Customer Reviews

Dilbert Gives You The Business

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is a compilation of material from earlier Dilbert cartoons rearranged by topic. The cartoons show Dilbert and his weird collection of co-workers in a range of different situations.

It will not be of interest to Dilbert fans who already have the books from which these cartoons are taken. However, seen as a "Best Of" book, it is worthwhile. The actual selection of material is very good and it certainly shows the humour of Dilbert at its best.

If you do already have all of the books in the Dilbert series, I'd suggest buying this one as a gift for a friend who is not familiar with Scott Adams work. It makes a great introduction, showing what Dilbert is all about.

If you are not familiar with Dilbert and want to find out what it is all about, then this book is a good place to start. Just accept that, if you get hooked and buy the other books, you will then have a copy of this book that you do not really need. If that happens, no problem, gift wrap it and send it as a present to a friend.

My only real gripe about the book is that its nature is not made clear on the cover. Not making clear that this is a "best of" collection seems to suggest that the author, or his publishers, view the readership as little smarter than some of the characters in the books.

Don't dog Scott Adams, this is obviously a re-release of previous work, but I hardly consider it to be him selling out. If you already have the other books that these cartoons are in, then don't buy this one. The idea behind this book is to help people find cartoons relating to the specific topics they are looking for so that they can use them to prove their point, rather than having to dig through books to find the right comic for the situation.

Dilbert knows office humor and this book is a compilation, by topic, of some of Adams' best work over a 10 year period. I love Dilbert, so this book is a lot of fun.

However, I will warn you - having the strips arranged by topic takes some of the humor out of it - a whole section of strips dedicated to "Secretaries" for instance, is not nearly as funny as just seeing an occasional barb. Can you imagine Seinfeld doing his comedy routine by subject? "Ok, here are all my jokes about women", now onto "cookies" - no, it just doesn't work as well. I prefer the straight timeline accumulations. And you will find yourself rereading strips you have seen in other Dilbert books too.

But overall, a fine collection - I still think it's great - it just could be better.

This book is a collection of many of the best of the Dilbert Strips, organized according to subject matter. If you don't have all of the previous Dilbert collections, this is a very good way to get many of the best of the previous strips all in one book. But even if you DO have all the previous books, it's not without value to have so many of the best strips all in one book, so conveniently organized. Granted there's no new material here, which some might consider a flaw worth docking the book at least a star for, but as reprint collections go, it's a fabulous collection.

The nice thing about "Dilbert Gives You The Business" is that the comics are broken down into different topics: Bosses, ISO 9000, Secretaries, Human Resources, etc. I find it useful when I'm in a conversation with a friend and say, "You know, I once read a Dilbert cartoon that relates to this." I simply look up the appropriate category in DGYTB and look for it. I only wish the book were longer and more comprehensive. But as Dilbert compilations go, this one definitely gets five stars.

This is a brilliant book and probably the best one yet! It contains hilarious strips about everything from managers to human resources. This book is very orginized and keeps you wanting more. I suggest that all Dilbert fans buy this book!

This Dilbert book offers comics on each frustrating topic of the office day: Boss's, meetings, secretarys, HR directors, consultants, and much, much more. It is a fantastic book, and includes Sunday colored comic strips. When you're feeling disgruntled about office topics, go to the section of your choice, and know that somebody else felt your pain. Scott Adams is a marvelous cartoonist. I recommend this book for any Dilbert fan who would enjoy reading past strips that have become outragously popular. So join Dilbert, Dogbert, the boss, Wally, and the rest of the incredible office characters in this wonderful Dilbert book.

This is a Dilbert treasury. It only contains comix from the first 13 Dilbert books. Nothing new here.

How they're organized, however, is different. This comic book is split into two sections: Jobs, & Job Impediments.

Here's a list of the Jobs:
-bosses
-budgeting & acoounting
-consulting
-engineers
-entrepreneurs & venture capitalists
-finiancial advisor
-HR
-information services
-interns & co-ops
-ISO 9000 & 14000
-lawyers
-marketing
-procurement
-programmers
-project management
-quality assurance
-retail & service jobs
-safety
-sales
-secretaries
-security
-strategy & planning
-tech support
-technical writing
-temps & contract employees
-training

That covers just about everything but janitor

Now for the job impediments:
-annoying co-workers
-business language
-cubicles
-gender relations
-incentives
-meeting or presentations
-mergers
-performance reviews
-policies
-reorginizations
-teamwork
-telecommuting
-travel
(if you haven't noticed, they're in alphabetical order)

Now, even though I'm not an office worker, I have a good idea of what to do with this book. First, you have to keep it somewhere safe. If you don't, it can get stolen & kinda defeat the purpose. When someone with one of these jobs annoys you, come to your book. Read a few pages about his/her job. Next time you see them,you can laugh at them cruelly/really hard at them for reasons otherwise unknown.Of course, if someone has done this at anytime to YOU, well, now you know.

You must get this book. Buy it. Now. No, really. Now.

I'm just a Scott Adams fan, through and through. I get to dabble with Dilbert everyday in the newspaper. I've got Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert when I want hours of Dilbert and the gang. And I'm also a fan of Scott Adams' other works, including God's Debris: A Thought Experiment and Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey Gods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More.

I mention this just to give you context for enjoying another book of Dilbert's antics, when I've seen it, and heard it, before.

It's all good. It's always good!. Scott Adams, through Dilbert and his acquaintances, hits the nail square on the head so many times. And I find myself busting out laughing, out loud, over and over.

Included in this organized collection is a copy of the cartoon I've had on my office door for the longest:

Co-worker: "I need this information today. Plus, a complete analysis of the alternatives."
Dilbert takes the report, crunches it up ("Crinkle, crinkle"), and stuffs it in the waste can ("Stuff").
Co-worker: "That wasn't nice."
Dilbert: "In today's lesson, you learn that you're my co-worker, not my boss." (p. 170).

Classic. Enjoy all 224 pages of this oversized edition.

This book features some of the best of the Dilbert cartoons in a format which makes them easy to search through for specific areas of business or if you just like to read straight through. I thoroughly enjoyed it but of course as a compilation most if not all of these cartoons can be found elsewhere. If you don't have any other Dilbert collections however I would recommend this one for a start!