Main Characters

		Andy Buffett Third-generation editor of the Wayside Gazette. Has been doggedly pushing back retirement for decades. The Gazette is a way of life—his work, his passion, his hobby. A true-blue local, devoted to community culture. Buffett has a crystal clear vision for his paper: “A local paper looks after its own house, the dailies and the television their own, and what they don’t get to, CNN reports. We do local news, and that should be enough.” And indeed, the paper does report comprehensively on goings on in the area, but doesn’t have much traffic with “foreign news”—like what’s going on in the neighboring county.
		Miles Conway Reporter. Studied journalism in college. Conway never got around to finishing his master’s degree because he dropped out to join an IT firm. Conway moved to the big city and worked as a PR-man for a publicly traded new media company during the most frantic years of the tech bubble. As a result of the firm’s bankruptcy, Conway’s own finances went to pot, and he is still suffering from serious depression. During his time in the big city, Conway got his fill both of big city culture and of the small talk of all the results-oriented implementation strategy solution optimization architects and their ilk. Returning to his hometown and going to work for the local paper is at once a break from the past and an attempt to recover from all the lies and half-truths that he both manufactured and swallowed in his previous job.
		Mrs. Likely The newspaper’s secretary, bookkeeper, financial manager, fireman etc. An energetic woman of indeterminate age. The mother figure in the editorial office, who makes sure the “boys” have enough warm clothes on when they leave to follow a story, but also keeps the daydreamers in line if the ideas start to get too high-flown. Mrs. Likely is a very enigmatic person. No one knows anything about her or her personal life. This is fairly unique by Wayside standards. No one has ever seen “Mr. Likely.” When Editor-in-Chief Buffet is asked about her, he just mutters that, “in the early eighties Mrs. Likely just marched in and started work.” For understandable reasons, no one inquires any further, since over the years Mrs. Likely has made herself entirely irreplaceable.
		Patty Miles’ sweetheart. Patty is an English teacher who Miles was set up with by a childhood friend. Patty is a sensible and practical counterbalance to Miles’ creative and contemplative nature.
Other Characters
		Other characters appearing in the strip include Miles’ parents and sister, Miles’ childhood friends, a “gang of young hoodlums” and other supporting characters.