Baby Blues: Hammie, are you using your electric toothbrush in there?

And so, at the distressingly young age of six, Hammie has discovered the joys of anal stimulation.

Baby Blues: And brown--I shoulda rinsed the bucket first.

The coloring is correct in this comic. This hardly ever happens even when the coloring should be obvious, let alone when there's something tricky going on, as with this brown water that's not actually revealed to be brown until the last panel. I can only assume that Baby Blues is one of the few comics the colorist actually reads before going to work on it. Kirkman and Scott should feel both proud and grateful.

Baby Blues: Hello? Wanda? Are you there?

I would be remiss if I failed to note that even "hip" comics like Baby Blues* love themselves a good "Eek, a mouse!" gag.

*Only 20 years old!

Baby Blues: I think we have a mouse in the house.

Gender stereotypes! They never get old!

Also, either this is a repeat from my very first week of comics blogging (one whole year ago!) or creativity is not Kirkman and Scott's strong suit.

Basically the whole comics section: You can't go to bed now!

These comics are all hilarious because midnight sure does come late, doesn't it?

Baby Blues: Tony, the kid who never goes home.

The Family Circus used this gag a while back. Who wants to take odds against Baby Blues doing it better?

Baby Blues and Cathy: Do I look different? 'Cuz I think my life just peaked.

This comic is hilarious because Zoe is going to grow up to be Cathy.

And these comics are both hilarious because women measure their self-worth by their footwear.

Baby Blues and BC: So that's the secret, eh?

The use of puppy dog eyes is a bizarrely common device in the comics section, made even more bizarre by cartoonists' complete inability to draw them in a non-creepy way.

Baby Blues: The tolerance of pain is in direct proportion to the proximity of the mom.

I like this comic better than when it was a Family Circus cartoon. Part of it is that Baby Blues has moderately better characters. A bigger part of it is that Baby Blues has more space to work with, which allows it to set up the joke in a clearer way. And most of it is that Jeffy's line feels false, whereas Hammie's reactions seem more true to life.

Baby Blues: This is going to be the best show and tell ever!

I never would have thought to apply the standard Keane family perversions to Baby Blues, but I'm starting to get concerned.

I suppose it's nice that Hammie's proud of his mother's naked body?

Baby Blues: Oh, she touched it all right!

I am unsure what to make of Hammie's reaction to seeing his mother naked.

Baby Blues: Anyway, that's what it feels like to be me lately.

Considering that Jerry Scott created both of them, it's not surprising that Baby Blues and Zits are very similar strips. And so pretty much everything I wrote about Zits here applies to Baby Blues, too. The characters are sometimes too broadly archetypal (though, slightly sharper than the characters in Zits) and it sometimes leans too heavily on relatability, but the drawing is often terrific.

Such is basically the case with today's installment. The image in the second panel is just top-notch absurd humor. The faucet-breasts, in particular, are especially funny.

Baby Blues: It was an accident.

This comic is hilarious because children lie.

Baby Blues: This isn't a living room...it's a landfill!

In my admittedly limited experience, playing basketball and Jenga at the same time is always a recipe for disaster.

Baby Blues: She's all yours!

Sometimes the joke is word-based. Other times, like in today's Baby Blues, it's image-based.

That baby is crazed.

Baby Blues: Never get sarcastic with an animal lover.

First of all, mice only sort of like cheese. The idea that it's their favorite thing in the whole world is one of those common knowledge things that's actually largely incorrect. Common knowledge is funny like that.

More importantly, though, Velveeta is not cheese. Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that it is.