Dilbert: YOU IGNORANT JUICEBAG!

Maybe "ignorant juicebag" is a thing people say somewhere, but it looks like a standards and practices sort of thing to me. So an update is in order:

Things you can't say in the comics section:

1. "Douchebag"

Things you can say in the comics section:

1. "Whore"
2. "Anal"

Dilbert: How engineers duel.

Just last week I was arguing with some guy who sent me to an hour-long YouTube video with instructions to watch it and then construct an essay refuting it point by boring point or he would never take me seriously again.

He will never take me seriously again.

Basically the whole comics section: You can't go to bed now!

These comics are all hilarious because midnight sure does come late, doesn't it?

Dilbert: Maybe I can reword those choices to make us feel less like psychopathic hobos.

Dilbert may not be what it once was, but Scott Adams can still write a darn fine punchline.

Hagar the Horrible and Dilbert: Not only do you help to improve our world, but you will feel better personally by volunteering!!!

The moral of these comics is that people who ask you to volunteer are probably exploiting you, and might even be leading you to your death.

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.