DILBERT MEANS BUSINESS. The (anti-)hero of one of the most successful comic strips of our time is an icon for office workers everywhere - the only character property that speaks to business through multiple media outlets including the daily comic-strip, an award-winning web site and a best-selling publishing program.
Anybody who works in an office or deals with bureaucracy relates to Dilbert's plight. Created by Scott Adams, Dilbert addresses issues ranging from office-envy/challenges to new technology - and the mayhem they produce. Dilbert features a rich cast of characters, including his sidekick Dogbert, his inept Boss, and his co-workers Wally and Alice. Primary target group for the property is adults 18-49 years old - affluent, educated and technology savvy.
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United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
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The Dilbert daily comic strip appears in 2.000 newspapers in 65 countries worldwide in 25 different languages. More than 20 million Dilbert books and calendars have been sold in North America alone; several titles cumulatively spending over one year on The New York Times Best Seller List. The Dilbert Principle is categorically the best selling business book of all time.
Dilbert was also the first syndicated comic strip character to officially go online, and the strip was the first to contain its creator's e-mail address. The award-winning web site The Dilbert Zone attracts millions of visitors each month. A Dilbert television series premiered in 1999, with Scott Adams and Larry Charles (Mad About You, Seinfeld) as executive producers.
Working as a computer engineer, Scott Adams started drawing Dilbert doodles to "enliven boring staff meetings". The character soon became so popular that other people at the company started using the character in their presentations. A "name-the-nerd" contest soon followed, and Dilbert was the obvious winner. After a few years, a contract was made with United Media, and Dilbert - "a composite of my co-workers during the years", Adams says - went from doodles to dailies.
Since then, Scott Adams has been awarded several prestigious prizes, including the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year and Best Newspaper Comic Strip (1997); Prix d'Excellence for Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook from the Maxim Business Club, Paris (1998), and the prize for Best International Comic Strip at the International Comic-Salon, Erlangen, Germany (1998).
Says Emmy Award winning Larry Charles, writer/producer of the Dilbert TV series: "Dilbert is a big Kafkaesque story of a little, logical man in a big, illogical world". In an environment where all bosses and many co-workers are heartless and stupid parasites, Dilbert stands out as the engineer with an active imagination and an inactive social life. His true love? Technology. Dilbert loves technology for the sake of technology; In fact, he loves technology more than people – he'd rather surf the Internet than Waikiki.
Dilbert's dog Dogbert is no man's best friend. His not-so secret ambition is to conquer the world and enslave all humans - whom he feels have been placed on this earth to amuse him. Dig deep enough below his fur, and you'll find a cynical, arrogant conniving little mutt with his paw on the pulse of the absurdity of corporate culture.
Plus Licens represents United Media for merchandising, promotional and publishing rights to Dilbert in the Nordic countries and Eastern Europe.
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