What's Up with Dilbert's Dad?

During the past few years, Scott Adams has suffered with two unusual and rare illnesses: focal dystonia and spasmodic dysphonia. It almost seems like no surprise that the creator of Dilbert, a daily comic strip whose main focus is probing the neuroses and idiosyncrasies of corporate office workers, would be on the receiving end of two different types of nervous tics.

Hand Jive

Only one of these two nervous afflictions has affected the actual creation of his acclaimed comic strip "Dilbert". Focal dystonia is a nervous condition that affects the muscles of a specific part of the body; in Adams' case, his hand. Physicians say that the cause resides deep in the brain structure.

In focal hand dystonia, the fingers curl involuntarily inward or extend outward. Scott had had initial symptoms of this illness in 1992, but it went away only to reappear one day in November 2004. When drawing his daily strip, a normally two-hour procedure from pencil sketch to final inking, his first signs of the affliction were the spasms in his right pinky finger; and then it spread to his other fingers. To his dismay, his usual smooth pen-line had become a jagged line. According to Adams, "I'd have full muscle control for everything - except putting a pen to a piece of paper."

In 1992, the first time his hand dystonia struck, he decided to "trick" the affliction by drawing left-handed instead of his natural right-handed method. And the condition passed over time. Unfortunately, this trick wasn't the panacea. In 2004, the dystonia returned, but this time drawing his daily strip left-handed wound up taking him much longer than his usual two hours. So, he had to come up with a new "work-around" to beat the illness. In 2005 Scott began using a digital drawing tablet. The Wacom Cintiq 21UXLCD Tablet's pressure-sensitive surface only required a light drawing touch with the digitized stylus. Since he no longer had to press down to draw, the light touch prevented his hand from tightening up and cramping again. Once again Adams created a work-around that tricked his mind into beating this rare condition.

Dystonia. Dysphonia. Let's call the whole thing off.