Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 07, 2011

I don’t think she’s all the way out of the insecurity spiral just yet …

Their Odyssey continues.

Tip for Alex: Don’t talk over your boyfriend’s head.

Even when she is her old self, she can be hard to take!

And yet, they always find a way to bridge that gap – which is why I like them so much. Alex will grow….

Happy but weird ending! Vuvuzelas and pork roast for EVERYONE! Huzzah!

Alex matures, Kurt learns more about the world (geez, get him a copy of the Odyssey, don’t diss Alex for being well-read!), and the recording studio guy finds her hotness quotient just skyrocketed, the kinkster.

I bet Toggle knows who Ulysses is and is gently twitting Alex.

Wasn’t Ulysses president or something?

UH-OH!

Settle down! Old man like you could have a heart attack.

I don’t think they’re on the same page——. heck , I don’t think they’re on the same book

That’s classical!

Wasn’t Ulysses one of those wrestlers who teamed up with Zeus?

Who is Ulysses?? Oh you mean Grant???

It’s like a conversation I had at work about two weeks ago with a recent college grad (“top flight” university too) who asserted he never heard of the playwrights Gilbert and Sullivan, the operettas “The Mikado”, “The HMS Pinafore”, “The Pirates of Penzance”, and all the rest. (Does the reader know what the heck I’m talking about?) It wasn’t like I was mentioning some one-hit-wonders rock band from the ‘60s. What was depressing about the conversation wasn’t so much that the guy didn’t know about Gilbert and Sullivan, but seemed rather proud of his ignorance.

With puns like that I think i’ll go no an Odyssey.

\\//_

TimeWeaver: I agree with everything you say. I’m guessing that Steely Dan’s “Home at Last,” with its references to the Odyssey, was not one of the songs on Toggle’s iPod.

Didn’t Ulysses have himself tied to the mast (not chair)?

“Over his head” my arse.. Toggle plays ‘strategic feigned ignorance’ to get Alex out of her jealousy funk.

Tip: Try “Odysseus.”

Leo@Alex: Does dr-drama queening run .. run in your ..f-family?

Ulysses was the King of Ithaca. During his tour of duty in The Trojan War, he had killed the King of Thrace. As punishment, he had to take the long way home. He had quite a number of adventures along the way. The Greeks called him Odysseus (read “The Odyssey”).

Alex’s hair has grown in the last panel. It seems she’s getting hotter every second…

Please delete from my list

You might want to start off with the Kirk Douglas version and work your way up to Homer, Alex!

Alabama_Al See above.

She has to talk over his head, otherwise her word balloons would cover his face.

Leo may or may not be aware that he’s just compared Alex to Circe—a brilliant repartee. (Circe kept her lovers by turning them into animals—“tying them up,” as Leo’s boss would say.)