Yes, I’ve always felt that the clues are like tiny bread crumbs that were dropped for us to follow. But whether they were ever intended to lead us anywhere is another matter.

There is an implied irony in the idea of a "wheel of doom". If we follow the clues they will lead only to our own inevitable doom (or "downfall"). In other words they are intended to lead us in circles, thus getting us nowhere.

This may seem a very cynical analysis, but it is the one that I find the most logical at this point in time.

I find this character from the Tim Holt comics very interesting…

These are very nice finds and well worth studying further.

Personally, I consider it very possible (likely, even) that Z was inspired directly in various ways by popular culture: movies, TV shows, pulp fiction, literary classics of a certain kind, comic books, music, etc.

And by directly I mean that he may have easily copied traits and elements he found in such sources (the LB hood being such an example, and a pretty obvious one).

The problem is narrowing the field. We can find parallels almost literally everywhere – and most of these are bound to be coincidental.

The Holt track is well worth pursuing, though. If I’m wrong (which I could easily be), and Z did produce the HC, then this track looks extremely promising and may be precisely what we need in order to narrow the field. There could be something conclusive hidden somewhere in those comic books – a detail which is pretty much unquestionable and beyond coincidence.

Even the cattlebrand theory used to explain the symbol on the Halloween Card fits into the Tim Holt comics (see lower left in the picture)…

Norse wrote:

The problem is narrowing the field. We can find parallels almost literally everywhere – and most of these are bound to be coincidental.

Just to experiment…
Let us narrow the field to only using the Tim Holt comics for finding parallels. Then ask yourself: "How big is the change you see so much Zynchronity in this one source (Tim Holt comics) with only 41 issues?".
Frankly, I never seen one source with so much parallels in it as this source. We will never know for sure if Zodiac was actually interested in Tim Holt comics. But the parallels I find striking.

The Death Wheel In Tim Holt was an amazing find by Tahoe27!!!!

These are very nice finds and well worth studying further.

Personally, I consider it very possible (likely, even) that Z was inspired directly in various ways by popular culture: movies, TV shows, pulp fiction, literary classics of a certain kind, comic books, music, etc. .

You are spot on, as the evidence is clearly pointing us in a certain direction here. Sure some things are not precisely the same as Zodiac’s renditions, and some nit picky people will always be nit picky, but the similarities are so obvious that they cannot be easily dismissed. Generally if something looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well it’s a fairly safe bet that it ain’t an ostrich! Wherever there is a concentration of Z symbolism, that is a good place to go looking for clues. I am sure those comics will reveal even more co-relations with the Zodiac’s writings and symbolism in time.

Some years ago I came up with a possible solution to the "My Name is" cipher that seemed so preposterous at the time that I decided against posting it up for fear of the inevitable ridicule. People always like to find serious solutions to these ciphers, even though the Zodiac was most frequently taunting, ironic and snarky in his writings. The Zodiac was the kind of sicko who could kill somebody and then twist this deadly serious fact into a joke. I am still very reluctant to post up my solution, despite the fact that we are now seriously discussing comic books as a source of influence for the Zodiac. Suffice to say that it comes straight from the pulp fiction and movies of popular culture of the 1950s-60s. I am positive that with all of his ciphers, the Zodiac was merely trying to waste the police’s time and resources and (if they were ever solved) he could still have the last laugh at their expense. I do not believe he ever intended to tell anyone his full name in the ciphers, but he may have hidden a few tiny clues in them, such as initials. His initials may even be in those comic books, staring back at us in plain sight.

Red_Ryder wrote:

I do not believe he ever intended to tell anyone his full name in the ciphers, but he may have hidden a few tiny clues in them, such as initials. His initials may even be in those comic books, staring back at us in plain sight.

Why only his initials? Why not his full name?

A pre-Zodiac attention seeking persona would probably write to the Red Mask’s cave to see his name in print.

There are 14 printed names of writers from California in 54 comics of Tim Holt (and his Red Mask identity).
Here are the names…

Non of the usual suspects show up so probably the pre-Zodiac never saw his letter printed?

There are 14 printed names of writers from California in 54 comics of Tim Holt (and his Red Mask identity).
Here are the names…

Non of the usual suspects show up so probably the pre-Zodiac never saw his letter printed?

What would make you think the writer was from California if the writer was Z? Z could simply have purchased a copy of this comic and never wrote but if he did, he could have written from any state.

