The Dogbert days of Scott Adams

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The news, in brief …

• Scott Adams dead: “Dilbert” creator turned conservative commentator dies at 68

  Scott Adams’ extremely successful newspaper comic fell out of favor following racist comments from the cartoonist. Read more.

• The US used a disguised plane in the first drug boat strike — some experts say it’s a war crime

  The US may have committed a crime by using an aircraft disguised as a civilian plane in Caribbean boat strike. Read more.

• “ICE needs to de-escalate”: O’Reilly calls on DHS to tone down tactics

  The conservative pundit said DHS has to de-escalate in the wake of Renee Good's killing. Read more.

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How it works …

Watching Houston Texans safety Calen Bullock celebrate in the mustard-yellow end zone of Heinz Field, Aaron Rodgers may have wondered if he’d overstayed his welcome.

Rodgers had just floated a pass behind Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth and into Bullock’s waiting arms. The defensive back, who was all of two years old when Rodgers took his first NFL snap, bullied his way through the 42-year-old quarterback’s attempt to shove him out of bounds on the way to a 51-yard return touchdown.

The 30-6 drubbing administered by the Texans to the Steelers on Monday, in which Rodgers was sacked four times and had two turnovers returned for touchdowns, is likely to be the final game of Rodgers’ career. It caps off a half-decade in which Rodgers’ age and his mouth worked in tandem to take the shine off of his status as an NFL golden boy.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Super Bowl winner and four-time NFL MVP has touted conspiracy theories ranging from standard anti-vax fare to Sandy Hook trutherism. But even years of football ineptitude and increasingly unhinged public appearances haven’t quite dimmed the perception of Rodgers, who by any measure is an all-time great at his position.

We can’t say the same for cartoonist Scott Adams, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 68.

The creator of the “Dilbert” newspaper comic reached nearly unprecedented levels of success in the industry. His satire of office work, at its peak, was syndicated daily to more than 2,000 publications. His comics spawned an empire of bound collections, branded merch and spinoff TV shows.

That all came crashing down in the Donald Trump era. Publisher holdouts who had weathered Adams’ increasingly misogynist and retrograde viewpoints abandoned ship after Adams shared racist remarks on his podcast. Adams steered into the skid, doubling down on his right-wing views and support for Trump to the small audience who stuck with him. His death, which in another time might have been marked by breaking news announcements and somber strips across the funny pages, was announced in a show on Rumble, a conservative streaming backwater.

Narrative usually doesn’t matter in the world of newspaper comics. Outside of a few serialized snoozers like “Prince Valiant,” characters start each strip at square one. Despite what pre-show commentators will tell you, the same is true of football. A sport centered around a ball that’s designed for a bad bounce means that any team of professionals can beat any other. This chaos will work in Rodgers’ favor, as the public forgets his embarrassing final years in favor of clips of startlingly accurate throws with an impossibly powerful arm.

No such sizzle reel exists for Adams. When Rodgers punches his inevitable ticket to Canton, Adams’ personal politics may leave him sitting permanently outside of the Hall of Fame.

What do you think? Will Adams be remembered more for his work or his views? Has he permanently tainted decades of daily comics by running his mouth? Sound off in the comments.

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