LAST WEEK’s PUZZLE:

Title: “Lost Art”
Prompt: Instructions: this puzzle’s contest answer is a five-letter art form beloved by my son, Tilghman, who turns 9 today. Good luck!
Answer: MANGA, found by 455 solvers, 440 of whom were solo solves

A little crunch for a Week 1 of 5! First we had two normal grid-spanning theme entries:

13-A: [What you call a really scummy guy?] = DIRTBAG NAME
24-A: [Protective pasta around a castle?] = LASAGNA MOAT
And then the third one got weird: 30-A: [How this art form is read, including twice in this grid] =TGHIROTTFEL

So that’s LEFT TO RIGHT, which is how manga cartoon are published and read, and we see MANGA written the same way in our two upper themers.

THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE:

Today’s puzzle is Week 2 of 5 in October.

Instructions: this puzzle’s contest answer is a Greek letter. Good luck!