I've never met a professional setter (I love that Britishism for "constructor" that Peter taught me in the previous post) but today's Tuesday January 22 puzzle by Adam G. Perl (answers) has pushed me to ponder how one might approach the job. Once again as I do so often in this blog, I'm just going to make it up!
The actual mechanics of fitting theme words appropriately into a grid, doing the fill and creating the clues has been well documented but what comes before that? Like every artist, the puzzle author starts by staring at a blank canvas and asking himself what story he's going to tell today. He glances around the room and then out the window searching for inspiration. He leans his head back and closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. What excites him? What does he love? From where (ok, for this audience "whence") does a warm feeling worth sharing with the world arise? For Mr. Perl, the answer took him back to his childhood, to those magical moments when a D.C. comic completely captured his imagination. Today's puzzle has a Superman theme. And guess what? It brought me back to those same fun memories. Thanks, Adam.
This reminds me of two favorite past puzzles. There was another Superman puzzle back on Oct 31, 2000 by Bill Zais with its pattern of circles in the shape of an S each containing an S. Then there was this lovely puzzle from Jan 1, 2004 by Richard Silvestri. The black squares in the middle form a letter S, the two long answers are clued " S " and " 's ", and to top it off, every single clue starts with S as well. Splendid!