Capricorn,

All of the confirmed Zodiac letters were posted from California. I guess he was based there. But you think Z was not from California? Could be. We do not know for sure.

Capricorn,

All of the confirmed Zodiac letters were posted from California. I guess he was based there. But you think Z was not from California? Could be. We do not know for sure.

The comics came out from 1949 to 1954. Who’s to say Z was in California then? Ross was a child back east, for example…

Z could’ve written to the comic book publishers when he was a kid, had his name published, and then, years later, made oblique references to it.

Capricorn,

All of the confirmed Zodiac letters were posted from California. I guess he was based there. But you think Z was not from California? Could be. We do not know for sure.

The comics came out from 1949 to 1954. Who’s to say Z was in California then? Ross was a child back east, for example…

Z could’ve written to the comic book publishers when he was a kid, had his name published, and then, years later, made oblique references to it.

Exactly! So, do you have or have you examined the complete list of all letters written from all states to this comic book? All names need to be looked at but that does not mean that Z wrote to them. He could have just read the comic books. So just because his name isn’t there does not prove anything. Even if we saw names of poi’s such as Allen, Sullivan et al., that does not prove anything either. It would be a very interesting coincindence and make that poi more suspect.

Now that I see the dates these comics came out, I’m surprised my friend had the one copy he showed me as he was from the mid-west, left home to attend college in the mid-west and then came to California to attend grad school at U.C. Berkeley where he graduated in 1962. Now that I’ve known him so many years, I am very surprised he would have saved a copy of any magazine but especially a comic book and then moved it along with him. I’d have thought he’d just left it at his family home when he went off to college if it was something from his childhood he wanted to save. So I think it must have had special significance to him which I now really wonder about.

For what it’s worth, I personally believe none of the "usual suspects" were the Zodiac.

I’ve always had a feeling he did come from elsewhere, hence the "drawl" that Bryan Hartnell recognized in Z’s voice (presuming of course that Z was not trying to disguise his regular voice!).

Capricorn – Your friend may be the Zodiac!

As for the "My Name is -", I firmly believe that this had never been intended to produce a name in the real world. This was just Z "taking the p$ss" out of the police, as always. Please pardon my use of a Commonwealth expression. I guess an equivalent American saying might be "Yanking their chain". It is easy enough to decode, so long as you distance yourself from any idea that it was intended to provide a real world name.

For what it’s worth, I personally believe none of the "usual suspects" were the Zodiac.

I’ve always had a feeling he did come from elsewhere, hence the "drawl" that Bryan Hartnell recognized in Z’s voice (presuming of course that Z was not trying to disguise his regular voice!).

Capricorn – Your friend may be the Zodiac!

As for the "My Name is -", I firmly believe that this had never been intended to produce a name in the real world. This was just Z "taking the p$ss" out of the police, as always. Please pardon my use of a Commonwealth expression. I guess an equivalent American saying might be "Yanking their chain". It is easy enough to decode, so long as you distance yourself from any idea that it was intended to provide a real world name.

OMG! I really have been hoping the Zodiac would have been discovered by now and that it is not my friend! That is why I’ve been following this since sometime in 2009 or 2010. I want to eliminate all suspicion re. my dear friend.

Your use of "yanking their chain" is interesting as I’ve heard him say that as well as "baloney" but many of those expressions were commonly used in those days just like "amazing" is over-used now. I’ve also heard him wish someone a "Happy Christmas" and other words such as "peeking" and "squirming" but that does not make him or anyone else using these words guilty of the Zodiac’s crimes.

Now sorry to go ot here but I’ve posted elsewhere re. the "my name is" which IIRC is at the end of the 340. It starts with "aen." Now this line is very interesting to me when I recall another conversation while we were getting to know each other and sitting on the beach. I’d been asking him about his computer programming skills, where he learned them, etc. among all the other varied topics.

As I remember this, he looked all around as if to make sure nobody was watching us as he prepared to show me how he could write his name or an example of code in the sand. (Don’t remember for sure if he said it would be his name. I’m thinking he just said he’d show me a line of code and then we started playing guessing games of which he was very fond. Finally, he gave me a hint that it was a name or his name which I couldn’t see at first but finally did after he explained it to me.

I do remember asking him what the big secret was and why he wanted to make sure nobody was looking since he wasn’t doing anything wrong and could not imagine why anyone would have thought it was suspicious even if they were. People were busy with their own friends, talking, swimming, sunning, playing volleyball, reading, building sandcastles, eating, drinking and whatever else you’d do in the daylight on a public beach.

