It seems that the exceptional Perry Bible Fellowship will be coming to an end this week. The author, Nicholas Gurewitch, said:

"I'm making this decision for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I want to do other things besides be a cartoonist"

Well, good luck Nicholas. PBF has been a breath of fresh air, and many people will be sorry to see it go. I'm afraid Sim does intend to keep publishing his work here on Exotic Trousers, although it seems it will be at increasingly longer and irregular intervals.

Edited Saturday 8th March 2008

It seem that I was happily misinformed about the demise of the Perry Bible Fellowship. The cartoon will continue, but not as regularly as before:

"It's really not as big a deal as it might seem," Nicholas said today. "I'll simply be producing comics at a pace I'm more comfortable with."

A bit like Sim, then, although I suspect that Sim's output of toons could get considerably more "comfortable" if he was allowed to.

One of the great things about the Dilbert comic strip is that you can read it, have a laugh, and yet think, "This is what happens in these large organisations!" Like many great comedians, Scott Adams has the knack of taking reality and presenting it in a way that makes you think twice about some of the ludicrous situations which occur in life.

Now, Adams has taken inspiration from the real story of a casino employee named Dave Steward who was fired by his bosses for posting a Dilbert cartoon on the office bulletin board. The strip in question was one where Dilbert likened his bosses to "drunken lemurs".

Adams acknowledged in an interview that Steward's firing was the impetus for this week's series of comics.

"I know good comic fodder when I see it," he said, "and any chance to mock the humorless is worth the effort."

At the time of writing, there are two strips in the Dilbert "drunken lemurs" series, posted on Wednesday 20/2 and Thursday 21/2. I'll be interested to see the remaining strips.

Steve Morley, the human resources manager* at the casino that sacked Steward, declined to comment on the new "Dilbert" comics.

(* What a curious job title.)