![[Sparky vs. Dogbert]](dan961202.gif)
In Tom Tomorrow's view, fellow cartoonist Scott Adams is no slashing critic of the corporate status quo — he's a creature of it. By DAVID FUTRELLE In the other corner, we have Scott Adams, a cartoon critic of corporate stupidity who, over the last several years, has managed to become a giant corporation himself. His strips — familiar to almost anyone who has ever inhabited a cubicle — run in more than 1000 newspapers around the world; his book "The Dilbert Principle" has sold over a million copies; and he's licensed a virtual officeful of Dilbert spin-off products, from Dilbert Malleable Magnets to Dilbert Muscle Mouse pads. (A line of Dilbert umbrellas will be introduced in early 1997.) The two cartoonists have some things in common. Adams critiques big corporations; Tomorrow critiques big corporations, big media and small-minded politicians. Both rely on animal sidekicks: Adams has introduced the world to the megalomaniacal Dogbert; Tomorrow polemicizes through his character Sparky, a snide penguin in sunglasses. (For a time, Sparky found himself replaced by a temp — Wilbur the Talking Stomach — but he's recently returned.) Both Adams and Tomorrow have watched their careers take off in recent years. Tomorrow's work appears occasionally in the New York Times (a publication he sometimes satirizes); Adams was a cover boy in Newsweek. Both have given up their day jobs. Still, the two have somewhat different visions of success. "Being in the Times is a nice little feather in my cap," Tomorrow says. "But it's certainly not the focus of what I do. The thing that's important to me is to keep doing good cartoons for the alternative papers, because that's where I reach my audience. I'm not going to soften what I do so I can be in the Times occasionally." For his part, Adams has always wanted "to make as much money as I could," as he recently admitted to an interviewer from Inc. magazine. And he has no problem with the rampant merchandising of all things Dilbert. "If you can write on it, if it will hold a label, it's a prime target for licensing," he told Inc. He worries a little about overexposure, but, as he points out, "you can't get to overexposure without getting to filthy rich first." Tomorrow alleges that, despite Adams' critique of stupid bosses and management fads, "Dilbert's" creator is "on the side of the ruling class." In next week's "This Modern World," Tomorrow picks a fight with his fellow cartoonist, accusing Adams of betraying the "millions of insecure and beleaguered office workers" who consider him their champion. We reached Tom Tomorrow (real name: Dan Perkins) at his home in New Haven, goading him to elaborate on the incipient Sparky-Dogbert feud and other comic matters. |
So I'm interested in talking about this Dilbert thing. Oh, for heaven's sake. You're not going to do a whole article on that, are you? You guys are trying to blow this up into a controversy, aren't you? Um, it might be that someone at Salon is trying to do that. If you're going to write about this, I should point out that I think "Dilbert's" a very funny cartoon. It often makes me laugh out loud, which very few cartoons do. But I'm really offended by this notion being promulgated that Scott Adams is offering some sort of radical social commentary. His radical social commentary is basically to say, "Boy, aren't bosses dumb." But there's no analysis, even in a satirical, goofy way, of why bosses act the way they do. It's "Boy is my boss dumb," but not "Boy, is this huge company stupid for doing this merger and laying off half its employees and devastating the local economy and shipping the jobs to Mexico or Indonesia." He's doing goofy office humor, and that's fine, but somehow this idea has gotten out that he's doing more than that, and I don't think he is. Criticizing stupid bosses without putting them in context is like complaining because it gets dark at night without understanding that the earth revolves around the sun. It's a really limited view. It doesn't go anywhere. It's just a safety valve. And that's fine, if that's all it's supposed to be. But it's my perception, from reading postings on the Net and what have you, that people seem to be taking more from "Dilbert" than it is. Adams is not picking up where the (radical, anti-corporate zine) Processed World left off. He's not the social analyst of our age, but somehow he's been given this mantle, and that offends me. You know, it's Matt Groening who should be held up as a social analyst who's also a wildly popular cartoonist. "The Simpsons" is wickedly funny in its social observations, its commentary on larger issues. Why pick on "Dilbert"? There are certainly lots of terrible cartoons out there, from "Beetle Bailey" to "The Family Circus" ... But none of them pretend to be more than they are. What set off this cartoon was that Newsweek cover, "Work is hell and here's the new champion of the office worker." I don't think a guy who supports corporate downsizing, as he did in the Newsweek article, is the champion of the office worker of the 1990s. Have you ever worked in a cubicle yourself? Oh, God, yeah, when I was temping. I was an office temp; I was doing word processing. I know what that life is about. Let me ask you about the general state of cartooning. What cartoonists in the mainstream and alternative press do you pay the most attention to? I try to keep up with "Doonesbury" and "Zippy," basically, as far as the mainstream goes. And then in the alternative press, Matt Groening's "Life in Hell," Tom the Dancing Bug; and then there's this cartoon called "The City" that I think is really funny. I spend a lot more time reading the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and The Nation than I do paying attention to cartoons any more. There are a lot of mainstream editorial cartoons that look a lot like each other and tend to be more about gags than about ideas. I tend to respect cartoons that have an opinion — even if I hate the opinion. It's the editorial cartoons that are basically "Bill Clinton is fat, Bob Dole is old," that I just don't have any time for. Do you ever see the conservative comic strip "Mallard Fillmore"? Yeah, I do. I guess I'm going to contradict myself a little bit, because that cartoon obviously has an opinion, but it's never ever ever funny. It's become this strident thing. He has his cast of straw men, like teachers, and he'll make some supposed joke like "Gosh, they're not teaching kids, they're just giving them condoms," and that's the punch line. What the fuck is that? Do you ever get the same criticism — that your cartoons are too strident or politically correct to be funny? I get that sometimes, but I also get an extraordinary amount of e-mail from people who apparently despise everything I have to say but keep reading it because it makes them laugh. I try to make it funny, that's all I can say. It's obvious from your cartoons that you're pretty disgusted with Bill Clinton. Who did you vote for in the last election, if you voted at all? Nader. I was completely unimpressed by his campaign, but after Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage and the welfare reform bills there was no way in hell I was going to vote for him. I would have voted for Bob Dole first. David Futrelle is the editor of Media Circus and a regular contributor to Salon. |