Pink Noire – Chapter 8, Act 2, Strip 51

With the team thoroughly and utterly defeated, time has come for Latho to spring into action again, as Mopey correctly points out.

Although ‘springing into action’ is the wrong phrasing…normally, Latho kinda shuffles into action, because his stumpy, plush-filled extremities don’t allow for a much more dynamic entry than that. Today, however, it staggers into action instead, due to low-level intoxication – a result of currently being engaged in its own, private film noire fantasy. When you’re doing the same thing over and over again, you have to come up with little stunts like that to create a bit of variety for yourself, I guess. And, hey, if you can have Detective Pikachu, how would this mess here be out of bounds? XD

In addition to that psychological aspect, it also creates some visual variety, and I think those more subdued colors are a welcome change for Latho. His base design is a bit unsubtle in that regard, so this is an enticing look at what could have been. Alcoholism looks less good on Latho, though, even if it kinda comes with the territory. And by the logic often applied by moral guardians of all stripes, the fact that Latho’s is a colorful plush animal would make its bad example particularly dangerous for younger members of the audience, so the bottle of booze has been electronically edited out. That effectively protects the innocence of children, who will now simply assume Latho to be suffering from some form of nervous tic which causes him to gesticulate around weirdly while holding an empty glass.

But, ultimately, and staggering or not, Latho is on the way!

More on Monday.

4 Replies to “Pink Noire – Chapter 8, Act 2, Strip 51”

  1. Holding a glass that’s empty in film noir could be seen as symbolic and artistic! Although, I thought it was just filled with vodka as colorless liquid and an empty glass look very similar in animation.

    At least Latho has an astonishingly low bar to clear. Even while intoxicated and off in a completely different genre, it’s still contributing more positively than Sheriff Ketchum ever did (though granted, they DO share a similar physique).

    1. Yeah, that’s true – Sheriff Ketchum had an extended film-noire-fantasy going on, and got precisely nothing done with it. Latho is bound to get more than nothing done, if only because there’s no one else left to get anything done at the moment.

      And it’s also true that the Sheriff and Latho share a somewhat similar shape – with each other, and also with pears. Which only leaves the question, how can one afford acquiring and maintaining such a shape on only $50 a day in America these days?

  2. If someone wears a trenchcoat, they are either a detective or a pervert. So which one is Latho?

    ……
    I’m withdrawing my question.

    1. No need to withdraw it, since it’s answered easily enough: Latho’s clearly a detective. The trenchcoat doesn’t make it a pervert for the simple reason that Latho’s normally wearing nothing at all – and from that low bar, wearing even just a trenchcoat is a step toward less perversion, not more. XD

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