"Photo Finish" Part 2 Return to Jurassic Park #8 (Topps Comics) Written by Tom and Mary Bierbaum Pencils by Armando Gil Inks by Steve Montano Cover by Michael Golden

Derek and Abby seek to prove Abby’s innocence in the photo fiasco.

Story Summary

Having escaped from Army custody and grabbing Derrick from the dormitory, Abby leads him into the jungle to search for the mail sack she threw out of the helicopter. Bieber and Shandy are also in the jungle searching.

Abby and Derrick find the mail sack in the middle of a dinosaur egg patch and also run into the friendly Ouranosaur (from "Photo Finish" Part 1), which Derrick takes to calling Godzookie. Bieber and Shandy catch up to them as well and gain the upper hand, but then the mother dinosaur, a Parasaurolophus, storms in to protect her eggs. Bieber manages to shoot the dinosaur with a tranquilizer dart but then she crashes on top of the two, asleep. They are unable to crawl out from under the weight and beg Abby and Derrick for help. Our heroes report the incident to General West and his men pull the two out.

The remaining film rolls are found in the mail sack and General West confirms that Bieber and Shandy had planned to sell the dinosaur photos to a U.S. tabloid.

Later that evening, Derrick and Abby are about to share a romantic moment in the jungle when they are interrupted by Godzookie.

DA END

Didja Notice? 

The dinosaurs chasing Abby and Derrick on the cover of this issue are Parasaurolophus.

On page 1, the helicopter landing pad is just a nice, breezy walk from the InGen compound, but in the movie Jurassic Park, it seemed to be quite a bit further away.

The sauropods on pages 2-3 are probably Apatosaurs or maybe Diplodocus.

On page 5, Bieber calls a Stegosaur they've encountered Bessie. This is probably a reference to the dinosaur as if it were a cow, as Bessie is a common name given to a pet cow.

Though not identified as such, judging by its friendliness, the Ouranosaur Abby and Derrick encounter in the jungle must be the same one seen on page 6 of "Photo Finish" Part 1.

On page 7, panel 3, two small dinosaurs with horns on the tips of their noses observe Derrick, Abby, and the Ouranosaur. I'm not sure what species these two are intended to be.

On page 7, Derrick refers to the Ouranosaur as Godzookie. This is a reference to Godzilla's nephew Godzooky from the 1978 Saturday morning animated program Godzilla. Godzooky was sort of a smaller, cuter, bumbling version of his gigantic uncle (Godzooky's parentage was never discussed).

When Abby and Derrick find the mail sack on page 9, there is a small lizard resting on it. From the looks it is probably some kind of dinosaur but it's hard to tell the species from the position it is in. Possibly just another little compy in a hunkered-down position.

On the last 5 panels of page 13, Bieber's and Shandy's skin has been seemingly left uncolored...so, they look like zombies!

On page 17, we see that Bieber and Shandy had a deal to sell their dinosaur photos to the Weekly World News, the same tabloid from which some headlines are seen taped up in Grant and Ellie's research trailer at the Montana dig site near the beginning of the movie Jurassic Park. The Weekly World News was published from 1979-2007 and now features its stories on a website, weeklyworldnews.com. It features mostly satirical, non-real stories. In the context of the Jurassic Park universe, this would have been a true story for the normally satirical paper.

A copy of Weekly World News is seen sitting on the Art Director's desk on page 17. It has two headlines: HORRORS! PIZZA WITH FACE OF SATAN and ELVIS FOUND ON MOON. As far as I can tell the Satan headline is made up, but there was a similar headline to the second, though I don't know the date: STATUE OF ELVIS FOUND ON MOON.

The Art Director has the name plate "Dick Kulpa" sitting on his desk. Kulpa is a cartoonist who really was the Art Director of Weekly World News at the time this story was written (he created the famous Weekly World News character of Bat Boy).

On page 18, Abby refers to Bieber and Shandy as Bieber and Butthead. This is a reference to the animated cartoon series Beavis and Butt-head which was running on MTV at the time.