Safe Havens

Safe Havens is a comic strip drawn by cartoonist Bill Holbrook. It was originally syndicated by Washington Post Writers Group before switching to King Features Syndicate in 1993. Started in 1988, the strip is currently published in more than 50 newspapers. 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, college, and (currently) marriage. The comic then went online in 2010.

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

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 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. She is now married to Dave Hamper.

Dave is Samantha's husband. 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. He is currently stationed with "Nuova Pallacanestro Firenze," a team in Florence, Italy.

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 is a 415-year-old mermaid 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. She and Thomas Volant have a son, Marlon, who has exhibited traits of both Remora's merfolk heritage and Thomas' acrobatic predilection.

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