|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The cat’s out of the bag! The world of Tracy Butler’s Eisner-nominated webcomic phenomenon is ready to come alive in the highly anticipated Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film! Premiering on YouTube on March 29 at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT, the 27-minute film is presented by Iron Circus Studios and directed by animator Fable Siegel (The Midnight Gospel, Hazbin Hotel).
“The shift from sole writer and artist on Lackadaisy to crew member among more than 150 people working on the animated adaptation was nothing short of jarring,” said Butler. “The amount of work laid out before us seemed impossible at times. Meanwhile, a global pandemic raged in the backdrop. It was the best time of my life. Throughout production, it hasn’t escaped me that I’ve been existing on some surreal plane of privilege and luck. To be surrounded by a team of incredible artists, all collaborating with me to imbue these characters, this story and setting with all of the motion, voice and music I dreamed in my head? Amazing. I hope viewers will enjoy the film even fractionally as much as I have loved making it.”
In the ramp up to the premiere, Animation Magazine has scored an exclusive clip from one of the short’s nailbiter scenes. A pre-launch campaign where Lackadaisy fans can support the project and snag stylish hardcover comics collections and limited edition plushies has also gone live on BackerKit today.
Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film is the first ever multimedia endeavor from Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics, the trailblazing comics publisher that has raised nearly $3 million over more than 30 crowdfunding campaigns. The short was originally crowdfunded to the tune of $330,000, thanks to almost 6,000 backers.
“Tracy Butler is a visionary cartoonist and storyteller,” said Iron Circus’ Spike Trotman. “The Lackadaisy webcomic has been running online since 2006 and it has developed a devoted, passionate fanbase whose enthusiast support helped fund the production of this incredible short. In working to produce Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film, our intention was to create an experience that would both thrill the comic’s devoted fans and introduce a whole new audience to the adventures of Rocky Rickaby, the fan-favorite criminal kitty, Mordecai, and the loveable cast of Lackadaisy.”
Synopsis: Set in St. Louis, Missouri in the midst of Prohibition, the comics center on the Lackadaisy, a speakeasy tucked away in a cave beneath the Little Daisy Cafe, where flashing the club symbol from a deck of cards grants everyone in-the-know access to to all the moonshine and music they desire. The joint’s packed full of gangsters, flappers, crooked cops, rum-runners, and wide-eyed ingenues. And they are, literally, all jazz cats.
The sepia-toned story features action and adventure, comedy and crime, and a colorful (if somewhat shady) cast of felines, including the Lackadaisy proprietors Atlas and Mitzi May, rumrunner Rocky Rickaby, and the sharp-tongued, fleet-footed con artist in training, Ivy Pepper.
The voice cast includes Michael Kovach as Rocky Rickaby, Belsheber Rusape as Calvin “Freckle” McMurray, Lisa Reimold as Ivy Pepper, Ashe Wagner as Mitzi May, SungWon Cho as Mordecai Heller, Benni Latham as Serafine Savoy and Malcolm Ray as Nicodeme Savoy. Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film features theme music by Portland-based “Electro-Vaudeville” music and dance experience Sepiatonic.
“Michael Kovach, Belsheber Rusape and Lisa Reimold bring with them an infectious energy as chaos trio Rocky, Freckle and Ivy,” said director Fable Siegel. “Benni and Malcolm both sell themselves so well as the hitmen duo Serafine and Nicodeme Savoy that you could swear they really were sister and brother, the perfect foils to SungWon Cho’s dry stylings as fan favorite, Mordecai Heller. Mitzi’s southern ennui is conveyed with natural smoothness by Ashe Wagner, balanced well against the upper-crust inflection of Bradley Gareth’s Wick and Valentine Stokes’ sarcastic, smooth talking Zib. And if any voice could grate parmesan via auditory oscillation alone, it would be Jason Marnocha as Viktor, the once-muscle now bartender.”
Learn more about the world of Lackadaisy at lackadaisycats.com.
