Los Angeles-based Secret Movie Club will present the first public screening of the online phenomenon Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film at the historic Million Dollar Theater on Wednesday, August 2. The 27-minute animated film will be accompanied by a Q&A with director Fable Siegel. A special poster featuring new artwork designed by Siegel, Keith Daily and Lackadaisy creator Tracy Butler was unveiled today through Animation Magazine.
Since the film debuted on YouTube on March 29, director Siegel’s animated adaptation of Butler’s Eisner Award-nominated webcomic has been viewed almost 10 million times and caught the attention of the likes of iconic animator and director Ralph Bakshi, illustrator Tyson Hesse and director Lilly Wachowski, who praised the “Lush and Gorgeous” animation and “super fun” story.
Set in Prohibition-era St. Louis, Lackadaisy follows a colorful (if somewhat shady) cast of felines that frequent the Lackadaisy, a speakeasy tucked away in a cave beneath the Little Daisy Cafe. The joint’s packed full of gangsters, flappers, crooked cops, rum-runners and wide-eyed ingenues. And they are, literally, all jazz cats.
The short features the voices of Michael Kovach as Rocky Rickaby, Belsheber Rusape as Calvin “Freckle” McMurray, Lisa Reimold as Ivy Pepper, Ashe Wagner as Mitzi May and SungWon Cho as Mordecai Heller. The theme music was provided by Sepiatonic, the Portland-based ‘Electro-Vaudeville’ music and dance performers.
Originally crowdfunded with $330,000 from almost 6,000 backers, Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film is the first ever multimedia endeavor from Spike Trotman’s publishing label Iron Circus Comics, which has raised nearly $3 million dollars over more than 30 crowdfunding campaigns.
Tickets for the Secret Movie Club screening of Lackadaisy: The Animated short are now available through lackadaisysmc.eventbrite.com.
