List of characters in Newshounds

The following is a list of main and minor characters in the fictional universe of the comic series Newshounds.

Main characters

 * Kevin J. Dog - Male golden retriever, KPET's camera operator and technical person. A fairly gentle and sensitive character, often playing straight man to the other characters' follies. He has a sister, Raine, and has had two failed relationships: one with Stormy Knight, who he first fell in love with due to their love of Blackadder, but she got married to her boyfriend Connor O'Connor. The other was with Della, a technophile and Kevin's technical assistant, who went missing during a holiday with her owners. His brooding over Stormy made him gain weight in early 2003. He is partly based on the author.
 * Renata Fayre - A female cocker spaniel and one of the two news anchors. She is strong-willed, good at finding facts, and generally clear-headed when not in the grip of journalistic ambition, or when her vicious jealousy towards Rochelle takes over. She often spars with KRVL head anchor Dirk Snoogems. Hal O'Peridol of Sunflower Chemicals often tries to marry her. They have done so twice, but both ended very quickly. She had her muzzle reduced in size in 2000, but few people noticed any difference in the "nasal twang" Hal O'Peridol first noted less than a year before, thus ruining her hopes of getting better jobs.
 * Wolfram Blitzen - A male Norwegian Elkhound, Rochelle's husband and KPET's other news anchor. He is very fond of his looks and wardrobe; vain nearly to a degree of obsession, though the trait was largely quelled due to an incident when he became addicted to a banned fur conditioning drug in 2005. Whilst celebrating with Rochelle about getting over his addiction, he proposed marriage, to which Rochelle accepted. In August 2006, he told Rochelle that she was pregnant, and their children where recently born, named Malcolm and Emma. Other characters regard him as mundane and boring. Named after the American journalist Wolf Blitzer.
 * Rochelle O'Shea - A female collie and Wolfram's wife. As a field reporter, she is suave and calm but troubled by a secret addiction to danger. She first came into contact with KPET as a temp in summer 2000, although she was acting as a spy for General Swallowemup. She then went into the army, where she met Wolfram and Sam. They then returned to KPET permanently in the autumn of 2001. In August 2006, after surviving a helicopter crash, Wolfram told her she was pregnant. Rochelle is the only central character introduced since the beginning of the strip.
 * Alistair Katt - Alistair is a male domestic shorthaired cat. He is supposed to be a weather forecaster, but because he was only placed in this position because Lorna heard him mention one high pressure system, he more often acts as outspoken liberal commentator. He also serves as KPET's lawyer, to his disgust. In December 2003, he came out of the closet. He is very fond of catnip, but he temporarily loses his sanity when he mixes it with alcohol.  Storylines around New Year usually focus on him: since 1999 he has spent New Year's Eve alone on the beach almost every year.  Although Alistair long claimed to be little interested in any romantic matters, he occasionally goes on dates with his friend Nigel. Nigel is somewhat obsessed with Alistair and, in his own words, "crazy-mad in love", but Alistair preferred to remain friends until recently. In a recent strip, to his great shock, Alistair came to the realization he loved Nigel too, even kissing him. It is later implied in Newshounds II that Alistair and Nigel sleep together.
 * Sam Shepherd - Sam is a male black labrador and KPET's sports reporter. He is macho and decidedly right wing. He disagrees loudly with Alistair over politics, but the pair gained mutual respect as they have both rescued each other for difficult situations. Sam had been in a dysfunctional relationship with Randy, Della's cousin, but they split up when he discovered she was cheating on him with her former boyfriend Vladimir. Despite Sam's politics, he eventually accepts Alistair's homosexuality and in April 2006 he told Alistair that George W. Bush is an "insane maniac", almost giving Alistair a heart attack.
 * Ferris the Rat - Formally a squatter in KPET's first studio, Ferris is KPET's janitor, though he is next to useless at his job. He is irrepressible, obsessed with pop-culture, infatuated with Tori Spelling, and often launches into business plans which last just long enough to cause chaos. In October 2004, Ferris got rid of his last piece of Tori Spelling memorabilia, but he still has feelings for her, particularly after her father, Aaron Spelling died in June 2006. His name probably comes from the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
 * Lorna Ernestine Dilbrook - The owner of KPET, its animal staff and the only human in the company. According to the comic's back-story webpages she started the station to follow her passion for news, finding its staff in the animal shelter she had worked at previously. She has kept KPET going ever since, gritting her teeth through its endless crises. She always tries to be as moral as possible, which may explain KPET's lack of success. She once went crazy after having her tooth removed; getting delusions that she was a dog and everyone else in KPET was human.

