The characters
To understand Dilbert, go through the list below and learning who everyone is. The links on the left connect to a Dilbert comic strip about that character.
The main characters are:
Dilbert is an engineer. He doesn’t really understand people, but he is a good engineer. Dilbert struggles to survive in the crazy world of business.
Dilbert’s hopelessly incompetent boss. He is everything a boss should not be: can’t make decisions, doesn’t know what he’s doing, and is a terrible listener.
Dilbert’s co-worker. He hates working. So he just pretends to work.
Dilbert’s co-worker. Alice is a competent engineer, but the male engineers don’t respect her because she’s a woman, so she’s usually angry.
An intern. Asok is young and optimistic and he thinks logic and good-intentions have a place in the business world (he’s wrong).
Dilbert’s pet dog. Besides being Dilbert’s pet, Dogbert is also a consultant and often visits Dilbert’s office for different types of consulting work.
The evil director of human resources. He comes up with mean, illogical, and evil HR policies.
A lab rat that escaped from the lab and moved into Dilbert’s house. He occasionally works at Dilbert’s company. Ratbert is very gullible.
Has a big head, so he should have a bigger brain, but he doesn’t seem any smarter.
Locations where the action takes place:
Most of the stories take place at Dilbert’s office.
Dilbert and his co-workers, like many American office workers, work in cubicles. Cubicles have walls that are around 1.8 meters high.
The Republic of Elbonia is a fictional country, located somewhere in the former Soviet Union. The country, which is very poor, is covered in mud, which is why the characters are shown from the waist up.
Characters that make occasional appearances in the strip:
A vegetarian dinosaur who is the wedgie enforcer at the office.
The Pointy Haired Boss’s secretary.
Dick is the guy on the Internet who always posts ridiculous or angry comments.
Dilbert’s garbage man (the person who picks up the trash from his house) is the world’s smartest garbage man.
Speaks really loud.
Works in the IT department. He’s never helpful.
A technical writer at Dilbert’s office.
Always has something better or has done something better than the person he’s talking to. He is always higher or “on top” of the other person.
You may notice that I haven’t included any images of the characters. That’s because the Dilbert images are copyrighted property of Scott Adams, the gentleman who created the Dilbert comic strip. To help you understand who each character is, their name links to a comic on the Dilbert website that will show you the character.