Scott Adams, Dilbert Creator and Cartoonist, Dies at 68

Scott Adams, the American cartoonist best known for creating the comic strip “Dilbert,” has passed away after a battle with metastatic prostate cancer. Adams was 68. The creator previously announced his diagnosis last May, revealing that the prostate cancer he’d been diagnosed with had spread to his bones. News of Adams’ death was confirmed by collaborators of The Scott Adams School (previously known as Coffee With Scott Adams, a livestream channel on YouTube that Adams used regularly, with his most recent video published on December 8, 2025).

Adams was born in Windham, New York, in 1957, and was inspired to create the Dilbert series after working in an office for many years, lampooning not only office culture but micromanaging mandates. Though the series was rejected by publishers for many years, Adams kept at it and eventually saw the series released in newspapers, though he continued to work in an office while Dilbert began to reach acclaim. Dilbert‘s success as a strip would eventually give way to a two-season animated series, which Adams co-created with Seinfeld’s Larry Charles, plus a video game, Dilbert’s Desktop Games.

Dilbert ran in newspapers from 1989 until 2023, but was dropped following comments from Adams, who claimed in a YouTube video that Black people are a “hate group” among other commentary. The series continued as a webcomic after this, with Adams still producing new material under the “Dilbert Reborn” banner. The strip released on November 15, 2025, was the final one both written and drawn by Adams.

Shelly Miles, Adams’s first wife, who was married to the creator from 2006 to 2014 but remained friends after their divorce, shared a written final statement from Adams on a livestream this morning. It reads in part:

“If you are reading this, things did not go well for me. I have a few things to say before I go. My body failed before my brain; I am of sound mind. As I write this January 1, 2026 if you wonder about any of my choices for my estate or anything else. Please know I’m free of any reason or inappropriate influence of any sort, I promise.”

She continued, “I’d like to explain my life. For the first part of my life, I was focused on making myself a worthy husband and parent, as I find as a way to find meaning that worked. But marriages don’t always last forever, and mine eventually ended in a highly amicable way. I’m grateful for those years and for the people I came to call my family. Once the marriage unwound, I needed a new focus, a new meaning, and so I donated myself to the world, literally speaking the words out loud in my otherwise silent home. From that point on, I looked for ways I could add the most to people’s lives one way or another.”

“That marked the start of my evolution from Dilbert cartoonist to an author of what I hoped would be useful books. By then, I believe I had enough life lessons that I could start passing them on. I continued making Dilbert comics. Of course, as luck would have it, I’m a good writer. My book in the useful category was How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. The book turned out to be a huge success, often imitated and influenced a wide variety of people. I still hear every day how much the book changed lives.”

“I also started podcasting a live show called Coffee with Scott Adams dedicated to helping people think about the world and their lives in a more productive way. I didn’t plan it this way, but it ended up helping lots of lonely people find a community that made them less lonely again, that had great meaning to me. I had an amazing life. I gave it everything I had, if I got any benefits from my work, I’m asking that you pay it forward as best as you can. That’s the legacy I want. Be useful and please know I loved you all to the very end. Scott Adams.”