He just brushed the question off with something vague mentioning perhaps his security clearance and how he had to watch himself at all times because of his job or something along that line.

One topic we’d talked about earlier was marriage, women keeping their maiden names or using hyphenated names after marriage, celebrity names, etc. Then something came up about obituaries and I remember telling him a woman’s maiden name was referred to as "nee" and that was how you could tell a name following was her maiden name. Now I do remember being surprised at how surprised he was to hear this, saying he’d thought it was pronounced/spelled "nae" and "nee" was pronounced "knee."

Then he started writing this code in the sand and after the guessing games, explained that the beginning of it was his code for "name" but he’d reversed the letters and then said it was like leapfrog. So now I wonder if he hadn’t written "aen" which would have been his way of transposing the letters in the word "nae" which was how he thought "nee" was spelled.

Now I guess I can safely say that his birthdate is 1938 so I wonder if those supposed tauraus signs or eights in the circles were how he’d written part of the rest of his one-liner that he said was his name or his id.

I do remember thinking at the time that he was trying to find out how smart I was as he’d say things like he just wondered how much I knew about some topic or other. It would feel like a test when he’d ask if I knew what something or other meant. Many times he’d say something like he couldn’t believe how naïve I was and that he could tell me anything and I’d believe it which would then make me mad (although I didn’t show it as I thought he was just showing off and thinking he was so smart) and wonder just what it was that he would tell me that wasn’t true. Once he did start drawing symbols in the sand such as the one for male and female and asked me if I knew what they were which I did. Then we discussed math and geometry, pi, squares, rectangles, etc. That conversation ended as best I can remember with his drawing a "Z" in the sand right at the waters edge in between waves and asked me if I knew what it stood for. My first answer was "Zorro?" and then I think he said no and told me it was used for the Zodiac when I then asked him what his sign was (Sagittarius) and his birthdate and he asked me mine.

Now I’m editing to include this memory that just occurred to me after posting and thinking about my comments above. We’d been on the beach a long while and I sunburn very easily. He was always very protective of me, saying he thought I had beautiful skin and he didn’t want me to get burned. So he’d watch the way the sun was moving and check his watch and we’d have to get up and move to another spot on the beach as time went on. (This was before all the dangers of sun rays was commonly known and people would try to get the deepest tan possible, using suntan lotions and oils such as "Coppertone." Sunscreen was almost unheard of then.)

We’d been talking about movies we’d seen, current, past and classic. We talked about "Psycho" and Alfred Hitchcock. One of the classics we’d both seen and mentioned was "From Here to Eternity" with the scene on the beach. It was shortly after this that he drew the "Z" at the water’s edge and explained it stood for the Zodiac and then remember earlier we’d been talking about religion and comparing ours. (I am a Catholic and he is a Methodist. Both have many similarities.) I remember telling him that one of the nuns who taught me in grammar school (Sisters of Charity, B.V.M.’S. who wore a very unique headdress and veil) compared eternity to grains of sand on a beach. Then he drew the eternity symbol in the sand and we talked about more math, square root, higher powers (such as in mathematics). I vaguely remember him saying he thought he knew about that order of nuns as one of them had been a pioneer in computers. Then I told him their mother house or headquarters was in Dubuque, Iowa and how various orders of nuns had different habits and I compared them to uniforms such as the military wear to distinguish one group from another such as army, navy, air force, etc. Then he started talking about how the military and police distinguish themselves within the group such as stripes, medals and badges. He was very interested in symbols and names such as hood ornaments on cars and would often remark about one or ask me what I thought of an unusual name such as Wolf Blitzer.

For me, I just don’t see a lot of western flair in Zodiac’s writings, etc.

There is no doubt about the cattle brand being a worthwhile consideration as it has been discussed for years by a lot of people. But, after having seen that comic book and the way the author put his initials on it, I think the writer of the HC card was just mimicking him.

The HC card was riddling with things copied from it:

Lady Doom: "You are doomed"
The "Red Mask" on the skeleton
By Fire By Gun By Knife By Rope
The "signature"

If one wants to start looking through other comic books (I did this too so not pointing fingers!) we can always find similarities…that is for sure.

It is interesting to read about what people find, and also how now stories come about at how people’s POI’s had this comic book and referred to it…not just you Capricorn.