Review: Jurassic Park
Let me start this review by saying that I'm very sorry if my friend J.Mac spent the full $10 dollars on this adaptation of Steven Spielberg's film. Very, very sorry. Secondly, i'd like to point out that this comic book smelled funny upon my opening it, and I hope that's not an indication of what J.Mac has been doing with it.
I'm just sayin'.
We all know the story: eccentric billionaire spends shitloads of money making an island full of dinosaurs, only to have his hopes and dreams shattered when the very first people to visit it are injured, maimed, violently dismembered, and otherwise killed on the premises. Lesson learned? Hardly. There are two horrifically bad sequels to the original Jurassic Park film.
But we're not here to talk about that.
We're here to talk about scenes like this:
Ignoring momentarily the appalling lack of shading, i'm inclined to point out that "RAAAAAAWWWR" and "NOOOOOOOOO" seems to be the running theme of this book. Nearly every character utters/moans/screams it at some point, mostly in their final moments or what they perceive to be their final moments. Even the dinosaurs are actually given speech bubbles to indicate that, yes, they are in fact the characters "speaking".
Because I don't know about you, but without those bubbles I never would have been able to figure out who was saying "RAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWR" and "ROOOOOOOAAAAAAOOOORR" and "HIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!"
Getting back to the art. This is probably one of the most poorly drawn comics i've ever seen. You would think, with this being an "official" tie in to one of the most popular movies of all time, that it would have garnered a better artist. Sadly not. The line art, while not being too horrible unto itself, is so badly inked, colored and shaded that it looks like something a high school senior might do as their final project in art class. The coloring is so poor that it makes the drawings look absolutely flat, which I would expect of a comic that was produced in...say...the 1950's. But this comic came out in 1993, and comic coloring in that time was not nearly this poor.
STEVEN SPIELBERG OBVIOUSLY HATES COMICS AND THE ENTIRE COMIC INDUSTRY.
I must admit, however, that I was impressed with the fact that they left most of the character deaths in the storyline. The movie was PG-13, but the comic industry doesn't really have a rating system like that. So, seeing as how comics have always been considered something "for kids", I was kind of shocked to see even poorly drawn goat intestines and splattering blood on the page. Because apparently it's not okay for kids to see violent death on screen, but looking at a dinosaur rip its claws into a man's bleeding face when it's not moving is perfectly all right.
Ohhhh, priorities.
On a disturbing and politically charged note, the only character death left out was...the black man's. I mean, for god's sake, we see the annoying fat, white dude get eaten! But the poor, token black man? We're left wondering at his fate, as even in the last panel of the comic he is woefully absent. Did he die? Did they intentionally leave his black ass behind? Did he join the dinosaurs in carnage and violence like the 1992 L.A riots? We don't know. We will never know.
THIS COMIC IS OBVIOUSLY RACIST.
I would also like to point out that the creators of this comic should be grateful that the actors of the film didn't sue them for emotional trauma and defamation of character. Because if you put a picture of any actor in the film next to his or her corresponding comic doppelganger...well...it is not flattering. I mean, if all you ever saw was this comic, you would assume that the entire film had been acted by very unattractive men who all look like forty-five year old overweight porn stars. Even the women.
No offense to porn stars.
So, all in all, am I glad I got my hands on this comic? That I got a chance to read a tie in to one of my favorite films of all time? No. No, i'm not. Because I had very fond memories of that film, and now every time I watch it or even think about watching it, all i'm going to see is this:
Thanks a fucking lot, J.Mac. You asshole.
