Publisher Drops Plan to Release Book From ‘Dilbert’ Creator Scott Adams

A spokesman for Portfolio, the business imprint of Penguin Random House that was to publish Mr. Adams’s book, declined to comment further. Portfolio earlier published such books by Mr. Adams as “Loserthink: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America” and “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.” Mr. Adams’s books are known for their semi-humorous advice. 

Mr. Adams declined to comment via text, but confirmed that Portfolio won’t be publishing “Reframe Your Brain.” 

Portfolio is the latest business associated with Mr. Adams, a 65-year-old former financial manager turned cartoonist, that moved to cut ties with him since he reacted last week to a Rasmussen Poll that said a small majority of Black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.”

Mr. Adams, in one of his regular talks he records and posts online, said, among other things, that white people should stay away from Black Americans.

“If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people…that’s a hate group,” Mr. Adams said at one point in the video. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people…because there is no fixing this.”

Soon after, newspapers began announcing they were dropping “Dilbert,” a comic strip that has poked fun at corporate drudgery for decades.

The USA Today Network, which includes hundreds of newspapers, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, the San Antonio Express-News, the Washington Post and other publications all said they would stop publishing “Dilbert.”

Andrews McMeel Universal, which syndicated the “Dilbert” comic strip and published some of Mr. Adams’s books, also cut ties with the author. “The process of this termination will extend to all areas of our business with Adams and the Dilbert comic strip,” the company’s Chairman

Hugh Andrews

and Chief Executive

Andy Sareyan

said.

“Recent comments by Scott Adams regarding race and race relations do not align with our core values as a company,” the statement said.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Andrews McMeel Universal syndicates Mr. Adams’s work and through its Andrews McMeel Publishing unit, also publishes books by Mr. Adams such as “Eagerly Awaiting Your Irrational Response.” Mr. Sareyan declined to comment when reached by phone. Mr. Adams confirmed via text that Andrews McMeel Universal has cut ties with him.

Book publishers in recent years have been fast to cut ties with authors at the center of a controversy.

One day after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection,

Paramount Global’s

Simon & Schuster said it would cancel the publication of “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” a book by Missouri Sen.

Josh Hawley.

Sen. Hawley, who was the first senator to announce he would formally object to certifying the election results, weeks later found a new publisher for his book, signing a deal with conservative book publisher Regnery Publishing.

In March 2020,

Lagardère

SCA’s Hachette Book Group said it had canceled Woody Allen’s memoir after an estimated 75 to 100 Hachette employees walked out of their offices in protest of the coming title. Mr. Allen found a new publisher weeks later in Arcade Publishing, an imprint of closely held Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at Jeffrey.Trachtenberg@wsj.com