The Book of Bill

The Book of Bill directly builds on and often references the 2012-2016 show Gravity Falls. Bill Cipher was the primary antagonist of Season 2 of Gravity Falls, and many of the details within the book—his henchmaniacs, the Zodiac prophesied by the Shaman, the Nightmare Realm, and more—all directly appear in the show, although often with less detail and backstory. Gravity Falls centered on 12-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines, sent to live with their great uncle, “Grunkle” Stan, for the summer. This event is revealed in The Book of Bill to be because their parents are divorcing. Stan runs the Mystery Shack, a laboratory-turned-house and tourist trap.

Over the course of two seasons, Dipper and Mabel explore Gravity Falls’s weird, mystical, and often dangerous terrain, discovering magical creatures and strange secrets about the town’s history, land, and people. Dipper’s storyline focuses on three journals by the Author, revealed in season two to be Stan Pines’s twin brother Stanford, who Stan has been pretending to be for 30 years after Stanford was sucked into a portal to the Nightmare Realm. After Stanford returns, Bill manipulates Mabel into opening a rift between realms, allowing him to initiate Weirdmageddon, although Gravity Falls’s protections prevent him from enacting his apocalypse outside of the town’s borders without a code from Stanford’s brain. After navigating the weird horrors of Bill’s fantasy, Stanford and Stanley trick Bill into going into Stanley’s mind, whereupon Stanford erases Stanley’s memories, supposedly killing Bill with it. Stanley slowly regains his memories with his family’s help, and Bill remains frozen in a petrified statue in the middle of the Gravity Falls woods.

Gravity Falls created an enduring fanbase and impacted the animation industry long after its release. Part of the fan appeal was due to the cryptograms and puzzles buried in every episode by creator Alex Hirsch, encouraging fans to solve mysteries and form theories of their own. For example, Bill appears in a flash during the opening of every episode, and cryptograms revealing secrets or jokes relating to each episode are encoded during the end credits. Additionally, in 2016, Alex Hirsch launched “The Cipher Hunt,” a real-world scavenger hunt based on the actual photograph of Bill’s statue at the end of Gravity Falls. Hirsch used clues, ciphers, and social media to encourage fans to explore worldwide to find the statue of Bill, placed on a property in Reedsport, Oregon, with a treasure chest full of varied, mostly Bill-related loot. The statue of Bill has since been relocated to Confusion Hill in California.

Bill Cipher’s immense popularity was, however, something of an accident; he was not intended to be the primary antagonist during the writing process. Only his popularity after his appearance in Season One encouraged centering him as the villain of Season Two. Bill has subsequently been received as one of Disney Channel’s best villains and even made a reappearance in an episode of The Simpsons, with Alex Hirsch reprising his voice role, wherein he tries to sell cryptocurrency to the Simpsons (and the audience).