On the Fastrack

For the first 18 years of its publication, the comic was a "gag a day" strip", with the characters aging very slowly. However, in early 2002,[1] Holbrook explicitly switched to a real time format, wherein the characters aged in real time. This kept On The Fastrack in tandem with its companion strip Safe Havens, which shares some of its characters. However, by the 2010s, characters returned to aging somewhat slowly.

The strip has changed focus several times over the years, though always maintaining lead characters who work at the large firm of Fastrack, Inc.

For the first few years, the strip was originally centered around Bob Shirt, a slightly-nebbishy but likable middle-management employee, Melody Acapella, his attractive co-worker, Melody’s daughter Laurel, fellow worker Art Welding, Bud Spore (their immediate supervisor, then age 17), and CEO Rose Trellis.

By the late 1980s, the focal characters were the Weldings: Art and Wendy and their children Rusty and Patina. Bud, Rose (and to a lesser extent Bob and Melody) were supporting characters. Bob and Melody, once the lead characters, receded in importance over the years, but still appear in the strip occasionally, since Melody runs the company day care center where Patina and Rusty spend their after-school hours.

In 2010, Wendy's new assistant Dethany Dendrobia was introduced, and arguably became the star of the strip. A smart, generally cheerful, extremely competent Goth, Dethany's appearance consistently leads people to underestimate or misjudge her.

The strip's characters include:

• Rose Trellis – a corporate leader with a seldom-seen charitable side.
• Wendy Rommel Welding – Rose's assistant who does much of the day-to-day work of running Fastrack. She earned a Ph.D. in 2010.
• Art Welding – Wendy's unambitious husband, who "works" in the computer room.
• Rusty and Patina Welding, their children, who lead an online existence their parents are only dimly aware of, battling the Y2K bug and assisting Santa Claus with their computer skills. Patina in 2018 is seen more often at Safe Havens, where she has custody of Samantha Argus' genetic supplies while Samantha travels to Mars.
• Bud Spore, the head of Fastrack’s Information Technology Center, a stereotypical computer geek. On April 25, 2010, he started his own blog, titled Spore Sample[2] in which he comments on various aspects of Fastrack as well as his family life with:
  • His wife, Chelonia, the daughter of Rose.
  • Their daughter, Cookie, who "takes after her [maternal] grandmother in all ways, save that she’s too young to have read Machiavelli."
• Dethany Dendrobia – Wendy's assistant, a 25-year-old (in 2016) Goth who is defined by her conscientious work ethic, intelligence, talent, and mainly her ability to confound others' expectations based on her appearance. She was hired after Wendy earned her Ph.D.[3] Originally named Bethany, she changed her name when she turned 21.[4] Dethany has also appeared in the Dick Tracy comic strip as an informer on the villain Rikki Mortis.[5] Dethany in 2018 also serves as mission manager of the Fastrack One mission to Mars at Safe Havens.
• Ada Counter – A midwife whose former career was in computers and who now consults at Fastrack. She goes out with Chelonia's twin brother Mark Domain.
• The Moat Monster – A dragon-like creature that was spawned by Fastrack’s toxic waste dump. Currently in charge of corporate security. The Moat Monster is capable of shapeshifting into the form of an attractive human woman, who uses the alias, "Candy Moatmonster." She has an ongoing cyberspace love affair with an IRS agent (who knows her true form).
• Fistula Breech – Company accountant in her late thirties who strongly dislikes Dethany. She was one of the earliest bloggers, writing one in 1993 while at college.[6] She and Dethany are distant relatives via a pair of sisters who lived in Yorkshire in the early nineteenth century.[7]
• Don Argus – The safety manager at Fastrack. His daughter Samantha is the principal character in Safe Havens, and she works summers at Fastrack assisting Bud Spore.
• Philby Fenster – Rose's ex-husband (and Chelonia's father) is a hacker and convicted embezzler whose hacking skills are so formidable that he managed to hack his way out of prison on more than one occasion (in a continuing story arc beginning in late August, 2007, he did so using an abacus).
• Thornton Saguaro – Married to Rose, he is the CEO of another company. He is as flinty as Rose Trellis. After the two met she asked him to be a member of her board of directors, where he provides the challenge that she needs. He set up a charitable foundation so that they could have something to work on together. He has been described as politically liberal.

• How To Get On the Fastrack In a Buncha Easy Lessons (1985)
• On The Mommy Track (1991)
• The Fastrack Annual Report (2000)
• Tomb Raiding for Fun and Profit (2000)
• The Best Christmas Ever (2000)
• Surviving Y2K – Outlast, Outwit, Outsource (2001)
• Spore 2.0 (2002)
• New Hair Day (2008)
• Merger! (2009)
• Bug Zapper (2010)
• iPetina (2011)
• Dethany: The Corporate Goth (2011)
• Dethany Exhumed! (2012)
• Bailout (2013)
• Freshly Dethany (2013)
• Cryptwarming (2014)
• Dethany's Raven (2016)
• 9 to 5 Goth (2016)
• Dethany and the Other Clique (2020)

• On the Fastrack official site
• King Features: On the Fastrack
• The Washington Post: On the Fastrack