Holy head-scratchers, Batman! It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s an acrostic!
The initial Superman and Batman comics hit the newsstands in the late 1930s. But most of us of a certain age first encountered these superheroes via the early TV shows:
The Superman and Batman franchises have grown into fixtures of American culture, featured in movies, books, posters, Halloween costumes, and tchotchkes galore.
To find an entertaining quote on the subject, we needed to look no further than Grant Morrison’s 2011 book Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.
It turned out that HEX had also plumbed the depths of this book, creating an acrostic that ran in the NYT in 2012. Long-time acrostics fans may remember the hilarious quote they found:
It was common for … advanced races in pulp illustrations to sport capes, tights, and exterior underpants, as if foremost among the natural consequences of millennia of peace … would be a vogue for knee-length boots on men.
Our quote has a rather different focus, one concerning the wisdom of children, which rather caught our fancy.
We managed to include 8 answers related to this puzzle’s theme. Can you spot them? Our favorite is “echolocate,” the only word associated with bats that seemed to work in this acrostic, and one that lent itself to a mischievous clue (“Use clicks for hunting”).
What did you think about the acrostic as a whole (too hard, too easy, just right), about particular clues and answers, about the quotation, or about anything else?
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After years of enjoying HEX, I have been glad to have the tradition continue. As a NYT subscriber and an xwordinfo subscriber, I look forward to the break provided by the acrostics on the Thursdays they appear,
They all have been excellent and appropriately challenging,
When online puzzling first appeared years ago, I initially clung to paper and pens. But I have grown to embrace online, especially for acrostics, and I appreciate that xwordinfo continues to provide this.
I look forward to many more years of enjoyment. One thing that’s missing is a new team pen name, to follow HEX. I’ll get the ball rolling for “Jane and Dave” and offer “JOVE”. Let’s hear some thoughts from others,
Stopping by to say Hello and thank you. The removable of Acrostics from the NYT website is incomprehensible so I am glad to have access vis xwordinfo.
Today’s acrostic was a tad too easy.
Hi Jane and Dave–Count me as another big fan of your Acrostics, which are fun, literate, and expertly crafted. I wasn’t sure anyone could ever adequately succeed Emily and Henry at the position, but you guys do. I think even the original Acrosticians Doris Nash Wortman and Elizabeth Kingsley would be pleased.
Hello Jane and Dave,
It’s very cool that you have started this blog and as a lifelong lover of Acrostic puzzles, I genuinely believe that you have raised the form to a much higher level by consistently integrating many of the clues with the theme of the book excerpt in often amusing ways. It’s always defied my imagination how Acrostics could even be created going back to the days of Thomas H. Middleton’s ridiculously obscure trivia in the pre-computer age, but I’m amazed you two can add the new layer of thematic connections no matter what advanced computer tools you have access to.
I have a zillion questions about your process, but let’s start with finding the book excepts to use. How did you come upon this week’s, as an example, and what did you have to do to get it to a manageable length?
I LOVED this one. I was stumped for a while because I thought that the theme was very cleverly hidden. Keep ’em coming!
Thanks for starting the blog. I’m glad that the Times found you and that xwordinfo continues to support our access to your work. A fortnight ago was the hardest yet and I almost despaired of finishing. (Never heard a double-breasted jacket called a “reefer,” for example.) That made finally cracking it all the sweeter!
This one was a bit simpler, especially after catching on to the theme very close to the top. Very, very enjoyable, thanks so much!
Hello Jane and Dave, and thank you! I enjoyed today’s acrostic very much and look forward to more. I appreciate the cluing. On first read I was sure the answer to the puzzle master clue was SHORTZ, but once I got far enough along to understand what universe this quote came from, I got the actual answer.
