PUZZLE #533
MINI-MARCHING BANDS 8
The answers in this grid march both across the Rows and around the Bands. Each row contains two answers, clued in order. Their dividing point is for you to determine, except in Row 5, where the two answers are separated by a black square. The answers in each Band will be entered clockwise, starting at a lettered square (A-D) and ending in the space below that square. The dividing points in each band's string of words are also for you to determine. Each square will be used twice; once in a Row's word, and once in a Band's word.
Once you've filled everything in, read the letters on the diagonal dashed line for the FINAL ANSWER: The name of a newspaper comic character
ROWS
1) Marshy area such as the one where Shrek lives
Synonym for "prance" that rhymes with the previous answer
2) Victory that wasn't even close
Tales from the _____ (influential comic book series)
3) Forever and a day
Monopoly space surrounded by "Just Visiting": 2 wds.
4) Masked swordsman whose name is Spanish for "fox"
"Invisible" singer and American Idol alumni Aiken
5) Beech or birch
Donkey _____ Jungle Beat (Nintendo game where you control an ape with bongos)
6) Cocker spaniel voiced by Peggy Lee in a 1955 Disney film
"Red" flying ace on boxes of frozen pizza
7) Persevere
Org. with Grizzlies and Timberwolves
8) Hoity-toity types
I _____ What You Did Last Summer (Lois Duncan novel)
9) Suffix for "million" or "billion"
Air freshener brand that manufactures PlugIns
BANDS
A) Did the backstroke or breaststroke
Right away without delay
Bit like a beaver
Largest nation in Africa, after South Sudan split off of Sudan in 2011
Alka-_____ ("Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz" product)
B) Public uproar
Keyed instrument played by Rowlf from The Muppet Show
Knocks on the noggin
Annual music festival held in Tennessee since 2002
C) Stealthy Japanese assassin such as Sekiro from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Longtime Saturday Night Live producer Michaels
Boat's steering blade
D) Opening word for a lullaby involving a falling baby: Hyph.
Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!
