New York Times, Thursday, May 1, 2014

Aside from thinking about other-worldly things on a daily basis as an astrophysicist, this puzzle started by noting how good of a revealer SPACE INVADERS would be. The ET rebus idea came immediately afterwards, and I thought about making a little "Space Invaders" alien from the ET squares. That didn't work so well, so then I tried making a UFO, which turned out much better. However, all of my theme real estate was in the middle of the grid — I needed something else. When the COW idea hit me, I changed SPACE INVADERS to ALIEN ABDUCTION and was off to the races.

Having the revealer at the top of the puzzle helped my theme material span the whole grid, while putting it through the middle or at the bottom made for really tough construction. This of course ran the risk of giving away the theme too early, so I made the clues in the Northwest as tough as I could. As for the rest of the grid, having immovable ETs everywhere proved best accommodated by amping up the black square count. Hopefully I struck the right balance between having too many short words and having a junky grid. I was particularly pleased to work two rebus squares into ETICKET.

I feel that so much of this puzzle hinges on the COW square, and was happy that Will preserved my approach not to indicate its presence in any way but rather let it be discovered as the final touch to the theme. He did add the fantastic descriptor "an eerie rural legend" to my original 1-Across clue, which motivates it a little more.

This puzzle is my first (but hopefully not last!) in the NYT. I'm still a little surprised this screwball of a puzzle was accepted, but am thrilled to have the opportunity to share it.

A debut! Nice work from Brandon today, a visual puzzle representing an ALIEN / ABDUCTION of a... cow? I wasn't familiar with this particular urban legend, but sure enough, the truth is out there. At least according to the Google. How or why this all started still mystifies me. Sure is amusing what stories people will tell!

Fun concept, forming the shape of a UFO with ET rebus squares. I also liked the fact that Brandon mixed it up with the single COW rebus — too often a rebus puzzle with a single type of rebus square can get a little boring to fill in. Man oh man though, did I struggle with that COW square (the last one I filled in). I imagine if I had heard of cows being abducted before, it wouldn't have been a problem?

Overall a smooth product, well done for Brandon to have avoided most of the crosswordese that debut authors tend to let slide (especially given the high constraints). Not only does he have to put his nine ETs in the shape of a UFO, but he has to put a COW in as well. That in itself takes up a lot of his black square allotment (to make the middle of the grid fillable), so the NE and SW are forced to be themeless-like subsections. All in all, a pretty good effort of filling those tough areas. The SW is really good, but the NE does suffer slightly with the OSOS/NSC/UPA trifecta. Not that the NSC is bad or anything (to all NSC eavesdroppers, I LOVE the NSC more than pudding!), but among with the other glue-y entries, it tends to be more noticeable.

I'm usually of the opinion that cheater squares should be deployed whenever they help smooth out a grid's fill, but today I paused when I first opened the file. Two pairs of cheaters, like in the very left and right of the puzzle, hardly ever bother me. Likewise, I usually shake off a pair in the center, hardly even noticing. But when there are four pairs (two on the perimeter, two in the center), those eight extra black squares become noticeable for me. Personal opinion, but the overall effect looks not as elegant as I would have liked, especially given that you don't want to overwhelm the UFO what with all the black squares. It all becomes clear when you connect the ETs, but ideally the UFO would be a stronger visual.

Interesting to me is that this isn't the first time ET has been used for a rebus, but the other time (in the Shortz era), Liz Gorski used it for something completely different. That one had perhaps the most perfect title (FRENCH CONNECTION) I've seen for a puzzle.

And finally, a couple of beautiful entry/clue pairs. [Site of many hangings] is often used for ART or MUSEUM related answers, but here it's talking about a CLOSET. Nice! And even better is FIREEATER, whose clue made me laugh. Gave me a warm feeling inside, that it did. (wah wah)

Congrats again on the debut!