But he is topical, and the LA Times runs him in the Business section; he’s the only cartoon in there. I remember the first time he appeared there; apparently there was some infighting in the Times as to who would get him, Business or Comics, and Business won. They made an announcement like they’d won the Olympics!

But when times got tough, they narrowed the columns, the pages, etc, and started running him one-panel size, so he ran vertically. I found out that I can’t understand the cartoons very well now. I have to read them 2 or 3 times, and sometimes I just skip it. Maybe this is my limitation, but I was so annoyed I wrote about this a year ago.

Last week I got a lot of traffic looking for Dilbert and the LA Times, and I knew something must have happened. I couldn’t check the paper, as I didn’t get it that day, but turns out the Times forgot to include Dilbert that one day, and people went nuts!

Apology from the Times the next day. No link to it, as they didn’t think it important enough to put online. Rock on, Dil.

More cartoons:

1. Dilbert isn’t funny anymore.
2. Obama won Nobel Peace Prize in spite of himself.

All rights reserved by Scott Adams.

Hello, Dilbert, my old friend. (Can’t link to him on caption: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/).

I know papers are trying to save money. The LA Times is laying off 150 more reporters this month. Really shameful. And haven’t I already been a victim from that?!

And so sometimes they shave a sliver off the page. I guess the columns just got skinnier, too, because a few months ago I noticed Dilbert, which runs in the Business section of the LA Times, was suddenly running vertically, instead of horizontally.

I think Dilbert is one of the funniest, if not the funniest, strips out there. Laugh out loud funny, which is rare for me. But I guess I can’t think in a North-South way, because I literally can’t understand it now. I keep looking at the shape, and then try to figure out the vertical action. ( It’s also compressed & distorted; I’m surprised you don’t have people throwing up when they try to read it, Times.) By the time I reach the bottom I forget what the premise was. And who wants to re-read a comic? This is not the way to showcase the biggest cartoonist in the US, editors.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to hear Wiley Miller, of Non-Sequiter, speak at a local cartoon group (CAPS). He was quite pleased with a solution he worked out with his syndicate. (He is really a single panel, but also draws as a rectangle to fit in with the other strips. I’m talking about his older stuff, before he had characters.) Many Sunday papers didn’t have enough room to run him on Sundays, so he told his syndicate, ok, he’d just draw the Sunday strip vertically, to squeeze into available space that way! You’ll have to decide for yourself if this works. Or if it’s funny.

More cartoons:

1. LA Times forgot Dilbert, but readers didn’t.
2. How many minority and women cartoonists are in the LA Times?