 29, 2022
A colorful collection of Dilbert comics from the Sunday funnies. A number of them are repeats from other collections, but it is still a fun collection. Although I spent a lot of my career as a librarian, I did work in other offices outside of my choice career for a couple years here and there, and I can totally relate to a lot of what goes on in Dilbert’s workplace. In fact, there are a couple of places that I suspect that Scott Adams might have bugged in order to get material for his comic strip.
If you aren’t interested in reading every single Dilbert collection (which I’m doing over time), this would be a good one just to get a sampling of the strip.
If you aren’t interested in reading every single Dilbert collection (which I’m doing over time), this would be a good one just to get a sampling of the strip.
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July 10, 2021Classic Dilbert - always funny
These Sunday strips are some of the best Dilbert strips around. They cover a variety of workplace foibles that just about everyone will find familiar. Strongly recommended!
These Sunday strips are some of the best Dilbert strips around. They cover a variety of workplace foibles that just about everyone will find familiar. Strongly recommended!
August 11, 2017
Fun to read even for the 5th time
Hey my man Wally is in here. I have a tattoo of Wally so of course anything by Scoot Adam's is good by default!
Hey my man Wally is in here. I have a tattoo of Wally so of course anything by Scoot Adam's is good by default!
November 19, 2017
Nothing special
For those who know Dilbert series before know what they are getting. New readers might do better with a shorter climbs of the story.
For those who know Dilbert series before know what they are getting. New readers might do better with a shorter climbs of the story.
April 28, 2020
A good read, I've seen a couple of these before but most of them are new. Having had a career of office work I can relate to many of these situations.
November 20, 2022
Not as funny as the others I have read recently. Still enjoying before bed.
March 4, 2023
fun to read these.
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September 6, 2023""
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 5, 2023
It's sad how many of these are relatable.
May 24, 2025
Dilbert sunday strips that work for office people. Never have been an engineer but some of these are hilarious, especially the Pointy-Haired Boss's idiocy.
November 5, 2025
I never understood Dilbert as a kid, then I worked for the council.
December 10, 2017
The usual mildly-amusing stuff. Though the strips are in full colour because they were the Sunday ones.
Oh, and despite what the front cover says there are actually 260 strips! ;-)
This one strip actually made me laugh out loud:
WALLY (to other engineers): Here's your list of fake acronyms for the staff meeting. Try to keep a straight face when you use them.
[Team enters meeting room.]
POINTY-HAIRED BOSS (with huge stack of paper): I've got a few action items. Who isn't busy?
WALLY: I'd be all over it but I need to prepare a BTR for the CPD meeting.
ALICE: I'd love to help but this is XRP Week for the entire LBQ.
DILBERT: My spoo has too much fleem. ... What? [Alice is growling.]
[Team exits meeting room, all laden with portions of the boss' paperwork.]
WALLY: That was smooth.
DILBERT: Hey, if I could lie, I'd be in Marketing.
Oh, and despite what the front cover says there are actually 260 strips! ;-)
This one strip actually made me laugh out loud:
WALLY (to other engineers): Here's your list of fake acronyms for the staff meeting. Try to keep a straight face when you use them.
[Team enters meeting room.]
POINTY-HAIRED BOSS (with huge stack of paper): I've got a few action items. Who isn't busy?
WALLY: I'd be all over it but I need to prepare a BTR for the CPD meeting.
ALICE: I'd love to help but this is XRP Week for the entire LBQ.
DILBERT: My spoo has too much fleem. ... What? [Alice is growling.]
[Team exits meeting room, all laden with portions of the boss' paperwork.]
WALLY: That was smooth.
DILBERT: Hey, if I could lie, I'd be in Marketing.
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July 3, 2010Dilbert - A Treasury of Sunday Strips: Version 00 by S.Adams: #16 of a series of Dilbert Books; this 224 page paperback book contains all the Sunday comics strips from 1995 to 1999. All the comics in this book are in color. If you want all the Dilbert Sunday comics in one book, this is it. Nice compilation.
January 16, 2010
And my favorite ones are found on the following pages:
15 ,24,31,32,34,41,42,43,44,48,50,58,61,64,65,67,88,95,140,141,142, 155,171, 183,211,214.
and it goes without saying my favorite character is : DOGBERT.
15 ,24,31,32,34,41,42,43,44,48,50,58,61,64,65,67,88,95,140,141,142, 155,171, 183,211,214.
and it goes without saying my favorite character is : DOGBERT.
May 8, 2013
Awesome "unwind material". Practically each strip reminds you of something that actually happened at work either directly involving you or something that you observed! The characters, their hair-dos - or lack thereof - are hilarious. Dogbert, you're amazing!
January 23, 2016
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
May 6, 2011
I don't know anyone who doesn't think Scott Adams has snuck into their office and written down what happens there.
June 15, 2014
Dilbert
I chose this reading because Dilbert is one of my favorite comics and It is a great book for kids. I really like how every comic strip is different.
I chose this reading because Dilbert is one of my favorite comics and It is a great book for kids. I really like how every comic strip is different.
March 29, 2018
I love these books, I actually laugh out loud when I read them.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews