LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Read That Back to Me”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer, which is eight letters long, is a category of people that includes many cartoonists.
Answer: SARCASTS, found by 371 solvers, of which 325 were solo solves

First of all: Big round of applause please for this guy (aiming two thumbs at self) for writing a proper Week 2! I did it! Took three tries, but in the end we did get a month with a Week 1, 2, 3, and 4. This month I shall try to do the same, only 1) in order and 2) with a Week 5 at the very end.

Last week a couple of solvers sent me a recent xkcd comic by Randall Munroe with a crosswordy angle. Of course I thought “meta idea!” and wondered how best to make it work. As you can see if you clicked on the comic, the cartoonist came up with eight letter strings that, were they decent-enough crossword entries, would certainly have appeared in a thousand puzzles by now. They were:

AETE
ENI
ORETA
AROE
OINE
AEN
ENTA
AERAE

I strongly suggested solvers look at the strip before solving, then super-strongly re-enforced that at the omega across’s clue (“Beloved Randall Munroe comic; you really should go check out that strip I linked to in the puzzle e-mail now if you didn’t before”) whose answer was XKCD.

“Read That Back to Me” was our title; “back” was the operative word here, and indeed each of these eight hoped-for grid entries can be found backwards in the real grid entries. In the usual top-to-bottom order they are:

17-A: [Quality of hedgehogs and armadillos] = SQUATNESS (hiding ENTA)
24-A: [Hypothesized dinosaur whose name means “ancient thief”] = ARCHAEORAPTOR (hiding AROE)
32-A: [Got back together] = RETEAMED (hiding AETE)
42-A: [1990s “SNL” character who was a pastiche of two famed talk-show hosts played by Dana Carvey] = CARSENIO (hiding OINE)
47-A: [Sleeping issue] = APNEA, hiding AEN
48-A: [Descriptor for some sonnets] = SHAKESPEAREAN (hiding AERAE)
54-A: [Strong string] = TWINE, hiding ENI
56-A: [Cabin on a cruise] = STATEROOM (hiding ORETA)

The first letters of those eight entries spell contest answer SARCASTS, found by 371 solvers. Not as familiar a form of the root as “sarcasm” and “sarcastic” but with so many constraints I was happy to find it!

BenChen71 writes:

Thanks for the week 2 puzzle! 😉

You are most welcome!

Ale M says:

And we have a week 2! Straightforward, but with an extra hitch. Nicely done!

I’m the Week-2 master!

David Stein says:

Victory!! An actual Week 2!!!!

I know! Super-psyched about it myself.

ProgChamps notes:

I’d say a solid week two!!! 😛

As would I! Moreover, I hereby officially declare the Week 2 Curse to be broken! Smooth sailing from now on. [Sweating nervously]

And now, on to Week 1 of 5 in March:

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

No instructions given here because there are no-instructions solving options available this week.