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NYT Strands #928 for September 17, 2026 follows the theme “A little comic relief,” featuring titles of long-running newspaper comic strips.
Today’s spangram is THE FUNNY PAGES, a 13-letter phrase running left to right across the board.
The six theme words are BLONDIE, MUTTS, PEANUTS, PICKLES, ZIPPY, and ZITS, all linked to newspaper comics.
Another NYT Strands puzzle is here for Thursday, September 17, 2026. Today’s challenge follows the theme “A little comic relief” and asks players to uncover words connected to long-running newspaper comic strips.
The clues below provide progressive help, allowing players to work through the grid before revealing the complete answers.
The official theme for September 17 is “A little comic relief.”
The theme points to familiar newspaper comic strips featuring recurring characters and everyday humor. The featured strips cover domestic life, pets, childhood, family relationships, teenage life, and surreal satire.
NYT Strands is a word-search puzzle played on a 6x8 letter grid. Players connect letters horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to uncover words associated with the daily theme.
The spangram is the key phrase that captures the puzzle’s overall theme and stretches across the board, touching opposite edges. Players can also find unrelated four-letter-or-longer words to earn hints; three such words reveal a hint highlighting letters from a theme answer.
Today’s main theme hint is:
“A little comic relief”
A more direct way to think about the theme is to look for newspaper comic strips with recurring casts.
Think about:
Domestic life and marriage
Pets and their human companions
Childhood and adolescence
Offbeat and surreal satire
Still searching for the longest answer?
Today’s spangram runs left to right across the board and contains 13 letters. It begins in the first row and starts at the first letter.
A gentler clue points toward the traditional newspaper section where sequential artwork and punch lines appear.
The September 17, 2026 spangram is:
THE FUNNY PAGES
The phrase refers to the familiar newspaper section associated with comic strips and ties together all six theme answers in today’s puzzle.
The complete answer list for today’s puzzle includes:
BLONDIE
MUTTS
PEANUTS
PICKLES
ZIPPY
ZITS
THE FUNNY PAGES - Spangram
Each answer is the title of a newspaper comic strip, with the strips covering different forms of humor and recurring characters.
Some of today’s answers can be particularly deceptive because they also work as ordinary words. ZIPPY, for example, may initially look like a regular adjective rather than the title of Bill Griffith’s surreal comic strip.
The other answers become easier to recognise once the newspaper-comic theme is clear. BLONDIE centres on Dagwood Bumstead and his family, MUTTS features Mooch and Earl, while PEANUTS is known for Charlie Brown, Snoopy and their friends.
NYT Strands continues to offer a different theme each day, with the spangram often providing the strongest clue to the puzzle’s overall subject. Today’s “A little comic relief” theme brings together six familiar comic-strip titles under THE FUNNY PAGES.
For players stuck on Strands #928, identifying the spangram first can make the remaining answers considerably easier to spot.
Also Read: NYT Strands Hints, Spangram, Answers for September 16, 2026 (#927)
