The strip is located near the seashore in the fictional city of Havens, several hundred miles from the state capital.

The strip's original main character, a boy named Matt who was the son of the day care operator, was dropped early in the elementary school stretch.

Her technical side enables her to see the world rationally and realistically, which comes in handy when you're surrounded by a mermaid, the spirit of a late grandmother, living dust bunnies and a genetic mishap that turned the family border collie into a school guidance counselor.

He was stationed with "Nuova Pallacanestro Firenze", a team in Florence, Italy, but retired in 2016 due to an ACL injury.

Rarely seen outside of costume, he was the mascot of the Havens High School Fighting Personal Digital Assistants (the team used to be called the Lions until a "contribution" from a high-tech firm resulted in the name change).

Roger takes his mascot role incredibly seriously, communicating entirely through the costume's screen display.

However, her life plans took a different path after it was discovered that she had a wonderful singing voice, and she became the songwriter and lead singer of the clique's garage band, the Safe Havens.

She was on the mission to Mars as token celebrity to keep the media on them, and was writing and recording her next album while on the trip.

He is an excellent mechanic and a clandestine inventor, evident as the creator of an extendable arm that provides Samantha with a convenient alibi during a basketball game (strips of December 1–5, 2008).

Gerald, Lisa, and Winston - All members of the "Other Clique" in junior and senior high school.

A "goth" enthusiast with a flair for the extreme and avant-garde, introduced when Dave Hamper was traded to another high school for his senior year.

Don is so tall that his face was never seen; his head extended above the top of the strip until he posed for a family portrait with his new baby on January 2, 2012.

She accidentally drank some butterfly DNA as a child and was thus enhanced with extreme grace and agility which she uses to take up dancing.

A former daredevil with a wealth of adventurous experiences, she sees her post-life duty as making sure Samantha doesn't spend her years glued to the front of a computer screen.

Laptop aka Dr. Brenda Scrim - Originally, the Argus's pet border collie (it was later discovered she was also half cat), Laptop later created a fictional character of Brenda Scrim to pose as the Guidance Counselor for Havens Junior High School.

She later chose this as her permanent life, becoming the high school counselor and later Jeanine's political adviser.

She briefly had a romance with an escaped lab experiment and they had a litter of striped puppies which were adopted by many of the main characters (most have since been written out).

Palmtop eventually became human under the unfortunate name "Pam Topp", and served as the Residential Adviser in Samantha's old dorm.

More recently she has decided to live as a cat, in Vince and Feryl's home, and only occasionally transforms into Pam Topp.

She left teaching after getting married and having a child, and would only be seen during the Junior High years when Samantha would babysit for her.

She also was dropped when the kids entered elementary school, although she returned for a couple years as the day care teacher for the new generation.

Accident prone, they frequently suffer from genetic mishaps that result in them changing into other animals or assuming their traits.

They are married and have a son, Gregor, who has inherited some Venus Flytrap DNA and thus has green skin, conducts photosynthesis, and likes to chomp things that fly.

During the expedition Rusty also enrolled at Beige University and replaced Pam Topp as the other resident advisor.

He dated and later married Feryl Farnsworth; they have a daughter named Morgana, appropriately for two people who give magic shows.

Much to her surprise, she discovers that dodos were intelligent beings capable of speech, but have little to no sense of morals, ethics or self-preservation.

In 2014, Marlon began to show Remora's aquatic merfolk heritage as well, and has to spend 12 hours a day as a fish.

The same week Leo says that his mother can not come visit 'here' because she can not be in the same time space as her toddler self Maria Hamper.