Tracy Butler has been the Cat's Meow with her webcomic LACKADAISY which has been nominated for an Eisner Award, the comic industry's equivalent of an Oscar. Based upon the popularity of Lackadaisy, a Kickstarter campaign funded the creation of an animated short film to serve as a pilot to market Butler's stories into a tv series or feature-length movie. That animated short film was just released and is available to view on YouTube for FREE. Check it out!
Set in St. Louis, Missouri in the midst of Prohibition, Lackadaisy features 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.
Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film is the first ever multimedia endeavor from Spike Trotman’s Iron Circus Comics. The short film was crowdfunded to the tune of $330,000, thanks to almost 6,000 backers. It features the vocal talents 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. Theme music by Sepiatonic, the Portland-based music and dance experience that performs Electro-Vaudeville, provide the film’s theme music.
“The shift from sole writer and artist on Lackadaisy to crew member among more than 150 people working on the animated adaptation wsas nothing short of jarring,” remarked Tracey Butler to ageekdaddy.com. “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.”
I have to say that the artwork for Butler's Lackadaisy web-comic is amazing eye candy complimented by a story whose tone and theme are a captivating read. The animation for the short film does an exceptional job of replicating the visual appeal of the web-comics and providing viewers with an intriguing plot. Lackadaisy: The Animated Short Film earns a Geek Daddy nod of approval for being refreshingly original and entertaining to watch. Plus, it is FREE to view!
Good luck to Tracey Butler and Iron Circus Comics in getting their pilot picked up by a television network, streaming service or movie studio! It would be fantastic to see more Lackadaisy adventures produced as an animated tv series or film. For more information about the web-comic and animated short, head over to lackadaisy.com
