"Arctic Icarus"

This panel corners the market as far as baleen-related gags go I guess. Which is approximately the same number of folks familiar with Greek mythology. The amount of the former I can hazard a guess as to, since it was a common question I frequently fielded from visitors to the exhibit halls at FAPLIC/ the Morris Thompson Center ("what is that?). The latter category might be a bit more prevalent in the average base what with a recent documentary film titled the same (my popular culture trivia knowledge only extends to it being the name of the ship in "Sunshine").

 

If we burn our wings 

Flying too close to the sun 

If the moment of glory 

Is over before it’s begun 

If the dream is won

Though everything is lost 

We will pay the price,
But we will not count the cost
- Rush "Bravado"

Being personally raised on mythology (and fairy tales) and learning Latin gave me early and easy access to all sorts of random minutiae. That paradoxically increases one's knowledge of the world and insights as to the web of cultural connective tissue underneath everything, yet also effectively pushes you farther away from it at the same time. In other words, the more you know, the less anyone knows what the hell you are talking about, or in this case, laughing over. But one theory is that's the perspective that is crucial to any number of objective studies like sociology, anthropology etc. Helps with cartooning too.

Now as to the Venn diagram showing the overlap between those two relatively obscure points of reference (baleen + Greek mythology), it would presumably be a rather smallish sample of the general population. These are my people. PS: A hat-tip to Mr. Tom Foote for best quipped comment: "flying too close to the pun."