Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is the American creator of the Dilbert comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, business, and general speculation.
His Dilbert series came to national prominence through the downsizing period in 1990s America and was then distributed worldwide. A former worker in various roles at big businesses, he became a full-time cartoonist in 1995. Adams writes in a satirical, often sarcastic way about the social and mental landscape of white collar workers in modern corporations and other large enterprises.
Early Life
Scott Adams was born in Windham, New York, in 1957. He grew up a big fan of the Peanuts comics, and started drawing his own comics at the age of six. He also became a fan of Mad magazine, and began spending long hours practicing his drawing talent, winning a competition at the age of eleven. In 1968, he was rejected for an arts school and instead focused on a career in law. Adams graduated valedictorian at Windham Ashland-Jewett Central School in 1975, with a class size of 39. He remained in the area and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Hartwick College in 1979. In his senior year, a vehicle breakdown almost forced him to spend a night in the snow, causing him to vow never to see a snowflake again. He took a one way trip to California a few months after his graduation.
Career
Office Worker
Adams worked closely with telecommunications engineers at Crocker National Bank in San Francisco between 1979 and 1986. Upon joining the organization, he entered a management training program after being held at gunpoint twice in four months as a teller. Over the years his positions included: management trainee, computer programmer, budget analyst, commercial lender, product manager, and supervisor. During presentations to upper management he often turned to his comic creations to add humor. He earned an MBA in economics and management from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986.
Adams created Dilbert the character during this period—the name came from ex-boss Mike Goodwin. Dogbert, originally named Dildog, was loosely based on his family's deceased pet beagle, Lucy. Periodic attempts to win publication with Dilbert and non-Dilbert comic panels alike failed, including with The New Yorker and Playboy (not necessarily with the same comics). However an inspirational letter from a fan persuaded Adams to keep trying.
He worked at Pacific Bell between 1986 and June 1995, and the personalities he encountered became the inspiration for many of his Dilbert characters. Adams first published Dilbert with United Media in 1989, while still employed at Pacific Bell. He had to draw his cartoons at 4 am in order to work a full day at the company. His first paycheck for Dilbert was a monthly royalty check of $368.62. Gradually Dilbert became more popular, and was published by 100 newspapers in 1991 and 400 by 1994. Adams attributes his success to his idea of including his e-mail address in the panels, thus facilitating feedback from readers.
Full-time Cartoonist
As he became a full-time cartoonist, with Dilbert in 800 newspapers, Adams' success grew. In 1996 The Dilbert Principle was released, his first business book.
In 1997, at the invitation of Logitech CEO Pierluigi Zappacosta, Adams, wearing a wig and false mustache, successfully impersonated a management consultant and tricked Logitech managers into adopting a mission statement that Adams described as "so impossibly complicated that it has no real content whatsoever." That year he won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year and
Best Newspaper Comic Strip of 1997, the most prestigious awards in the field.
In 1998 Dilbert began as a TV series, but was cancelled in 2000. By 2000 the comic was in two thousand newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages.
Personal Life
He is a member of the International Academy o Digital Arts and Sciencers. Adams is a former member of Mensa.
In recent years, Adams has had two notable health problems. Since late 2004, he has suffered from a reemergence of his focal dystonia which has affected his ability to draw for lengthy periods on paper, though it causes no real problem now that he draws the comic on a graphics tablet. He also suffered from spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes the vocal cords to behave in an abnormal manner. He recovered from this condition temporarily but in July 2008 underwent surgery to rewire the nerve connections to his vocal cord. The operation was successful, and Adams' voice is now completely functional.
Adams is a vegetarian and trained as a hypnotist. He credits his own success to affirmations, including Dilbert's success and achieving a ninety-fourth percentile on a difficult qualification exam for business school, among other unlikely events. He states that the affirmations give him focus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams
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Adams has written a new book, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. A summary of his ideas was published October 11, 2013 in The Wall Street Journal. That article is available online at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304626104579121813075903866.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop
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