Scott Adams, 1957–2026

In the 1990s and into the new millennium, Adams attained something close to pop culture ubiquity on the strength of the widespread syndication of his comic strip Dilbert in daily newspapers, which, at the time, had retained their historic readership and respect. By the time of the Trump presidencies — as well as the interregnum between the president’s two terms — Adams had been exiled from newspapers for his controversial, sometimes inflammatory statements, but he had already refashioned himself into a personality fit for the more dynamic realm of social media.

Adams, who died of metastatic prostate cancer on Jan. 13 at the age of 68, was always something of a chameleon. Unlike many of his cartooning forebears, like Charles M. Schulz or Jules Feiffer,