Here's a Sudoku puzzle with a theme.
How to get a theme into a number puzzle?
By substituting letters for numbers, and drawing a picture with them.
If you were directed to this page from a forum or mailing list, do post how long it took you to solve it, and whether you enjoyed it or would like to see more. But please don't spoil the puzzle for the next guy by posting a solution.
Sorry this isn't workable on your screen, but if you'll print out a hard copy of this page only the puzzle should print out, and not the text.
Each row, column, and 3x3 composite block of the puzzle will have one of each of the 9 letters used in it. To make it more interesting, one of the border rows or columns, or one of the principle diagonals, will spell out a nine-letter word, name, or phrase, and you'll need that to complete the puzzle; it may go either forwards or backwards, up or down. Beware, letters may repeat in the solution (see below for how that could happen), so some letters in the puzzle may be decoys, and the Secret Word may not be a simple anagram of the letters used in the puzzle.
A Sudoku puzzle consists of a 9x9 grid, divided up into 9 smaller 3x3 squares. Each row, column, and each
of the nine smaller squares will then contain one each of all 9 characters used in the puzzle. Normally,
the numerals 1-9 are used, but for this variation, which I call a Pseudoku, 9 letters are used instead.
A few letters are given to start you off, and then you need to use logic to figure out which letters can go
in each of the remaining squares. 
For this puzzle,
only enough letters have been given to get you about half-way done.
To complete the puzzle, you need to determine the Secret Word (or name or phrase), which
will appear along the top or bottom row, or one of the edge columns, or one of the diagonals through the
center of the grid; it may go either forwards or backwards, up or down. Once you've figured out the Secret
Word and placed it in position, the remainder of the puzzle will be fairly easy to complete.
If the Secret Word runs through a diagonal, or if there are only 8 letters, then it's possible for the same letter to show up more than once in the solution, and one or more decoy letters may be added to the mix, so the Secret Word might not be a simple anagram of the nine letters in the puzzle.
If the puzzle has only 8 letters, the ninth 'wild card' will be a repeated letter like the E in SEEING or in the word EYE, Beware, the two copies will NOT be interchangeable!
For an extreme example, the 9 letters ABCDEFHIU could result in a Secret Word of CHIHUAHUA which only uses the letters ACHIU, with the extra letters BDEF being decoys.
For another example, the 8 letters STINGREY could result in a Secret Word of SEeING-eYE, with the lower-case e being the 'wild card' missing letter, and the letters T and G being decoys. Remember that in a word like this, the E and e will not be interchangable.
Names may appear as just the last name (Aniston); first initial, full last name (J.Aniston); full forename, last initial (Jennifer A.); first two initials (if well known) and full last name; etc. They may also contain abbreviated titles, like Dr., Capt., Rev., Jr., and so forth. (Unlike the examples here, they will always total to 9 letters in length.)
If a Secret Word has more than one doubled letter (and thus, more than one decoy letters) or if the doubled letters are both in the same group of 3 (123|456|789, so that they would both be in the same 3x3 box) then the Secret Word can only be placed along a diagonal. Since there are fewer 9-letter heteroglyphs (words with every letter different) than there are non-heteroglyphs, this means more words are available for diagonal solutions than for border solutions. To try and keep a balance between where the Secret Word is located, heteroglyphs and words with only one repeated letter will almost always be used as border words.
If there are only 8 letter given, the missing letter will never be a 'wild card' which is not in the Secret Word.
I've considered letting the missing letter be a word break, such as a hyphen, apostrophe, or space, or even a letter that you'll have to guess the Secret Word to get. But for now, you can depend that a missing letter will always be a second version of another letter you already have in the puzzle.
Ideally, every picture should have two letters revealed along each diagonal and border row and column. Sometimes this just isn't possible, but I go to great lengths to assure that each of the 6 potential Secret Word locations has at least one starter letter minimum, and at least 4 of the 6 have no more than 3 starter letters maximum.
During the first half of the puzzle, before the Secret Word must be guessed, at least two additional letters will be revealed along the path of the Secret Word, but not more than 6 of the 9 letters total, including starter letters. The Secret Word (or at least part of it) must be guessed to complete the remainder of the puzzle.
For those of you who are aware of advanced solving techniques, these puzzles can always be solved using just the simpler techniques — naked single, hidden single, and naked pair. Sometimes an advanced technique like naked quad, X-wing, swordfish, or XY-wing may get a solver a step or two further before the Secret Word has to be guessed, but they will never be required.
So far, I have categories of Masonic, NewMexico, NMM (NM Mason - all of the two preceeding categories, plus a few that overlap both, like NM Lodge names), Pets, Music, Names, Misc, and Grab Bag. If you request a random puzzle by category, the number will be given; but if you request one by number, you'll have to guess the category from the picture. Some puzzles are in more than one category,
Here's the solution to the puzzle above. Press [Ctrl]+[A] or drag your mouse between the two stars below to see it.