Cartoonist Tracy Butler’s Eisner Award-nominated work has been adapted into a 27-minute film from Iron Circus Comics, starring Michael Kovach, Belsheber Rusape, Lisa Reimold, Ashe Wagner, and SungWon Cho, featuring Music from Sepiatonic.
Tracy Butler’s Eisner Award-nominated webcomic phenomenon Lackadaisy has been adapted into an animated short film "pilot" from Iron Circus Comics, directed by Fable Siegel. The trailer for the highly anticipated movie has been viewed over 800,000 times since it dropped in January of this year. And, better yet, since this short dropped last Wednesday, it's been viewed more than 3.5 million times. Check it out below!
“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.”
“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.”
Noting the short's viewership numbers since it dropped, Trotman said, "We don't want it to end here. We want to make everyone so much more Lackadaisy. The pilot was just the wind-up; we can't wait to throw the curveball. And It's fantastic knowing the fans are just as excited as we are!”
Set in St. Louis, Missouri in the midst of Prohibition, Lackadaisy features a speakeasy of the same name tucked away in a cave beneath the Little Daisy Cafe. Flashing the club symbol from a deck of cards at the Lackadaisy grants access to all the moonshine and music that could be desired. The joint’s packed full of gangsters, flappers, crooked cops, rumrunners, and wide-eyed ingenues who are all, literally, 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 (Ashe Wagner), rumrunner Rocky Rickaby (Michael Kovach), and the sharp-tongued, fleet-footed con artist in training, Ivy Pepper (Lisa Reimold). The film also stars Belsheber Rusape as Calvin "Freckle" McMurray and SungWon Cho as Mordecai Heller.
And now the wait is over - watch Lackadaisy:The Animated Short Film in its full splendor:
“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 uppercrust inflection of Bradley Gareth's Wick and Valentine Stoke's 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.”
Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film is the first multimedia endeavor from Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics, the trailblazing comics publisher that has raised nearly 3 million dollars over more than 30 crowdfunding campaigns. Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film was originally crowdfunded for $330,000, with almost 6,000 backers. The theme music was created by Sepiatonic, the Portland-based music and dance experience that performs Electro-Vaudeville.
Ahead of the online debut of Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film, Iron Circus Comics launched a pre-launch page for a BackerKit campaign for an all-new Lackadaisy Bookset and Plushies of both Rocky Rickaby and Mordecai.
Source: Superfan Promotions
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