[1] In May 1995, the Press Enterprise called Dilbert a once-in-a-decade "angst-ridden anti-hero, a Nietzschean nebbish, an us-against-the-Universe Everyperson around whom our insecurities collect like iron shavings to a magnet".

[2] Michael Smith, a marketing professor at Temple University, called Dilbert "the Snoopy of the business world".

[3][4] In an interview with The New York Times Adams said that he based Dilbert's character on someone he knew, saying: "I worked around engineers for most of my 16 years of corporate life.

"[5] In December 1995, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle noted Dilbert's "thick glasses, to deflect all attempts at eye contact", his "two pens in pocket, in case one goes bad in a crucial situation", his "oversized waistline, the result of a zero-impact exercise plan", and pants, "strategically cuffed above the ankle to remain dry in case of sudden floods".

Additionally, in Seven Years of Highly Defective People, Adams wrote: "Many readers asked me to allow Dilbert to lose his innocence with Liz, so to speak.

[10] In another strip, Dilbert met Antina, an overly masculine female coworker who caused his tie to flatten and point downward.

Subsequent strips published Monday through Saturday show all of the company employees wearing this same outfit, with the polo shirts varying in color between blue, green, yellow, red, orange, and purple.

[18] As Dilbert's biggest social difficulty is getting a date, creator Scott Adams published a phone number for interested parties to call, which was still connected to an answering machine in March, 1993.

[20] In 2000, the Montreal Gazette noted that his visage appeared in "a wide assortment of merchandising tie-ins" such as a Visa credit card and a flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (Dilbert's World Totally Nuts).

[23] In March 2023, after controversial comments by Adams led to newspapers dropping the comic strip, the character died before being revived by the garbage man.