Originally Danae, Joe and "Offshore" Flo were separate characters in their own segments but their storylines were eventually fused and they were billed as being family.
Joe and his daughters moved to his native New England to live near his mother following his divorce and withdrawal from major media outlets.
His name may be a reference to the confrontational conservative talk show host, Joe Pyne, but is equally likely to be a tribute to beloved World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle; Joe thus represents the love-and-hate relationship many mainstream Americans have with the media.
[2] Danae Pyle is a pre-adolescent girl with a pessimistic view of the world (but not of herself), often employed in the strip for satirical purposes.
"[4] Flo often can be seen with a coffee maker's pot in her hand, though her diner also serves liquor, which is the source of Captain Eddie's tall tales.
According to Wiley Miller, Bob is patterned after his favorite character actor, Dabney Coleman, not just in appearance but in his sharp demeanor.
In this reality, he lives with his brother Montgomery "Monty" Pyle in a large, Victorian mansion with numerous servants including Smithers, the butler.
Danae, Kate and Flo are well acquainted with Reginald, but Joe refuses to believe he exists in ghost form.
In Non Sequitur Sunday Color Treasury, the author describes how he was inspired by a reader to create the character.
[7] Lars is a Martian who appeared, beginning on May 2, 2009, in a series of strips that involved Jeffrey building a spaceship and going on an expedition to Mars.
Captain Eddie is a commercial fisherman from Maine (with the associated accent) who continually tells tall tales of his boating expeditions, usually involving giant lobsters or aliens, to anyone who will listen in Flo's coffee shop.
Lucy was introduced in the July 11, 2003 strip, in a storyline that had Danae and Kate going to a summer horse riding camp.
Unlike Hobbes, however, Lucy is a "real" horse who the kids talk to and interact with the same as any other character, nor is she invisible to adults.
Rölf (or an ancestor or relative from an earlier or alternate era) has also appeared in a short-lived series in Non Sequitur called B.E.
Obviousman's secret identity is Mark Cohen, a California realtor and amateur magician, who has taken on a mission in life of freeing the people from the curse of mindless obedience to the dictates of the mass media, and to at least slow, if not reverse, the dumbing down of America.
In the book Non Sequitur's Sunday Color Treasury, Miller stated that he named Obviousman's true identity after a friend who had died of cancer in 1999.
Ordinary Basil is a boy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution who takes a journey to the cloud city of Helios.
Lucifer (that is, Satan) often appears in the strip to delegate hellish punishments, such as watching reality shows.
In numerous strips that deal with the home life of upper middle-aged couples, a pet bulldog with exaggerated fangs (similar to Rölf's, above) can be seen.
Non Sequitur was published in the New Straits Times, a major newspaper in the Muslim-majority country of Malaysia, as part of its weekday line of comic strips.
[9] Wiley Miller commented on Malaysia's response to the strip, stating in a February 1, 2007 interview that it is "much ado about nothing.
"[10] The February 10, 2019 edition of Non Sequitur contained as an "easter egg" a hidden message to President Donald Trump.
[11] The strip parodied the art of Leonardo da Vinci with anthropomorphic bears, and featured several mostly-illegible scribbles, one of which contained the phrase "go fuck yourself Trump".