Newz Land

(Auckland NZ – Press) Manakau-based IT engineer Dave Bertram has filed a civil lawsuit against Dilbert creator Scott Adams, claiming the writer has stolen whole chunks of his life for the popular daily strip.

In the case, currently before the High Court, Bertram has compared incidents in the long-running comic with those in his own life, as evidenced by his meticulously-kept diary and online web log.

“Take this strip, for instance,” he instructed the jury on Monday.

“In panel one, Dilbert is sitting in his cubicle, which bears an uncanny similarity to mine. In panel two, his boss asks him to complete a mindless report, as mine did on April 24, May 3 and July 12. And in the third and final panel, we see Dilbert imagining a gruesome retribution. This is my life, captured in minute detail by the thief Scott Adams. It’s scary and it’s wrong and I feel dirty.”

Guest characters on the strip even mirror people at Bertram’s own IT firm. “Last month we had a guy come in doing some contracting and he’d been going from job to job for ages. Then suddenly there’s a new character called ‘The Job-Hopper’ in Dilbert, who does exactly the same thing. Granted our guy didn’t have actual rabbit ears, but still, the similarity was there.”

Adams’ lawyers suggest that any likenesses between the two are merely coincidental. In opening arguments, Eric Anderson, defence counsel, suggested that Dilbert is an ‘everyman’.

“His adventures are like those of so many millions of wage-slaves, toiling through their mind-numbing days in perpetual frustration. It’s a modern human morality play and any similarity to persons living or dead is unintentional.”

Bertram disagrees, swiftly naming a string of further likenesses.

“My hairstyle, my tie collection, my name – D. Bertram, Dil-Bert. It’s so obvious. Granted my dog doesn’t talk or run a human resources consultancy, but look at this photo of him wearing glasses. It’s just too much.”

Court archives show that Bertram may have been targeted by comic artists before. In 1995 he took a similar suit against Garfield artist Jim Davis, citing similarities between Davis’ cat and his own ginger tom, Mr Tom. Then, in 2000 he filed, then dropped a claim against Marvel Comics, after a Fantastic Fourstory suggested that Mr Fantastic may have been responsible for the destruction of Atlantis, a story that coincided with Bertram’s downstairs neighbours being flooded after his washing machine broke.

The Dilbert case, meanwhile, is due to conclude next week, but in the meantime Bertram is pleading for Adams to stop producing the comic.

“I just want my life back – it’s a sad and pointless life, but it’s all I have.”