A fun theme today, featuring the names of eight comics 'standing up' in the downs. The revealer, STANDUPCOMICS at 33A is thematically apt. Apt!
The fact that the puzzle was written by Mssrs. Trudeau, a father and son team, takes the aptness to a personal level because comics are big in Horace's family. Horace, Sr. (not his real name) is a longtime comics reader and aficionado, an interest he shares with one of Horace's brothers. I read the comics regularly in my youth, but I'm not so much a fan these days - I haven't even heard of TIGER, BABYBLUES, or MUTTS. My particular bête noire, though, if I may, is GARFIELD. Over the years, Horace, Sr. has saved occasional examples of the strip to discuss their merits with me, but I haven't been won over yet. On the other hand, I do enjoy some of the versions of Garfield such as Garfield without Garfield and live-action Garfield.
I thought the clue/answer pairs "Something to stand on" (LEG) and "Material for a mill" (GRIST) were appealingly reconfigured expressions. I also liked 11D. Alfresco theaters (DRIVEINS), 12D. Innocent-looking (DOEEYED), and
47D. Look at, as thou might (SEEST). I was able to drop JPOP right in thanks to another of Horace's brothers, who is a big fan of K-pop. I've never heard of 1969 Super-bowl-winning coach, Mr. Ewbank, but WEEB is fun. I also liked SERENADE and ASPIC as fill.
This puzzle had a couple of repeats from very recent puzzles including ___ Xing (PED) which appeared verbatim on May 9th, while "runt" was just in Sunday's puzzle and we had RUNTS today with similar clues - both puppies, no candies. I also thought it was a little odd to see both ORANGES and ORANG in the same puzzle, but still, IGIVE it a big thumbs up. :)
~Frannie.
3:58
ReplyDeleteA fun romp. I too wondered about TIGER. Was that meant to be a sidelong reference to Hobbes? But no, it was actually a very long running strip that must not have been in the Boston Globe during the years of my ill-spent youth. And of course my favorite by far is POGO.
7:59 (FWOE)
ReplyDeleteI entered BUeNO and never looked at the cross (PeGO), so there you go. I read the same comics as Horace Sr. on a daily basis - those appearing in the Worcester Telegram - and so am not overly familiar with POGO or TIGER, although I have seen examples of the former on plenty of occasions. JERK (37A Schlemiel) is excellent. Nice that MOUSY and RUNTS are adjacent.