"Zits is the worst name for a comic strip since Peanuts." --Charles M. Schulz Sixteen-year-old Jeremy Duncan is a high school freshman and an aspiring musician. He daydreams about the day when his band, Goat Cheese Pizza, records their first monster hit single, and they all pile into his van for their cross-country, sold-out concert tour. Between naps, study hall and band practice, Jeremy still manages to find time to be the star of the hugely popular comic strip, Zits.

A year’s worth of strips -- many with comments from Jerry and Rick. From the dark days of sleep deprivation to the cacophony of a tri-kid family, Baby Blues reveals the true dark underbelly of parenting to the delight of newspaper readers everywhere. Like a comic epidural, or butt cream on a raging diaper rash, this comic strip has helped take some of the sting out of parenting for countless parents around the world. Baby Blues transcends the comic page by fusing the award-winning imaginations of Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott with familiar family life. Kirkman and Scott intuitively balance the humorous with the poignant through relatable and sometimes all-too-familiar parenting scenes.

Baby Blues is a pitch-perfect and hilarious family-oriented comic strip that typifies modern parenting.

 In this chronological collection, readers get a close-up view inside the home of the MacPhersons, a perfectly normal family with perfectly chaotic lives. Daryl and Wanda are deep in the trenches of childrearing and earning their stripes as parents to Zoe, Hammie, and Wren.

Baby Blues expertly illustrates why Band-Aids remain in short supply, tattling and teasing lead to time-outs, and an unplanned visit to the dentist or auto mechanic occurs just when the bills seem to be caught up.

Baby Blues transcends the comic page by fusing the award-winning imaginations of Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott with familiar family life. Inside this annotated collection, Kirkman and Scott intuitively balance the humorous with the poignant though relatable and sometimes all-too-familiar parenting scenes.

It's a family feud full of fun and togetherness in Kirkman and Scott's The Natural Disorder of Things. Readers step into the home of the MacPhersons, a perfectly normal family with perfectly chaotic lives. Daryl and Wanda are deep in the trenches of child rearing, earning their stripes as parents to Zoe, Hammie, and baby Wren.

Baby Blues is genuinely funny, portraying parenting the way it is, including the good, the bad, the ugly . . . and the sometimes smelly.

Baby Blues "recently celebrated an achievement that is considered the comic industry's top milestone: surpassing 1,000 newspaper clients around the world." --Arizona Republic

Baby Blues "is a genuinely hilarious comic strip." --Rants and Raves

Childhood-synonymous with slip 'n' slides, bubble gum, and getting your little brother in trouble. Parenthood-synonymous with Band-Aid bandages, haircuts, and giving timeouts for tattling. Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott effortlessly navigate the nuances of everyday family life in Briefcase of Baby Blues

Named Best Comic Strip of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society, Baby Blues details the goings-on inside the MacPherson home. Running at a frenzied pace, young parents Darryl and Wanda keep up with Zoe, Hammie, and baby Wren as Kirkman and Scott perfectly capture the domestic discord and creative chaos associated with this household's hilarious activities.

  Now that baby Zoe is a full-fledged mobile toddler, everyone can sit back and heave a big sigh of AAAAACCCH! The indefatigable MacPhersons are bringing up baby in a wild-eyed, yet true to life.

  Darryl and Wanda, a typical stretched-to-the-limit couple, struggled with the demands and joys of first-time parenthood in classics such as Guess Who Didn't Take a Nap? and I Thought Labor Ended When the Baby Was Born. The MacPhersons found parenthood more rewarding and frustrating than they ever expected. Through it all they adapted to this new addition to their lives with aplomb and severe exhaustion.

We Are Experiencing Parental Difficulties...Please Stand By is a Baby Blues collection from creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott. In the pair's lovingly realistic way, the book captures the continuing challenges Darryl and Wanda face as Zoe begins to walk, talk, and take over the remote control. It's a natural growing-up progression that Baby Blues fans have watched with rapt interest.

  Mothers love the strip because they can relate to Wanda's continued surprise at how her days have changed, from career woman to Mom, especially as she faces the prospects of adding another bundle of joy to the MacPhersons' already busy household. Dads laugh knowingly as Darryl tries to help out and hold down a demanding job. Everyone cherishes the little Zoe for making childhood antics (even the obnoxious ones) so adorable.

  Artist Kirkman and writer Scott obviously know about parenting—you can see it in every strip they produce. In this book, they provide another delicious view of life's most precious mixed blessing.

Born January 7, 1990, Baby Blues has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. It chronicles the lives of Wanda and Darryl--mid-thirties, college-educated first-time parents--and newborn Zoe. Their true-to-life experiences reveal the humor in the trials and triumphs of parenthood.

  Their life is hectic, filled with terrible twos, teething, and temper tantrums . . . but Darryl and Wanda wouldn't have it any other way!

  Since 1990, the MacPhersons have staked their engaging claim on the comics page with their realistically wild-eyed and worn-down reaction to parenting. We watched as Wanda gave up her job to be a stay-at-home mom, wondered how the couple would handle countless sleepless nights, and laughed when they unexpectedly found themselves expecting. Now, as Zoe grows into a walking, talking toddler and newborn Hamish learns how to roll over, the couple's pride, joy, and exhaustion reaches even greater heights.

