Because my "beat" includes the comic strip page, I'm getting requests to comment on the passing of Scott Adams, creator of the surprisingly-popular — for a while, anyway — strip, Dilbert. I don't have much to say. I wasn't a fan of the strip before he apparently got very political, certainly wasn't a fan afterwards, never met the guy and it pretty much comes down to: He's got a right to say what he thinks and I've got a right not to read it. I'm sorry for his passing the way I'm sorry for the passing of anyone I didn't know.
If you want the viewpoint of someone who did follow his work, try this article.
It comes down to the question of how we deal with viewpoints we personally find inaccurate and/or sinister. In a nation with any protection like our First Amendment, that's going to happen. When someone starts openly doubting The Holocaust or saying things that most people would find racist or sexist, my first thought is usually to wonder if or why they thought that it was a good idea to say those things out loud. Some of them seem to think it's an assault on their Free Speech for anyone deciding not to listen to them.
When Dilbert started, a lot of cartoonists were shocked that something so crudely-drawn had a following. But Adams hit a tone or a nerve or a message that a lot of people loved. I think that's fine. I remember years ago at a cartoonists' function an artist who was frothing-at-the-mouth angry about what he saw as amateurly-drawn cartoons succeeding. He was exclaiming about one of them, "That strip is drawn with markers and Flair pens! Real cartoonists use pens, brushes and India Ink!" Like there should be a law specifying the proper art supplies.
The subtext, of course, was that this gent had submitted several proposed strips drawn in the "classic tradition" — i.e., with pens, brushes and India Ink — and no syndicate had been willing to take them on. It enraged him to see Dilbert in the papers and to hear how much loot Mr. Adams was amassing.
But that's how the creative world works: There's always someone you think is clearly worse than you doing clearly better just as there's always someone you think is clearly better doing worse. Scott Adams was pissing off a lot of cartoonists before he even went down his racist, Trump-adoring path. And before he was done, he managed to offend an awful lot of non-cartoonists as well — which he had as much right to do as a lot us had to ignore him before and after.