I am also very pleased that the two of you have been carrying on the Acrostic tradition from HEX. I was worried that the change in constructors would cause too much dislocation in my acrostic-solving pleasure, but happily you seem to be hitting roughly the same sweet spot, while still putting your own spin on the puzzles. I am very happy that you’ve taken up the challenge of starting a blog where we can discuss the acrostics – it’s nice to feel this sense of community.
thank you so much for carrying on the Acrostics. I’ve enjoyed your puzzles on Xwordinfo. I like acrostics that really stump me, so that I have to really ponder. I could even imagine going a little more obscure in some of the clues than you did in today’s. The harder the better, in my opinion! Thanks again for your contributions.
I’m also a huge fan of acrostic puzzles – it’s my favorite puzzle format by a long shot. And I know I’m far from alone in that. Given the NYT’s recent actions, I wonder if there isn’t some kind of way to allow fans like me to financially support an acrostic-dedicated site? By the way, I echo the comments that you all are doing a great job! (I do also like the ones that put up a good fight) Thanks!
FWIW – there is an acrostic published every four weeks on the Wall Street Journal site as part of their Saturday variety puzzle rotation:
– https://www.wsj.com/news/types/variety-puzzle
The most recent one is for May 18. Access to the puzzles doesn’t require a subscription, but you do need to be a WSJ subscriber to post comments.
A big thank-you from me as well for keeping us acrostic lovers in puzzles and for providing this forum for us to comment. I was introduced to the form in the 1960s by the Kingsley Double Crostics in the Saturday Review and have enjoyed them ever since. Today’s puzzle was a treat, as I grew up with TV’s Clark Kent and have secretly carried a torch for Batman for years. I appreciate your wit in incorporating references to the quote in the clues. Finally, I ECHO Barbara C. above: don’t be afraid to make things hard for us, whether in the clue-writing or in the vocabulary words used.
I’ve been a fan of acrostics for at least 30 years, and have known Jane and Dave almost that long. Dave and I did word puzzles together on long flights for our work. He even devised a crossword for my retirement! I was so thrilled to hear they’d taken over for Emily and Henry. As other commenters have said, they haven’t disappointed, and now this blog takes acrostic pleasure to a new level. I really appreciate knowing how they find the right excerpt — one that can be trimmed to fit, suggests interesting clues, and leaves us with a chuckle or food for thought.
Thanks, Dave and Jane, for your Acrostics and for starting this blog. I’m a newcomer to these puzzles but I am totally smitten. My special friend and I have being doing them together for the last couple of months. We love the puns and enjoy cooperating (as well as competing, I must admit) to find our way to a solution. They have been plenty hard for us!
Dear Friends — We’re so grateful to all of you who have written in so far. Thanks so much for your kind words and constructive feedback. We are glad that this forum has launched and appreciate your engagement.
A couple of you asked about our approach to finding this week’s quote. In brainstorming possible themes, we hit upon the idea of superheroes. We cast about the internet for books on this subject, and discovered Grant Morrison’s work. There are sites that contain book quotes; we found this week’s quote on one such site.
For a quote to fit the NYT grid, it must be between 209 and 216 spaces long (letters plus black squares). This week’s quote required only the elision of a single word. This is unusual. In most cases, we must elide long phrases, sometimes losing colorful passages along the way. In those cases, you can find the full quote on xwordinfo, just below the grid — after you’ve solved the puzzle.
In general, many author/title combinations simply don’t work because they are too long or too short (the combinations must contain between 22 and 26 letters). And many quotes also don’t work, because they cannot be edited down and still remain entertaining or meaningful. Plus, the final quote must contain all the letters in the author/title combination. So, there’s a lot of trial and error.
One of you asked how you might financially support an acrostics-dedicated site. The best way we know would be to contribute to xwordinfo, which not only carries the current NYT acrostics, but all previous ones as well back many decades.
TOUCHÉ! Super puzzle, man! KAPOW! Or should I say “Über puzzle, mensch!”? OUCH! Q drove me batty … I thought you were after a term for online shopping. UGGH! Very well done, as always! WHAMM!
What a great puzzle! I had fun and learned some new words, always a worthwhile endeavor. Thanks, Jane & Dave; I’m hooked!