Mystery of history
Zodiac author Robert Graysmith speaks
By Robert Newton

It was 1968, in San Francisco. Robert Graysmith was a cartoonist.

“I was 24 then,” Graysmith explains, “and one of the youngest cartoonists working for a metropolitan newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. I figured that a lot of the modern greats learned on newspapers and moved on from cartoons to creating fine art, so I would, too. Then, the strange letters started.”

These strange letters, written in a variety of different codes, were sent to the Chronicle and two other area newspapers, and were intended for publication. They were from a man who claimed to be responsible for three murders that year, a man would later identify himself as, simply, “Zodiac.”

Robert Graysmith was then a detective.

Graysmith’s penchant for solving puzzles, his convenient proximity to Chronicle reporter Paul Avery and his obsessive nature put him in the center of the Zodiac storm. However, official investigators would not really recognize this dedicated civilian’s value as an information source until years later, after two best-selling books, Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked.

“Nobody was sharing information,” he says, “so I decided to go out, like a cartoonist would, and enlist the public, but here to catch a killer.”

Robert Graysmith was then a crusader, a job that has continued, to some extent, to this day.

While Arthur Leigh Allen — the man that Graysmith believes to be Zodiac — died in 1992, the story does not end there. The case has still not been solved, and the legend behind it continues to grow.

“The case is not unsolvable,” Graysmith contends. “There are still unbroken ciphers and new information all the time, and with this film, we are about to see the obsession with it pass on.”

While the Zodiac case has captured the imagination of the public and filmmakers since it was fresh news — Dirty Harry was loosely based on it and S.F. supercop/Graysmith pal Dave Toschi — no treatment of it has been more than peripheral or exploitative. That is, until now.

“[Director] David Fincher said, ‘I’ll make your film, but I want truthful, not commercial.’ He wanted to find [itinerant Zodiac survivor] Mike Mageau again…and did, in a Las Vegas in jail. While Mike is ill, he is now telling his story in depth.”

Graysmith is no stranger to having his work used as the basis of a film — Paul Schrader based his 2002 film Auto Focus on Graysmith’s book The Murder of Bob Crane, to Graysmith’s ultimate delight — but this is the first time that the author has been depicted on-screen.

“I just saw the film for the first time,” he notes. “I remember speaking those words, and it was kind of eerie. Jake Gyllenhaal plays me in the movie, and apparently, I was obsessed, deferential and shy.”

Se7en and Fight Club director Fincher’s dedication to his work and attention to detail made him a natural to direct Zodiac, and it was this attention to detail that makes the film such an immersive (albeit unconventional) experience.

“The old Chronicle newsroom was a city-block long,” Graysmith remembers. “Everything was authentic – the light fixtures, old typewriters, the molding, the U-shaped copy desk. Everything worked – old phones, drinking fountains, elevators and pneumatic mail tube stations. The desk drawers were even stocked with Chronicle notepads and Eagle pencils. Yet who would know the difference all these years later if those details were wrong? David Fincher would.”

The effort pays off nicely, and represents a turning point for the author, who is preparing one last book on the subject, Shooting Zodiac — this one about bringing the story to the screen.

“I’m satisfied,” he says of this lifelong pursuit, which has spanned nearly 40 years of his life. “I can now walk away.”•••