From this article in the Connection Newpapers we learn the reason why Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead comic strip is featuring more real locations around America.
While the comic strip has been around in one publication or another since the late 1970s, only recently has Zippy been featured in places that actually exist. Griffith said after Zippy began appearing in local places around his home town of San Francisco, his regular readers began sending him photographs of unusual Americana which Griffith would draw into his strips.
“Zippy and I are not interested in visiting McDonalds or Disneyland,” Griffith said. “We want to visit the imitation McDonalds or [the imitation] Disneyland.” He added that, “It appears as though Zippy has escaped into the real world.”