Zeke Brenner

Zeke Brenner is a character in the comics strip Doonesbury.

Zeke started out as the caretaker to Uncle Duke's Aspen house, while the latter was away on his various jobs, such as being governor of American Samoa and ambassador to China. Zeke was terribly irresponsible, and spent most of his time stealing drugs from Duke's private stash. He even burned the house down once, while Duke was out.

Zeke was engaged to J.J. for a while, but she grew increasingly fed up with his antics, and finally left him after the house burning incident. She eventually married Mike Doonesbury.

When Duke disappeared during the 1980s and was presumed dead (he later resurfaced as a hostage) Zeke "wrote" a book on him (actually ghostwritten) which became a bestseller.

Zeke's job in Aspen ended when he was shot by Duke, who mistook him for a prowler one night, and he spent some time in the hospital recovering. He also set the police on Duke, and there has been some animosity between them ever since.

Zeke and J.J. met each other again in 1994. As she and Mike were experiencing marital strife, she ended running away with Zeke. They have been together ever since, and got married in 2003. This was much to the chagrin of Alex Doonesbury, J.J.'s daughter, who hates Zeke, and refers to him as "Uncle Stupidhead". The hatred is mutual, and Zeke often clashes with Alex, and even once sold off her valuable collection of Beanie Babies

Zeke is a hippy-like character, and either low in intelligence, constantly stoned, or (quite likely) both. He is flighty and easily influenced by the plots of movies. He has been described by other characters as a "Ludicrous cowboy".