Lackadaisy (film)

Last updated
Lackadaisy
Lackadaisy (film).webp
Official poster
Directed byFable Siegel
Screenplay by
  • Tracy Butler
  • Fable Siegel
Story byTracy Butler
Based on Lackadaisy
by Tracy Butler
Produced byTracy Butler
Starring
  • Michael Kovach
  • Belsheber Rusape
  • Lisa Reimold
  • SungWon Cho
CinematographySara Fisher
Edited byFable Siegel
Music by
  • Sepiatonic
  • M Gewehr
Production
company
Distributed byIron Circus Animation
Release date
  • March 29, 2023 (2023-03-29)
Running time
27 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$330,256 [1]

Lackadaisy is an American independent animated period crime-heist short film based on the webcomic Lackadaisy by Tracy Butler. It is directed by Fable Siegel, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Butler, and follows the rivalry between the titular speakeasy and Marigold gang, two bootlegging groups who are smuggling alcohol during Prohibition. The short film was released to YouTube on March 29, 2023, [2] and was crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign. [3] It was met with widespread acclaim for its animation, voice acting, music, characters and historical accuracy.

Contents

Plot

In a feline-populated St. Louis, during the Prohibition of 1927, bootlegger Roark "Rocky" Rickaby performs his violin while reciting his poetic memoir to the Mississippi River. After finishing his recital, Rocky joins up with his cousin Calvin "Freckle" McMurray and their close friend Ivy Pepper to dig up a coffin loaded with whisky from one of their suppliers. By the time they load the bottles into their car, they are ambushed by the rival Marigold gang, consisting of former Lackadaisy member Mordecai Heller and the Cajun Savoy siblings: Nicodeme and Serafine. In the ensuing chase, Freckle disables Marigold's car with his Tommy gun, but Mordecai forces them off the road and into the Sable mining quarry.

The trio takes shelter and Ivy repairs the car while Freckle holds off Mordecai. Rocky wanders the quarry and manages to rig a steam shovel into driving itself while maniacally hurling dynamite to drive the Marigold gang away, accidentally causing a flood by destroying a water tower. However, everyone manages to escape. Mordecai aims at the group as they drive away, but decides not to fire after noticing Ivy at the wheel.

At the Lackadaisy speakeasy, the owner Mitzi May expresses her laments to the portrait of her deceased husband Atlas as she recalls how big their business used to be. She meets with her employees and her guest, Sedgewick "Wick" Sable, the owner of the quarry. She asks him for financial help, though he politely refuses to maintain his public image to the community. Rocky, Freckle, and Ivy return with only three bottles intact from the fight. Opposed to Rocky's efforts for approval, Mitzi reluctantly expresses displeasure with the short amount recovered, but states she is happy they came back safely. Rocky and fellow musician Zib play music while Ivy performs a dance with Freckle, during which Mitzi reminisces about how thriving the club was in Atlas' time.

In a post-credits scene, Mordecai calls his superior Asa Sweet, and reports his and the Savoys' failure to recover the supply, and that one of their suppliers has crossed them to sell to Lackadaisy. Sweet suggests that they may need to tie up this loose end before the government catches wind of their operation.

Voice cast

Production and release

In 2020, the short film was crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign. [4] The campaign was originally intended to raise $85,000 for the creation of a ten-minute short, but scored four times its intended budget. [5] According to the creators, more than 160 "skilled artists across the world" [2] became part of the short film's production.

The trailer was released to YouTube on January 16, 2023, [6] followed by the short film proper on March 29. [7] On July 11, it was announced that the film would receive its first theatrical screening followed by a live Q&A with the creators at the Secret Movie Club theater in Los Angeles on August 2. [8]

Reception

The short film has received widespread critical acclaim. Before its premiere, Samantha King of Screen Rant said it would "capture the hearts of...comic...[and] animation fans" and capture the charm and style of the original webcomic. [9] Mercedes Milligan of Animation Magazine described it as "highly anticipated", [10] Rob Bricken of Gizmodo as looking "incredible" [6] and Madeline Carpou of The Mary Sue describing it as "adorable and fun". [11] After the premiere of the film, Jamie Lang of Cartoon Brew described the "very charming" effects left from the animation process, and the "significant aesthetic differences" between the webcomic and film. [2] BJ Colangelo described it as "ridiculously impressive", praising the character designs and animation, calling it "the next big thing in adult animation", and arguing that studios would be "foolish" to pass up the film becoming a series. [12]

Legacy

Music video

On August 5, 2023, a lyric/music video based on the short film, titled "Liquid Gold" by England-based artist PARANOiD DJ featuring Michael Kovach, Belsheber Rusape, and Lisa Reimold, was released. [13]

Web series

Following the short's success, a crowdfunding campaign for an animated web series began on the BackerKit platform in late July 2023, and a teaser for the show's first season was released to YouTube. [14] [15] The series reached its $1,000,000 goal a week into the campaign, with enough money to fund a full 5-episode first season. [16] [17] By the end of the campaign in late August 2023, Iron Circus had received $2,008,728 from over 16,000 backers, resulting in the addition of 3 mini-episodes, as well as Blu-ray sets containing the first season, as well as the pilot/short film. [18] The series is currently in production, set to debut in 2024. [19]

Related Research Articles

The term independent animation refers to animated shorts, web series, and feature films produced outside a major national animation industry.

