Grid: 10 minutes; meta: fifteen extra 

Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “I Made you a Pair of Shorts” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re trying a famous cartoonist. There had been 5 lengthy theme entries:

• [17a “The Gods Themselves” author]: ISAACASIMOV
• [23a “The Handmaid’s Tale” novelist]: MARGARETATWOOD
• [38a “Black-ish” and “Law & Order” star]: ANTHONYANDERSON
• [49a Self-described “prairie lawyer”]: ABRAHAMLINCOLN
• [61a “The West Wing” Emmy winner]: JOHNSPENCER

I noticed the theme fairly shortly: every first title has a typical nickname. ANTHONY -> TONY, ABRAHAM -> ABE, and many others. I attempted to map these names again to the grid and acquired nowhere. Then I noticed the clue for CHAIR (“IKEA purchase”), and I had the rabbit gap. Five clues contained the nickname as the primary phrase, plus one extra letter:

WSJ Contest – 09.09.22 – Solution

• ISAAC -> (IKE)A Purchase: CHAIR
• MARGARET -> (Meg)a– or pinch- end: HIT
• ANTHONY -> (Tony)a Harding’s milieu: ICE
• ABRAHAM -> (Abe)l Tesfaye style: POP
• JOHN -> (Jack)s participant’s want: SPEED

The first letter of the mapped grid entires spelled CHIPS. Chip is brief for Charles, resulting in Charles Schulz, our content material resolution. At least I’m fairly certain: I’m not feeling the “lock” that I usually get with the WSJ. “Pair of shorts” additionally threw me off a bit: IKE is brief for ISAAC, and A is brief for ASIMOV (pair of shorts), however JACK isn’t shorter than JOHN. Interesting meta both approach. I favored that the primary preliminary of every final title matched the grid entry:  ISAAC (IKE) Asimov, MARGARET (MEG) Atwood, and many others. Solvers: let me know what you submitted, and if I landed on the best seaside.