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Baby Blues is a comic strip series produced by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott since 7 January, 1990.
Introduction
The strip is mainly about bring up babies and children. Children in the strip often show ignorance on parents (but also fear to their punishments), and parents often meet a dilemma, being exhausted and frustrated of the children's incooperation, as well as ultimate love towards them.
There was a short-lived Baby Blues animated series that aired from June to August of 2000 on The WB network before being cancelled. It was then picked up in 2002 by the Cartoon Network and run as part of its Adult Swim block. Comedian Julia Sweeney was the voice of Wanda MacPherson.
Characters
The strip mainly consist of three families:
Main Family (MacPhersons)
- Darryl: The father. A manager, noticeable with the extremely big nose. Sometimes unaware of his wife's exhausted state but he would have to face it if he did so.
- Wanda: The mother. Originally have a job, she was forced to stay at home to look after her children. Easily frustrated (due to the job of being a mother), and jealous to any mothers that were doing better than her.
- Zoe: The big daughter (born 7 January, 1990 – her birth starts the strip). She is a very fussy girl and tends not to stop talking. Likes to tease or scare her brother, Hammie.
- Hammish: The son, usually called Hammie (born 29 April, 1995). Has an extreme enthusiasm on trucks, and can tell their model on sight. Likes to tell his mom when his big sister teases or bullies him, but generally he gets mad less often than Zoe.
- Wren: The little daughter (born 26 October, 2002). Still an infant at the time of writing. She didn't record so much nuisance compared with her elder siblings.
The White supporting family
This family joined the strip around March 1991.
- Bunny: The mother, and the main character of this family and is the target of any possible jealousy from Wanda, because Bunny outrages in many aspects (such as body, life-style, etc.) Nearly all main grown-up characters don't like her and sometimes tricked her.
- Butch: Bunny 's husband. Generally unaware of his wife's behaviour towards the neighbours.
- Bogart: The big son. He's the greatest victim under Zoe's teases and bullies (because he didn't cope with teases as well as Hammie), and she called him a "crybaby".
- John and Jon Wendell: Twin boys born 10 August, 2002. Easily confusing since their mother didn't actually name them differently.
The Black supporting family
- Yolanda: is the mother of this family and a long-time supporter of Wanda, usually quiet when Wanda quarrels with Bunny.
- Mike: Yolanda 's husband.
- Keesha: Big daughter, Zoe 's close friend.
- Dziko: Little daughter, born about the same time as Wren.
Other supporting characters
- Rhonda: Wanda's younger sister. Enjoys the life being a single woman. She usually shows up as the babysitter when Wanda and Darryl go out and leave their children behind.
- Parents of Darryl and Wanda.
- Trent: Best friend of Hammie since kindergarten, although actually first appear as a friend of Zoe on 6 May, 1997. He teaches Hammie to do many weird things.
- Mr. Doyle: First appeared 24 September 2001 and being the Grade 1 teacher of Zoe, Bogart (maybe Keesha too). He's also frequently annoyed by Zoe.
Time line
Unlike other strips, children in Baby Blues do grow as time passes, though slower than real time.
The authors claimed that the time ratio is 3 to 1 [1] (http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/03/r_style_cartoon041803.htm) (i.e. 3 days in real time equals to 1 day in the strip), but as the strip goes on, the real ratio becomes about 2 to 1. Characters do not celebrate all their birthdays even in terms of comic time.
As of 2005, the strip has been on for 15 years and the main character, Zoe MacPherson, is 7 years old (She claimed to be almost 8 on the strip around Christmas 2004, but her birthday wasn't celebrated on 7 January 2005). Meanwhile her brother, Hammie, appeared for nearly 10 years and is now 5.
External link
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