XLIEE = EXILE

CERKW = WRECK

GAMMUN = MAGNUM

ROYREN = ORNERY

CARTOON ANSWER:

AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF THE YUAN DYNASTY, MANY IN CHINA WERE —

ILEWCMGMONE = “WELCOME-MING”

Happy Friday everyone!  After waiting all week for a more challenging puzzle, it finally arrived.  It wasn’t the clue words that gave me trouble, it was the cartoon answer and I’ll get to that in a moment.  David chose excellent words this morning and those that are new to the game may have had trouble with a couple of them.  ORNERY has been used in the past but it was jumbled so well that it took me a couple of extra seconds to decipher.  With all of the clue words solved it was straight to the cartoon.  Upon seeing that the solution was in quotes and that it contained a hyphen, I didn’t even attempt to guess the answer and went straight to work on the solve.  No words jumped out at me while looking at the clue letters so David did a great job of keeping the final solution cryptic.  After a minute or two of waiting for something to jump out at me, I decided I’d read the dialogue and sentence again for clues.  I picked up on the word “vase” in the dialogue and that’s when MING came to mind.  It was in my letters so I crossed them out and WELCOME was right there for the finish.  What a fun and interesting puzzle and I hope that you enjoyed it just as much as I did.  Have a great day my friends and I’ll see you tomorrow!  😃