I guess this is a re-read; I did a book report on it not long after I picked it up in Clever in 2012. So I must have re-patriated it to my bookshelves when I culled the youngest’s book shelves earlier this year. Which means I should probably not add it again to my book database program from 2000 when I finish the re-book report.
The cover of the book indicates this collection is not drawn from the daily strip and instead is original material. Man, Dilbert was part of that fin de siècle zeitgeist (he said, mixing two foreign languages to show you how smart he is), ainna? (The south Milwaukee slang killed that vibe, ainna?)
So, basically, it’s Dogbert giving etiquette advice for people who lack it. Each page is four panels dealing with an individual boorish behavior, and the cartoons are grouped thematically. Amusing in (a lot of) spots, and the jokes are of a sort you could make in 1993 that would be problematic in the latter part of the first quarter of the 21st century. As with so many things, Scott Adams, who was on the naughty list for a while and was pop-culturally cancelled for…. Oh, some transgression; aren’t they all the same? And one wonders whether it was because he shifted or because the culture did.
The book is in pretty good shape, which means that my children didn’t sleep with it, so perhaps they, 21st centurians, didn’t get it. The oldest has an office job these days. Perhaps he’s better primed for Dilbert and Office Space than he was when he was six.
