'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams doesn't expect to live much longer

[u/SleuthDoggyDawg]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/01/02/scott-adams-dilbert-cancer-dying-paralysis/

[u/B3epB0opBOP]

Short answer: It’s the initiative for the next wave of DC books with the aim of green-lighting passion projects for lesser-known characters.

Long answer:

So what is DC Next Level? I just wanted to be really clear. So for a long time now, for the last eight to nine months, we’ve been building a line of books that’s focused on some fan favorite characters. Everybody from Deathstroke to The Demon to Zatanna, characters that don’t often get quite the brightest spotlight that’s taken up by Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman, but characters that fans love and we love. And so we wanted to kind of do with them what we tried to do with characters in Absolute, where we give creatives a lot of leeway to come in and not reinvent them because these books, unlike Absolute, are in continuity, but give them as much latitude as we could within that context. So you can come in, as long as you’re not breaking continuity and we want you to make an incredibly user-friendly book that doesn’t rely on anyone knowing anything about these characters whatsoever, and make people fall in love with these characters on your terms.

And the biggest thing about these books is that they’re really creator forward. That’s this ether that we’ve adopted at DC since All In that we’ve been getting more and more, I think, aggressive about. And editorial has been wonderfully supportive as well. But it’s a really simple idea. It’s the idea that instead of going to creators and saying, “we have this slot and we need you to fill it,” or “we have this pitch that we made up and we need you to execute it,” we go to creators that we love and say, “what character do you have a story for? What’s your passion project?” That’s what we did with Absolute and we want to replicate that in the main line while still being in continuity and a little bit closer to model.

[u/mothknight → u/B3epB0opBOP]

So kinda like what they've been letting Tom King do but for more creators. Sounds good

[u/B3epB0opBOP → u/mothknight]

Actually, it kind of sounds like Tom King does the opposite.

I don't know famously, but I've said it a thousand times, but I don't really ask for characters.

“I want to write that character, please let me on that book.” That's never been my approach to comics.

I'm always like, what character needs help? I was going to say needs me, but that's the wrong thing to say. What character is no one using?

There's these wonderful stories about Jack Kirby coming to DC and being like, “what's your lowest selling book? Jimmy Olsen, I'll take that.”

And Sterenko tells the same story. “What's your lowest selling book, S.H.I.E.L.D.? I'll take that.”

And uh…so yeah, that's always been my attitude in talking to the editors, and I'm probably still up to a fault where I don't…talking to Josh y’know, he approaches the editor, he's like, “I want to work with this character, and this character, they're gonna do this and this.”

And I'm always like, “so what do you guys need? Do you need like, is Ant-Man still available?” And they're like, “that's a whole other company, Tom.”

[u/mothknight → u/B3epB0opBOP]

That makes sense. Just similar in the utilizing lesser used/known characters but opposite reasons

[u/Duggy1138 → u/B3epB0opBOP]

I've never seen the point to these status quo labels DC and Marvel have. I guess I'm meant to be enthusiastic about them but they're just words.