Safe Havens is a comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 drawn by cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 Bill Holbrook

Bill Holbrook

Bill Holbrook is an American comic strip & webcomic writer and artist. Born in Los Angeles in 1958, Holbrook grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, and began drawing at an early age....

. It was originally syndicated by Washington Post Writers Group before switching to King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

 in 1993. Started in 1988, the strip is currently published in more than 50 newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s. The strip originally concerned the group of pre-schoolers at Safe Havens Day Care, but has focused on Samantha and followed her as she has grown up (approximately in real-time) and gone through elementary school, high school, and (currently) college.

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

Characters

Samantha, Jenny, and Dave are the only original characters left from the Day Care. Roger entered shortly after the strip began. The strip's original main character, a boy named Matt Havens who was the son of the day care operator, was dropped early in the elementary school stretch.

Samantha Argus

Samantha is a teen growing into womanhood, with a hopeful nature and a scientific mind. 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.

Dave Hamper

Dave and Samantha are soulmates, a fact known to everyone but themselves. Dave is dyslexic, but found that instead of it being a disability it's simply an alternate yet perfectly viable way of interfacing with the world. He uses his unique special talents to achieve stardom on the basketball court.

Jenny Egotistical

Jenny is vain, shallow and self-centered, possessing a set of personal ethics that could charitably be called "situational." She is everything that Samantha is not. Contrastingly, the two have been friends since preschool.

Remora

Remora is a 415-year-old mermaid

Mermaid

A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...

 who has decided to live on land for a while. Like all merfolk, she has the option of living 24 hours a day as half-fish, half human (i.e., Mermaid Classic), or for twelve hours fully human followed by twelve hours as a fish. In the latter time frame, she lives in a tank in Samantha's room. In summer of 2006, she decided to take a vacation in the ocean with friends. From that time, she spends the summer months at sea.

Samantha's family

Samantha's father Donald works as the safety inspector at Fastrack, Inc. (see On the Fastrack

On the Fastrack

On the Fastrack is a comic strip drawn by Bill Holbrook about the doings of various characters at the fictional Fastrack, Inc.Fastrack is run by its foundress, Rose Trellis, who is portrayed as a ruthless corporate leader, but with a recently discovered but seldom seen charitable side...

, another comic strip by Holbrook), and her mother Jeanine (state senator, elected Lieutenant Governor in November 2008). Samantha has a little sister named Sophie, and three grown older siblings: Sylvester, Steve and Shondra.

Grandma

When the mother of Samantha's mom died, she left Samantha a magic ring. When wearing it, Samantha can speak to her grandmother in any reflection. 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.

Roger

Roger is 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. Roger's face has never been shown since he is always wearing some sort of full-body costume. Even in the day care, he wore a box, and then made it into a television costume.

The Other Clique

Samantha, Dave, Jenny, Remora and Roger are joined by Thomas (Remora's boy friend, always seen hanging upside down from a trapeze), Bambi (up and coming pop singer with Jenny as her caustic agent), Gerald, Arnold, Lisa and Winston in the Other Clique. These are the souls who never fit into any of the school's official catalog of Cliques, so they were listed in the box marked "Other." Their own mascot is (appropriately) a cat who is the clone of a dog. They're always open to new members.

Miss Callowood

Miss Callowood was the kids' elementary school teacher for several years. She had been rather trendy before becoming a teacher and had several facial piercings, although her face was never actually seen. She left teaching after getting married and having a child, although she returned for a while during the kids' high school years as a guidance counselor.

Miss Havens

Miss Havens was the operator of the day care and Matt's mother. She also was dropped when the kids entered elementary school, although she has shown up in brief sequences a few times since.

Ming

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. Initially a pseudo-rival to Samantha for Dave (she always wore sunglasses ala Dave, shedding them only when she got married), she was eventually accepted into the group and joined everyone at Havens University as a creative film major. She shared a college dorm room with Samantha, Remora and Jenny before marrying Don Delft, a former teammate of Dave on the college's basketball team who was drafted by the NBA in the spring of 2008. Don is so tall that his face is never seen; his head extends above the top of the strip.

Luis

A hunk with eyeglasses, Hispanic background and a wheelchair. He is Jenny's current boyfriend, and also a clandestine inventor, most recently evident as the creator of an extendable arm which provides Samantha with a convenient alibi during a recent basketball game (strips of 12/1-5/2008).

External links

• Official site
• Safe Havens (King Features)
• Safe Havens comic (Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  Seattle Post-Intelligencer
  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
  
  )