The December 4, 1969, Chaparral has a very strange page titled “Life is Good,” a recurring astrology article in this era of Chaparrals, with a hippie cartoon logo for its typography. The layout for this particular article is quite unique and includes a bunch of registrations marks across the middle of the page. Registration marks are often used in print production, and as stated before, are also the circle and cross symbol Zodiac used to sign his letters.

The page also feels special because it ends with a quote quite similar to my memory of Richard Gaikowski’s opinion on astrology:

Life is also bad. Astrologers have always known that day, hours, and stars determine men’s lives. Monday night proved that they are right.

The entire reason I looked into the Zodiac case, was because Richard got so angry at me when I poopooed his statement that Reagan rose to power because he had the best astrologers. This out of charachter moment truly was “The Only Time Richard Got Angry at Me.”

Returning to the Chaparral page, “Life is bad,” refers to the title of the article. “Monday night” refers to the draft numbers that had just been picked in Washington, determining the birthdays of those to be sent to Vietnam.

I had seen this page before, but I really didn’t think it was anything worth noting. There were rolls of registration mark tape all around a paste up room. Someone thought it was cool to paste them into the layout. And it was about the draft, and who would die, so the gun-sight imagery worked. I did not mark this page down as a Zodiac coincidence.

But late in the process of this book, I returned to this page to answer a question that had developed in my mind: How many registration marks were on this article, and how many victims was Zodiac claiming at this point in time?

I found the page and I saw what I feared. By then I had become so familiar with the Zodiac timeline that I didn’t even have to verify that in early December of 1969 Zodiac was claiming seven victims, so of course I wasn’t that surprised when I saw seven registration marks, or Zodiac symbols if you rather, across the center of the layout.

Now it was widely reported in the press that he was claiming seven, so anyone could have put seven there, intentionally or unintentionally. Yet again, another funny coincidence. But it does make one wonder…

Full issue linked here: https://chappie125.com/Media/v071n6.pdf