  Winners of the National Cartoonists Society's Best Comic Strip of the Year for 1995, Baby Blues creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott continue to entertain readers around the worlds. "If there's one service that we provide, it's to let parents know that they're not alone," says Kirkman. "I think it's comforting for readers to know that no matter how unmanageable life can get for them, Darryl and Wanda probably have it worse," adds Scott.

One More and We're Outnumbered!  follows parenthood classics such as I saw Elvis in My Ultrasound, Guess Who Didn"t Take a Nap? and I Thought Labor Ended When the Baby Was Born. Through them all, endearing illustrations and dead-on dialogue provoke laughs of recognition and keep fans clamoring for more.

  "Artist Kirkman and writer Scott obviously know about parenting. You can see it in every installment of the true-to-life strip they create." —Cartoon Opportunities

  Life's not getting any simpler around the MacPherson household with Zoe starting preschool, Hammie approaching toddlerhood and parents Darryl and Wanda just trying to keep up. Since 1990, the daily comic strip Baby Blues has delighted readers with its fresh prospective on the nature of parenting, earning it 1995's Best Comic Strip Award from the National Cartoonists Society.

  Scenes such as Zoe's disarmingly honest response to a complimentary stranger in the grocery store—"I think you have a really fat bottom"—strike an all-too-familiar chord with anyone who knows a child. And what parent wouldn't recognize the truth in the fact that it took only five seconds for Darryl and Wanda to move all of their valuable possessions (one framed photo) out of Hammie's growing reach?

Baby Blues creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott receive countless letters and e-mails from fans who describe their heartfelt connection to the MacPhersons. Like no other family-oriented comic strip, Baby Blues speaks to millions of people who, like the MacPhersons, experience both the tremendous joy and nagging frustration of being parents.

  "The antics of Zoe really prepared me for my own child, and I really enjoy every one of the Baby Blues books over and over as my child grows. When I feel that life is overwhelming with my baby, I read one of these books and suddenly it all comes into focus, because obviously other parents have gone through the same thing. I have purchased these books for other moms or moms-to-be that I know, and their great books for a baby shower." —A Baby Blues fan

  Is it possible for the MacPherson kids to get any cuter? Zoe excitedly dipping water from the toilet to serve her daddy "tea." Hamish rolling efficiently across the floor instead of crawling. And Darryl and Wanda watching all their antics in worn-out wonder! Who hasn't experienced, or at least witnessed, that final humiliated plea for the check after a restaurant is turned into a war zone by active kids? Well, Darryl and Wanda are there now.

  Since 1989, Baby Blues fans have witnessed the amusing transformation of the career-oriented MacPhersons into realistically warm and wild-eyed parents—from Wanda giving up her job to be a stay-at-home mom to Darryl fitting in daddy duty after demanding days at the office. As demonstrated over and over in Check, Please..., the MacPhersons are no different from many new parents, forced to make adjustments that have come fast and furious.

Darryl and Wanda have the parenting thing down all right, but they still continue to be surprised by the delightfully devilish antics of their two live-wire children. From first steps to bedtime snacks, from shopping adventures to sibling rivalry, Zoe and Hamish keep their parents on the move and the rest of us in stitches.

Baby Blues chronicles the chaotic entertaining lives of the MacPherson clan as they chart a course through the everyday demands of family life. In a style that speaks to parents and nonparents alike, Baby Blues charms its followers with scenes of child-rearing mayhem and devotion. In Lift and Separate, Wanda and Darryl continue to confront the ever-changing challenges of raising two active youngsters.

  "Anyone with children, or anyone who even likes being around children, will find something to laugh about in Baby Blues." —Blade Citizen, Oceanside, CA

  Who can resist adorably wide-eyed Zoe MacPherson? Certainly not her parents, Wanda and Darryl, a mid-thirties career couple who've become mommy and daddy. But, like the millions of parents who flock to this engaging comic strip, the MacPhersons also find parenthood more rewarding—and frustrating—than they'd expected. Each day of this incisive and entertaining comic series, millions empathize with them as they face the joys and demands of parenting.

I Thought Labor Ended When the Baby Was Born is a heartwarming collection from Baby Blues creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott. Developed in 1990 after Kirkman became a neophyte dad, Baby Blues appeals to anyone who's witnessed the eye-opening experiences only a baby can bring. Moms, for example, relate to Wanda, a former midlevel career woman who now stays home full-time to care for the mostly adorable Zoe. Dads connect with rattled-but-determined Darryl, as he still staggers off to an office each day despite mind-boggling changes life has wrought at home. Together, Mom and Dad juggle and struggle to decipher their new relationship, wondering where romance fits in, whether they're "parentnoid," and how they're affecting their daughter.

  Artist Rick Kirkman and writer Jerry Scott know about parenting and provide a hilarious, yet true-to-life, view of this mixed blessing.