Comment by InsideOutSanta
1 day ago
Are they, though? I only saw the linked four strips, and they're the typical right-wing depiction of leftist positions that say more about how people on the right think than about what leftists actually believe.
The first one is about Dilbert going to an anti-white-man protest, which might be how people on the right perceive something like a BLM event, but it's not what these events actually are. This is the kind of zero-sum thinking that conflates "my life should matter" with "your life should not matter." It's not what leftists actually believe.
The remarkable thing about "Dilbert Reborn" series is that it is a complete corruption and total betrayal of the original Dilbert comics.
The originals' core premise was universal workplace satire that criticized the office as a system: bureaucracy, incentives, incompetence, managerial nonsense... stuff that felt broadly true no matter one's politics. Even when it got cynical, it was still observational, in the sense of "here's how corporate life warps people." This depiction of what is essentially everyone's shared day-to-day struggles is the thing that gave it a place in mainstream culture.
In direct contrast, Dilbert Reborn is about Adams's personal grievances: his divorce and subsequent inability to find another partner, his fall from grace and full embrace of the alt-right movement, and his long-held beliefs about race, sex and other social issues that he quadrupled down on. Its core premise is "I was wronged; subscribe to the uncensored version; also here's the political/culture commentary bundle." It uses the recognizable characters and brand equity of the original comics to sell a fundamentally different product: paywalled, grievance-tinged, "spicier", creator-centric franchise built in the wake of his 2023 meltdown and institutional rejection.
There's actually quite a few conservative comedians and cartoonists I find funny. Adams was not one of them. The fundamental truth about successful humor is that you cannot make it about you and your own grievances. Adams totally failed at that.