Masootz IMO bc the "racist" letters didn’t use the N word or really any derogatory terms. He referred to the black children as "little people" when he had every chance to call them something derogatory. Even on the bussing letter he calls them "blacks" not the N word. So we can infer that he changed his MO as he claimed and targeted minority children without directing derogatory terms toward his victims. He never called his female victims sl*ts or the B word (from what I can remember). He seemed to be more about the content of what happened to his victims rather than calling them names. He did call Cheri "stupid" however which seems like a juvenile term to use. It also signals that it is important to him to feel more smart than his peers and especially his victims. It’s about him being omniscient and omnipotent as if he’s a god and everyone else is a dumb sheep.

I don’t think Z was solely racist or motivated by race at all, but I do think he got off on striking fear into specific groups of people at different times (terrorism). I think he figured that the people of ATL would be so up in arms that it would cause a bit of helter skelter there – all bc of his letters and claims. Who knows if he even killed those kids. Doesn’t matter. He just likes to have entire cities in the palm of his hand and in fear bc of him. He works with the demographics and hang ups of the city that he intends to target. He is a domestic terrorist and serial killer rolled up into one.

so either he changed his MO entirely or he wasn’t the author of the atlanta letters. i’ll go with not the author. the original point of this thread was attributing the zodiac symbol to a racist symbol. again, he showed no sign of being racist so i don’t think the zodiac sign was intended to represent the racist symbol.

There have been many ideas about where he got the symbol from, the Celtic cross being an obvious source. Something called an Odin (Norse god) cross too, which is similar to the Celtic cross, and which is also favored by white supremacist types.

I doubt he belonged to a racist group – or got his symbol from that scene – myself.

The Zodiac watch is another possible source. I kind of like that one myself. I think much of what he based his "persona" on was less than ideological – and more about stuff he found striking (and menacing) in one way or another. Zodiac strikes me as very childish in many ways.

Re: The watch. I suppose that symbol is based on some sort of idea about the actual zodiac – and there is some precedence for this: A crossed circle representing the four seasons is sometimes used as a very basic sort of zodiac circle, IIRC.

Perhaps he was mainly into the symbol because it looks like a gun sight/cross hairs – and then realized it also looked like the watch symbol, and bingo: He had a name-o (too).

Yup, when I was younger I used to D&D with a character that used a symbol like the Zodiacs. No, I didn’t sign it on letters to the editor or use it as a persona. It was just a symbol that I "came up with."

The cross and the circle are two of the simplest symbols to create, but can convey so many meanings, and have been used by every group and culture in every period of human history. So yes, I’d call that one coincidence.

Z’s comment about a "shabbly dressed negro" is interesting. It makes me wonder if he did not want anyone to make a connection between his Lake Berryessa attack and the fatal police shooting of George Baskett, an African American, on September 29th, 1968 in downtown San Francisco. The San Francisco Express Times had heavy coverage of the trial and subsequent acquittal of the officer involved in the shooting.

For my money, Zodiac got his name & symbol from the watch. By the way, laying this watch over the Mt Diablo Map, do the lines & arrows on the watch line up at all with any lines,radians,etc?

It’s too good not to be true.

It could also be coincidence though. He might have seen the ads for those watches. He might not have. It could be subconscious on his part. As we’ve seen over the years there are hundreds of instances where the symbol is used in branding to print production and beyond. The combination of the name and the symbol, to my knowledge, only exist in the watch brand in it’s simplest and most similar form. Even at that there could be variations on it for other things.

He could have chosen the name and the symbol independent of each other and liked that they worked together but not realized that the reason they worked was because he’d already seen it but not registered that fact. In the years that I worked on brand creation I encountered many examples of this in both my own work and others. There’s a finite amount of ideas and most have been used. You start off with ideas about what you want to convey and the images/shapes/forms/subject matter which are relevant to the idea and can be crafted into a brand. You work on your options and variations. You narrow it down then begin to craft and refine that idea. Then, once you are satisfied with your creation … you discover, sometimes months later, some b**tard had the exact same idea and thought process you did lol.

There will always be similar. Sometimes nearly identical. The best you can hope for is that your own take on it makes it unique enough to be a viable solution in brand terms. Zodiac may well have managed that. In our circles at least the name and the symbol are synonymous to him.

Z’s comment about a "shabbly dressed negro" is interesting. It makes me wonder if he did not want anyone to make a connection between his Lake Berryessa attack and the fatal police shooting of George Baskett, an African American, on September 29th, 1968 in downtown San Francisco. The San Francisco Express Times had heavy coverage of the trial and subsequent acquittal of the officer involved in the shooting.

Yes. But if we remove the idea that Gaikowski was Zodiac from the equation, what remains is this:

The Baskett incident takes place, on Sep 29 1968, and is heavily covered by the press, including (not surprisingly) the radical/counter culture papers.

Z refers to a "shabbly dressed negro" who supposedly witnessed him making the phone call after BRS.

Z attempts to stab two white college kids to death on Sep 27 1969.

Doesn’t seem to be anything there.

Let’s assume Gaikowski was Z, then. What you propose is this: He was worried about the connection (between LB and the Baskett shooting) being made (but why exactly was he worried about this?). So he decided to include the "shabbly dressed negro" remark in his Aug 4 letter (but what exactly would he accomplish by this? Would it have been likelier that someone would have made the anything but obvious connection if he had NOT mentioned the guy?), i.e. several weeks before LB – meaning that he had already decided to commit the latter attack on the anniversary of the Baskett shooting (but why exactly? And why didn’t he attack on the actual anniversary if he wanted to highlight it for whatever reason, in spite of being worried about the connection being made?).

