Dilbert: We find you fascinating.

If you'd have told me five years ago that I would end up writing a blog about comic strips, but never mention Dilbert, I would have looked at you like you were a crazy person. Mostly because, why the fuck would I be writing a blog about comic strips? But also because, if I were, for whatever reason, writing a blog about comic strips, I would definitely be writing about Dilbert, seeing as it was my favorite comic strip. And yet, in six months of writing a blog about comic strips, I haven't mentioned Dilbert once. So you would have been right.

This is largely due to the fact that Dilbert just isn't all that great anymore. When it first arrived on the scene, it specialized in an absurdist satire of office life the likes of which had never appeared in the comics section before. It was new! It was exciting! And most of all, it was new and exciting in funny ways! But Scott Adams ran out of observations about office life about a decade ago, and his brand of absurdist satire isn't so new and exciting anymore. As a result, every new Dilbert feels like an old Dilbert. It's dependable, often good for a smile and rarely bad, but there's never really a whole lot to say about it either. It's just kind of there.

It's similar to what has become of The Simpsons, which for its first decade was a better television show than Dilbert ever was a comic strip and easily one of the best television shows of all time. But The Simpsons has been on the air for over 400 episodes now, and its fans are acutely aware that it isn't what it once was. Simpsons fans actually have a tendency to be harsher on the show than they probably should be. The Simpsons lacks the bite it used to have, but it's still a dependable domestic sitcom, which is actually a pretty decent accomplishment for a show that's been around for as long as it has. It's often good for a smile and still better than Family Guy, even if there's not a whole lot else to say about it. It, like Dilbert, is just kind of there.

All that said, Dilbert, like The Simpsons, is still capable of doing a lot of the things it used to do really well pretty well. In the case of the comic above, what it's doing pretty well is using technology effectively. Tons and tons of comic strips have felt the need to comment on Twitter, but most of that commentary boils down to, "Ha ha, Twitter!" Dilbert, on the other, employs the technology in service to an actual joke. Moreover, though the comic implies that it, like the rest of the comics section, thinks Twitter is stupid, the joke is character-based, as opposed to the standard punchline about how Twitter is stupid.

And that's why Dilbert, despite being a shadow of its former self, is still one of the better comics around. Even if there's hardly ever anything to say about it.