PEOPLE

By Belinda Luscombe

ADAMS' FAMILY'S VALUES

Many people think SCOTT ADAMS is Dilbert, the cartoon champ of mismanaged corporate employees. But in lots of ways the artist-writer is closer to Dogbert, Dilbert's power-mad canine, whose Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook is out this month. Both of them want to change the world. Dogbert aims to do it by training managers to avoid making decisions, calling more meetings and destroying employee morale. Adams, having conquered the cartoon world--his strip is in three-quarters of America's daily newspapers, and his first book, The Dilbert Principle, sold 1.2 million copies--is working on a cheap nutritional food to end world poverty. He's serious. "I've bought the Cuisinart and made prototypes," he says. "I just can't make something that tastes good yet."

UH-OH, LOOKS LIKE SHOULDER PADS ARE BACK

It's time for the Paris couture shows again--a riveting glimpse at clothes few can afford and fewer still would wear. Christian Lacroix said he was "inspired by ethnicity and beautiful things from all over," but neglected to mention in which country one would feel comfortable wearing the above ensemble. Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons dispensed entirely with the notion of figure enhancement and inserted padding, above, that only a Quasimodel could love. The designer said her aim was to "create clothes without any reference to anything existing." She's right on target. Meanwhile the big couture houses seem to be getting a taste for the wacky. Givenchy has hired British enfant terrible Alexander McQueen, 27, the son of a taxi driver, who's most famous for his "bumster" pants--like hipsters, but much lower.

PUBLIC-SERVICE TV

A life of crime is not for the stupid, as Carlester Eric Robinson discovered after allegedly shoplifting at a Baltimore pharmacy. He ran onto the set of NBC's Homicide, where actors had just finished a scene and still had their fake guns drawn. "The guy looked around and dropped his bag," says RICHARD BELZER (Detective John Munch). "We all just looked at him. Then he realized it was TV and looked really embarrassed." Security guards handed him over to the real cops, who charged him with theft. His haul? Kodak film and Q-Tips.

SEEN & HEARD

Jeffrey Maier, 12, is the most reviled child in Baltimore, Maryland, and the No. 1 son of New York City, after sticking his baseball glove over the wall and deflecting a ball. The umpire ruled a home run for the Yankees, but later said he was wrong. Too late. Maier was mobbed by reporters, put up at the Plaza hotel and given free seats for another game.

Are sober sitcom stars becoming an endangered species? Three weeks after Kelsey Grammer entered the Betty Ford Center, Brett Butler, star of Grace Under Fire, has announced that she's addicted to painkillers, and will start treatment as an outpatient. Butler, a recovering alcoholic who said in her recent autobiography that she spent 17 years high, first took the drugs for back pain.