Bravo!
A really good theme subtly buzzes you with some ahas and hmmms about words and concepts. Jeff Chen's puzzle does that. We all get that cats are sexy, so we know why Diana Rigg and Halle Berry and CHER parade around in a CAT SUIT instead of a DOG suit and why we say TOM-CATTING instead of DOGGING. [Ed.: Oops..wait a minute on that one...] But why exactly is it COPY-CAT instead of COPY-DOG (or COPY-APE) and CAT LADY instead of DOG LADY? Is there some kinda deep structure logic to the CAT hidden inside of RAT CATCHER or is just a v. nice coincidence? Same question about the way CAT slides smoothly into CATHER, MUSCAT, DELICATESSAN, and STAYCATION (v. nice, that one), while DOG is an obdurately unmixable three letters that stand aside from the rest of the English language, panting with tongue hanging out?
A really good theme has more than verbal cleverness. There's also a spatial, visual element. Jeff's theme has an exceptionally good visual. The hidden cats in the four plus signs are v.v. nice. Bravo!!
A really good puzzle is something more than a one-off. It reflects the creative artistic vision of a constructor. Haven't been MetaRexing long, but have been doing it long enough to remember Jeff's x-puzzle some Sundays back. There is a clear, powerful link between the verbal-spatial imagination behind that puzzle and the imagination that came up with "Black Cats." Bravo!!!
As usual when I have strong reax to a puzzle, I'm v. interested in Rex...
Yep to Rex, yep to RexReaxers...
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