Other recurring characters

 * Ernest and Julia Dilbrook - Ernest and Julia are Lorna's parents. Ernest is a financially irresponsible person with few scruples. He exploits Lorna for his own personal reasons, such as getting her to dress up as Hillary Clinton and make the public think she put anthrax in some punch. Julia is allergic to pets, and often tries to stop Ernest from going too far in his dealings. Despite her allergies, she does manage to help Lorna and KPET, even helping in Wolfram and Rochelle's marriage.
 * Virgil Lishuss - Virgil is Lorna's foolishly idealistic half-brother and owner of Virgiltech software.
 * Angie Lishuss - Angie is Virgil's sister and a power-hungry porn star engaged to Roger.
 * Roger Deledize - Lorna meets Roger at a party, and thinks she might be the right man for her, but there is more to him than first seems. He works alongside Virgil and is engaged to Angie.
 * Hal O'Peridol - Hal is the canine CEO of Sunflower Chemicals, and is disastrously infatuated with Renata. He tricked her into marrying him once to go public with his control of the company per his owner's will. Initially annulled, they remarried when someone tried to usurp control of Sunflower, but they divorced after two weeks. His name is a pun on the chemical Haloperidol.
 * Stormy Knight - Stormy was once Kevin's lover for a day due to their love of Blackadder videos, before she dumped him to return to her steady boyfriend Connor, whom she later married.
 * Connor O'Connor - A neo-Elizabethan poet and Starbucks worker. Stormy left Kevin to return to him, and are currently married.
 * Manny the Mink - One of Alistair's friends, Manny is a slacker turned computer geek. He was killed at his computer and turned into a mink stole in March 2001 because he knew too much about Virgil and Angie's diabolical plans. The KPET crew do not know his whereabouts. Manny and Angie are core characters in Thomas K Dye's other current feature, Manifestations (Manny's spirit was supposedly sucked into the Internet when he died, hence its premise).
 * Dirk Snoogems - Dirk is the mustachioed lead anchorman at rival news station KRVL. He has fun denigrating the KPET team, particularly Renata.
 * Della - Della, a poodle, is Kevin's girlfriend, a technophile and very playful. Originally, she worked at a Radio Shack, but she was fired for trying to have a romantic interlude with Kevin on company time. She was fired from Radio Shack for planning to sleep with Kevin inside the shop, but was later hired at KPET as Kevin's technical assistant. She went AWOL, abandoned by her owners during a vacation, but in the last daily strip, Della returned.
 * Randy - Randy is Della's cousin and Sam's ex-girlfriend. She is a very manipulative gold digger and nymphomaniac. She was cheating on Sam, while she convinced him to shower her with money and gifts.  Sam broke up with Randy after he discovered her relationship with Vladimir, her other boyfriend.
 * Nigel - Nigel is the pet cat of a local gay rights advocate. He has long been highly infatuated with Alistair. After initially deciding to just be friends, they periodically subsequently went out on dates together. Since then, the two have become romantically involved. It is later implied in Newshounds II that Alistair and Nigel sleep together.
 * Yvonne - Yvonne is one of Lorna's few friends. She used to try to play matchmaker for Lorna, setting her up with dorks.
 * Pontius - He in the current head of the Los Muertos Canyon coyote tribe. He enlisted KPET's help to save his tribesmen from persecution from local humans, but almost got Wolfram killed in the process.
 * Zodiac - He is the former head of the Los Muertos Canyon coyote tribe, but he was jailed by the tribe when he went insane and started terrorizing humans. He was also romantically linked to Randy.  He was moved to a distant wildlife preserve when he picked a fight with Kevin and lost.
 * General Swallowemup - A former military general, he was the leader of the corporate conglomerate Swallowemup Industries. In various plots, he attempted to engage in a violent military takeover of Starbucks and also attempted to use Hal O'Peridol's experimental mind control chemical (created so Hal could try to get Renata) to control the world.  He is currently serving a long-term prison sentence.
 * Sgt. Bully Runyon - A male bulldog that was sent to the brig and discharged for trying to fly a plane into Afghanistan's Embassy in Germany during the post-9/11 furore. He is currently a conservative talk radio host in KPET's area called Afternoons with Bully Runyon. Alistair frequently calls his show to match wits with him.