Who is Dilbert? Scott Adams' cartoon character explored in light of creator's cancer diagnosis

Scott Adams, the famed cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, recently announced that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer during the May 19, 2025, episode of his Real Coffee with Scott Adams web show. As per People Magazine, the 67-year-old American author confirmed his diagnosis, one day after former U.S. President Joe Biden was diagnosed with the same disease.

The American comic strip Dilbert was both written and illustrated by Scott Raymond Adams and was first published on April 16, 1989. Famous for its satirical office humor, and white-collar workday life in a large corporation, the comic strip received widespread popularity.

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Scott Adams reveals prostate cancer has spread through his bones

Scott Adams discussed his cancer diagnosis on the May 19, 2025, episode of his Real Coffee with Scott Adams while talking about the prostate cancer diagnosis of the 46th U.S. President, Joe Biden.

“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has. So I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones, but I've had it longer than he's had it, well, longer than he's admitted having it. So my life expectancy is maybe this summer. I'd expect to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer.”

In the YouTube video, Scott Adams also revealed how his life has changed after being diagnosed with this disease. Calling it “intolerable”, the cartoonist revealed that he doesn’t have good days and “every day is a nightmare.”

“I'm in pain and I'm always in pain, and the pain moves around to different parts of my body. I've been using a walker to walk for months now. So you know it's basically intolerable.”

Scott Adams further discussed that he did try the medications with the doctor’s assistance, but they “didn’t work at all” for him. He also discussed why it took him so long to open up publicly about the disease.

“Everybody would start treating me like the cancer guy. You can't really back like there's no second way that goes once you go public. You're just the dying cancer guy, and I didn't want you to have to think about it. And I didn't want to have to think about it.”

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Scott Adams' cartoon character explored

Scott Adams, in 1997, received the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award as well as the Newspaper Comic Strip Award.

Besides being published, reportedly daily in 2,000 newspapers in 65 countries and 25 languages, the comic strip Dilbert also spawned dozens of books, a short-lived animated TV series, a video game, and hundreds of adult professional-focused themed merchandise items.

Notably, The Dilbert Future and The Joy of Work are considered one of the best-selling books in the series. However, according to The Guardian, the comic strip was dropped by numerous independent newspapers in 2023, including The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Gannett.

Andrews McMeel Syndication, which was the official distributor of Dilbert, also dropped the comics strip after its creator made racist comments in a video on YouTube against Black Americans.

His comments, as per The Guardian, came in response to a conservative organization’s poll, which showed that several Black respondents disagreed with the highly popularized 2017 “It’s OK to be white” phrase.

The cartoonist said in his YouTube video:

“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people… Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens any more.”

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Meanwhile, according to People, Adams, in June 2020, claimed in an X post that the Dilbert animated television series was notably “the third job” that he lost for being white.