Do you like puzzles?
Do you like a little light socializing on a Saturday evening?
Do you like pictures of adorable kitties?
Well, two out of three ain't bad.
Sunday Puzzle Warm-up is a companion to the regular Sunday Puzzle series. The aim is to introduce people to the kind of puzzles featured in the weekly Sunday Puzzle series and to provide introductory-level puzzles for folks to practice on.
All right: time for the
Absentee Tip Jar
I'm away (raking blueberries in Maine) but I've queued up diaries to auto-publish during my absence. I won't be able to take part in these diaries, but I think you'll be able to solve the puzzles without any help from me. (And if you do have any trouble, the answers will appear in the next week's diary.)
There's a theme to these puzzles which are appearing during my absence: the answers (i.e. the verticals) spell out the titles of noteworthy current comic book series.
The first answer (6 weeks ago) was Near Death. The second answer (5 weeks ago) was Thief of Thieves. The third answer (4 weeks ago) was Mind The Gap. The fourth answer (3 weeks ago) was Batwoman. The fifth answer (2 weeks ago) was Invincible. And the sixth answer (last week) was Daredevil. So those aren't the answer this week. What is? Have fun finding out!
Meanwhile the ever-delightful pucklady will be hosting Sunday Puzzle in my absence, so you're in for some fun times! Be sure to look for the Sunday Puzzle diary each week.
Enjoy tonight's puzzle, and I'll be back posting live on September 15.
And now for tonight's puzzle...
Here you go -- the clues for tonight's puzzle.
(If you're not familiar with how these puzzles work, don't panic! An explanation, and an example of a solved puzzle, are provided right below.)
1. English bathroom
2. craft tool
3. depression
4. children's game
5. farm animal
6. be a bad winner
7. massage
8. Aaron
9. beast of burden
10. when this follows, it often refers to the day before
11. balanced
12. at no time
13. youth
14. set down
15. famous epic
16. arrange
17. circle
18. rule
19. regret
20. encourage
21. rush forth
For those of you unfamiliar with this kind of puzzle, what you do is solve the clues and write the answers in rows. In tonight's puzzle there are 3 answers per row.
Each word in a row contains all the letters of the previous word, plus one new letter. Write the added letters in the space between the word which doesn't have it and the word which does. The vertical columns created by the added letters will spell out a word or phrase. (In the case of the series of these puzzles appearing during my blueberry-season absence, the verticals spell out titles of noteworthy current comic books.)
As an example of how it works, here are the clues and answers to last week's puzzle:
THE CLUES TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. forbid
2. poet
3. revealed
4. slowly or surely
5. Paul or Brown
6. price markdown
7. bargains
8. those who go first
9. Rush
10. pneumonia-like disease
11. retail chain
12. light emitters
GRID FOR LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
1. --- [ ] 2. ---- [ ] 3. ----- [ ] 4. ------
5. --- [ ] 6. ---- [ ] 7. ----- [ ] 8. ------
9. --- [ ] 10. ---- [ ] 11. ----- [ ] 12. ------
ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK'S PUZZLE
bar D bard E bared V adverb
Les A sale D deals I ladies
ass R SARS E Sears L lasers
The verticals read
DAR EDE VIL -- which, properly spaced, spells out
Daredevil, a Marvel comic currently being written by the extraordinarily talented Mark Waid and well worth reading again.
(I would have loved to use Incorruptible or Irredeemable, both of which were created and written by Waid, as the answer to one of these puzzles. Both of those were extremely good. But both of those recently wrapped up.
The complete runs of both are, of course, available in a series of trade paperback collections. These would make fine additions to your local library, so you might consider requesting they add these to their shelves. Highly recommended!)