I fail to see the logic of this extraordinary scheme.

yea morf thats a bet I would at least cover..zodiac boats is another possibilty if one believes of a Z military connection..

It’s too good not to be true.

It could also be coincidence though. He might have seen the ads for those watches. He might not have. It could be subconscious on his part. As we’ve seen over the years there are hundreds of instances where the symbol is used in branding to print production and beyond. The combination of the name and the symbol, to my knowledge, only exist in the watch brand in it’s simplest and most similar form. Even at that there could be variations on it for other things.

He could have chosen the name and the symbol independent of each other and liked that they worked together but not realized that the reason they worked was because he’d already seen it but not registered that fact. In the years that I worked on brand creation I encountered many examples of this in both my own work and others. There’s a finite amount of ideas and most have been used. You start off with ideas about what you want to convey and the images/shapes/forms/subject matter which are relevant to the idea and can be crafted into a brand. You work on your options and variations. You narrow it down then begin to craft and refine that idea. Then, once you are satisfied with your creation … you discover, sometimes months later, some b**tard had the exact same idea and thought process you did lol.

There will always be similar. Sometimes nearly identical. The best you can hope for is that your own take on it makes it unique enough to be a viable solution in brand terms. Zodiac may well have managed that. In our circles at least the name and the symbol are synonymous to him.

Trav….WOW! As ZEE rest of us I have no clue on how Mr Zodiac decided upon his trademark….But BOY…did he ever pick a winna?Sure makes me wonder what he is responsible for marketing in real life? Hell…he’s probably written numerous books,screenplays….anythimg is possible I presume?Jeez….Trav..you might of been rubbing elbows with Zodiac and not even have been aware of the fact?Scary just thinkin’bout it! Ju neva know….

screenplays?

Funny that you should post here MIGHTYQUINN with that avater, since that is the symbol of the racist White Power organization National Alliance. In the case of it’s founder William Pierce, it’s intention is supposed to be an inverted "peace sign."

I assume that you are using it because it’s the Norse rune for the letter Z. Kinda sucks for you, huh? But that goes to show the coincidence again.

Funny that you should post here MIGHTYQUINN with that avater, since that is the symbol of the racist White Power organization National Alliance. In the case of it’s founder William Pierce, it’s intention is supposed to be an inverted "peace sign."

I assume that you are using it because it’s the Norse rune for the letter Z. Kinda sucks for you, huh? But that goes to show the coincidence again.

AVATER……Say huh?

Trav….WOW! As ZEE rest of us I have no clue on how Mr Zodiac decided upon his trademark….But BOY…did he ever pick a winna?Sure makes me wonder what he is responsible for marketing in real life? Hell…he’s probably written numerous books,screenplays….anythimg is possible I presume?Jeez….Trav..you might of been rubbing elbows with Zodiac and not even have been aware of the fact?Scary just thinkin’bout it! Ju neva know….screenplays?

I don’t know tbh. There are a few things in Z’s approach which hint at a possible graphic or creative/commercial influence if not background. One of the often used words that was around when I started out in design was plagiarism because, as I’d already mentioned, there are a finite amount of ideas and ways to portray them, you can’t always have an original idea. Some subject matter barely even allows for it and sometimes the best idea has already been used. That’s where the creative part of the process comes in.

There might even be a hint at that in it’s simplest/laziest form with Zodiac’s choice of name and symbol. He might well have lifted them directly from the watch branding or at the very least been aware of that brands existence. I say this because if you look at how he uses the name and the symbol he doesn’t combine them to reproduce the brand. He uses the name, and the symbol is separated and used as a visual ‘signing off’ device. The one time they are combined is on the ‘Pines Card’ and even then he seems to take measures to avoid visual plagiarism because the name and symbol are reversed compared to the brand for Zodiac Watches.

If this is indeed the case he has not simply ‘stolen’ his name and symbol off a watch. He has re appropriated it to brand himself.

Question for Deb or Tahoe. Was the allegation that he got his name & symbol from the watch ever printed in the papers and was it by Paul Avery? It would be interesting to see if it was and when to see how it coincides with the ‘Pines Card’ and it’s ‘closest’ to the original brand construction.

As for rubbing shoulders. It seems unlikely given my age and location. Even if it turns out that Z was Gaik that opportunity occurred 4 years before I was born.

Funny that you should post here MIGHTYQUINN with that avater, since that is the symbol of the racist White Power organization National Alliance. In the case of it’s founder William Pierce, it’s intention is supposed to be an inverted "peace sign."

I assume that you are using it because it’s the Norse rune for the letter Z. Kinda sucks for you, huh? But that goes to show the coincidence again.

AVATER……Say huh?

In the interest of public health and safety I am going to field this one. You have to be clear on message boards what you are asking. You have to be clear that you are actually asking something because this post could be construed in two ways.

1. What does AVATER mean?
2. What does AVATER[sic] mean?

For No 1. The explanation and correct spelling can be found here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(computing )

If it’s No.2 I would suggest caution as your own bespoke spelling choices are arguably ‘deplorable at best’. Glass houses and all that.

Travis, your comments remind me of something I read once…"the most creative people are the ones who are best at hiding their source material." Seen this way, Zodiac strikes me as somewhat unimaginative since he didn’t alter the stuff he "borrowed" from others — watch symbols, comic book materials, etc.