“That’s what (Adams) said — white people should get as far away from Black people as possible,” Powell tells me of the inspiration behind the comic. “I think that (Dave) would be perfectly happy to get away from those assholes.” A longtime cartoonist, Powell is disappointed to see one of the seminal minds of the medium tank his credibility with unhinged YouTube rants and a Twitter account that’s indistinguishable from a QAnon bot. “I don’t know why he does all that other stuff,” he says of Adams’ many sideshows. “I’d rather have my cartoons speak for my point-of-view.” (Thankfully, Powell’s point-of-view is more silly than Stormfront-y.)
As newspapers remove Dilbert from their funny pages and publishers steer clear of the controversial author, free speech champion and longtime Adams advocate Elon Musk has defended the cartoonist, proclaiming that we should “stop canceling comedy,” but at this point, Twitter might be the only major platform that supports Adams in this weirdo segregationist stage of his career.
Powell’s got the right idea — maybe Adams should stay away from Dave for both their sakes.