Paul_Averly do you have a source for Graysmith’s job description? His being in charge of taking the pictures of the Zodiac letters is something I’ve never heard before. I know that the Chronicle had staff photographers, why wouldn’t this be their job?

I have looked through dozens of issues of the Chronicle and have never once seen Graysmith being credited for a photo.

And no doubt Graysmith would have made everyone quite aware of his duties there. Graysmith’s job was political cartoons. This is what he tells us.

The letters were shared with newspapers after law enforcement photographs them.

PA–what exactly has Tom made up?

You must have edited your post as I was writing my reply. Your right, Thomas Horan is probably the worst person you could find for a source. Just hearing it other places doesn’t count.

The stuff comes in, they call the cops, the cops photograph it, check it for prints, etc., then decide if it will be shared with newspapers. Newspapers all over the country got their hands on these photos because the cops released them.

For example (bottom right): http://www.zodiackiller.com/DCHR.html

Addressing RG’s comments from YB only (my replies based on scans from this site and ZK.com):

"double postage" — Double-posted 340 envelope appeared in the Chronicle.

"Inverted stamps" — Belli envelope, 6 stamps rotated 90 degrees, the Chronicle.

"‘Please Rush to Editor’ with a downward slant" — The slant is hardly a signature trait…"Please Rush to Editor" — again, the 340 envelope.

"placed the odd punctuation colon after ‘yours truly’,’" — "yours trul(e)y:", Exorcist letter. Hardly a point in its favor that the author cribbed from a recent letter.

"used no punctuation after the salutation" — The Times-Herald photo-reproduced the full letter they received, those letters all began with "Dear Editor" sans punctuation.

"put everyone else’s name but his own in lowercase" — Other than the unconfirmed Crackproof card with "attn: Paul avery," WTF is Graysmith talking about?

"The letter contained Zodiac’s strange spacing between words and letters and used a style of d and three-stroke k used in 1969." Sorry, those small Ds look nothing like Z’s to me, the droopy ones or the tidy ones. Has anyone ever located this "d" in an authentic Zodiac letter?

The general public had access to the majority of every letter Zodiac ever wrote.

I don’t think negatives were necessary back then. They ran simultaneously in newspapers. I believe there was another way of doing it.

The general public had access to the majority of every letter Zodiac ever wrote.

I don’t think negatives were necessary back then. They ran simultaneously in newspapers. I believe there was another way of doing it.

Ever notice that the yellow book contains pictures of Z letters that were never published? How did Graysmith get his hands on those? Did he walk into the FBI and grab a few copies for himself? Is it really that hard to believe that Graysmith, who worked at the Chron, might have had access to those images at the paper?

Is that really something you need to be skeptical of?

You don’t even understand what you are talking about in regards to photo reproduction yet you don’t stop arguing a nonexistent point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography

You don’t need to continually reply being so rude and condescending.

I am told they used an entirely different process. Feel free to educate yourself through wikipedia.

You don’t need to continually reply being so rude and condescending.

I am told they used an entirely different process. Feel free to educate yourself through wikipedia.

I did educate myself, the process they used was the lithographic printing process. It involved taking a lithographic photo of the letter so it could be etched into a plate for printing.

What other process was there in 1969? Hand carving the 408 image into wood? Drawing a copy of it in each copy of the paper? You were told they used a different process. You refuse to believe it could be a photographic process, so what process was it? I would really like to know.

Remember that scene in Zodiac 2007, near the beginning in the meeting. The editor says "lets shoot the code and call SFPD."

He didn’t mean shoot it with a BB gun, he suggested they get a photo of it for printing.

But I guess Tahoe can’t be convinced of anything.

You don’t need to continually reply being so rude and condescending.

I am told they used an entirely different process. Feel free to educate yourself through wikipedia.

I did educate myself, the process they used was the lithographic printing process. It involved taking a lithographic photo of the letter so it could be etched into a plate for printing.

What other process was there in 1969? Hand carving the 408 image into wood? Drawing a copy of it in each copy of the paper? You were told they used a different process. You refuse to believe it could be a photographic process, so what process was it? I would really like to know.

Remember that scene in Zodiac 2007, near the beginning in the meeting. The editor says "lets shoot the code and call SFPD."

He didn’t mean shoot it with a BB gun, he suggested they get a photo of it for printing.

But I guess Tahoe can’t be convinced of anything.

So, no negatives then, the photos were reproduced from a zinc plate. Why did you say in a previous post-

"That responsibility fell on the very department that Graysmith worked in. Even if he didn’t press the button, he still had access to the film negatives."

Sounds like your learning as you go. Maybe you should get your ducks lined up before you make a series of posts about something your not sure of and can’t source.

Then they had plates, not the point. The point is that the Chron had a way to reproduce the Zodiac letters and print them in the paper. And just because the current high resolution photographs of the Z letters are from the FBI, doesn’t mean the Chron didn’t have their own copies.

Therefore Graysmith had a way to assess the letters. Print them in the yellow book, and forge the 1978 letter.

Exactly.

What happened to the negatives? THAT was the different process I was talking about, but the snide remarks just had to come out…

I like how you now say "that isn’t the point". You tell me I don’t know what I am talking about? This is why I’m not so easily convinced by people who like to tell you how it is when they truly don’t know themselves.

Still willing to bet that the plate was made from a form of photo negative or reversal film. But why waste time on this site anymore?

I have no doubt that Graysmith did have connections, not only at the paper but also in law enforcement and they probably did give images to Graysmith to include in his book when he was writing it. But to come up with some unverified story about Graysmith taking pictures of the letters when they arrived at the Chronicle and then having negatives when negatives are not part of the process of publishing is just wrong. You mentioned Graysmith having the negatives to publish the photos in three or four posts. You make yourself sound very desperate to be right even when your wrong.

I wish someone who knew more about 1960’s printing processes would chime in.

Even though the plates are Zinc, to create the plate in the first place, a light base photo process had to be used. So they would have to use a photographic process to get a transparent image to create the plate. This would have to be some form of negative of reversal film.

So no, I’m not wrong. I used the word negative to simplify, but should have said "some form of camera film."

Glad to see so much faith put into "someone said they used some other process." Whatever process they used, it was done at the Chron, where RG worked.

So no, I’m not wrong. I used the word negative to simplify, but should have said "some form of camera film."

No, you were wrong. You used the word negative because you didn’t know what you were talking about until you were pressed by me to source your statements. It was at that point that you looked up the photographic process at newspapers.