This is my favorite page in this story. Our heroes are back in France after a disastrous trip to Africa where the macguffin (a glass photographic plate) is taken away from them. Despondent, they are walking down the street when Dina spots a man on the street who looks just like the explorer in the photograph.

From there, we get to this page, where they stage the photograph in a little studio with a guy that Dina knows who happens to have a camera that can produce the exact kind of photographic plate they’re looking for. Yes, one of them gets painted black so he’ll look like a native and I’m not sure how a cactus looks like a zebra’s head (or what a zebra is doing in the jungle), but the whole process goes by so fast that it’s just easier to go with it.

And the twist in the last panel is that the maid accidentally breaks it. You’d think that because she was so used to working for a man with a collection of photographic plates that she’d be more careful, but noooo.

(Heavy Metal issue #102, September 1985 – Page 19 Elephant Cemetery by Chaland)