<i>Chicken Run</i> 2000 animated comedy film

Chicken Run is a 2000 animated adventure comedy film produced by Pathé and Aardman Animations in partnership with DreamWorks Animation. Aardman's first feature-length film, it was directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park from a screenplay by Karey Kirkpatrick and based on an original story by Lord and Park. The film stars the voices of Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Tony Haygarth, Miranda Richardson, Phil Daniels, Lynn Ferguson, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, and Benjamin Whitrow. Set in the countryside of Yorkshire, the plot centres on a group of British anthropomorphic chickens who see an American rooster named Rocky Rhodes as their only hope to escape the farm when their owners want to turn them into chicken pies.

Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was an American visual effects and computer animation studio based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded on February 22, 1987 by Chris Wedge, Michael Ferraro, Carl Ludwig, Alison Brown, David Brown, and Eugene Troubetzkoy after their employer, MAGI, one of the visual effects studios behind Tron, shut down. Using its in-house rendering software, the studio created visual effects for commercials and films before dedicating itself to animated film production. It produced 13 feature films, the first being Ice Age, released in 2002 by 20th Century Fox, and the final one being Spies in Disguise, released in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Jones-Quartey</span> American writer (born 1984)

Ian Jones-Quartey is an American animator, storyboard artist, writer, director, producer, and voice actor. He is the creator of the animated series OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, based on his Cartoon Network pilot Lakewood Plaza Turbo, which ran on the network from 2017 to 2019. He is also known for his webcomic RPG World and his work on Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and Bravest Warriors.

Cartoon pornography, or animated pornography, is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional cartoon characters in erotic or sexual situations. Animated cartoon pornography, or erotic animation, is a subset of the larger field of adult animation, not all of which is sexually explicit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-François Laguionie</span> French animator

Jean-François Laguionie is a French animator, film director and producer of animation.

The Street is a 1976 animated short film by Caroline Leaf for the National Film Board of Canada.

Regular Show is an American animated sitcom created by J. G. Quintel for Cartoon Network. It ran from September 6, 2010, to January 16, 2017, over the course of eight seasons and 244 episodes. The series follows the daily lives of two 23-year old friends, Mordecai and Rigby, who work at a local park as groundskeepers. Their coworkers are Skips, Muscle Man and Hi-Five Ghost. Other characters include: Pops, a lollipop-shaped man and the park's manager, and the duo's boss Benson, a gumball machine. The duo spend their days slacking off and avoiding work to entertain themselves by any means, which leads to surrealistic, extreme and supernatural misconduct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. G. Quintel</span> American animator

James Garland Quintel is an American animator, storyboard artist, director, writer, producer, and voice actor. He is best known as the creator of the Cartoon Network series Regular Show (2010–2017), in which he voiced Mordecai and High Five Ghost, and the HBO Max series Close Enough (2020–2022), in which he voiced Josh.

<i>Lackadaisy</i> Webcomic by Tracy Butler

Lackadaisy is a webcomic created by American artist Tracy J. Butler. Set in a Prohibition-era St. Louis with a population of anthropomorphic cats, the plot chronicles the fortunes of the Lackadaisy speakeasy after its founder is murdered. The comic mixes elements of comedy, crime and mystery. It won multiple Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2007 and 2008, and in April 2011 it was nominated for the Eisner Award for "Best Digital Comic".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XDragoon</span> Comic series by Felipe Marcantonio

XDragoon is a series created by in 2008 by Brazilian artist Felipe Marcantonio. It is based on Japanese comics style, featuring the adventures of an alien race of dragons fighting enemies that threaten Earth. Since its debut the webcomic earned a considerably large number of fans in their original country, besides having published printed special editions, and manga magazines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iron Circus Comics</span> American graphic novel publisher

Iron Circus Comics is an American graphic novel publisher founded in 2007 by C. Spike Trotman. Based in Chicago, it is known for publishing the Smut Peddler line of "lady-centric porn" anthologies and graphic novels, and for its pioneering use of crowd-funding sites such as Kickstarter to finance graphic novel publishing, raising over $1 million in revenue through the platform in its first decade.

<i>Harley Quinn</i> (TV series) American adult animated black comedy superhero television series

Harley Quinn is an American animated black comedy superhero television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. The series is written and executive-produced by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey, and follows the adventures of Harley Quinn and her partner Poison Ivy after leaving her boyfriend, the Joker. The show premiered on November 29, 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TheOdd1sOut</span> American YouTuber and animator (born 1996)

Robert James Rallison, known online as TheOdd1sOut, is an American YouTuber, cartoonist, animator, author, and voice actor. He is known for producing storytime animations on his YouTube channel and co-creating, starring in, and executive producing the Netflix animated series Oddballs.

<i>Hazbin Hotel</i> American adult animated musical television series

Hazbin Hotel is an American adult animated musical comedy television series created by Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano. The series revolves around Charlie Morningstar, princess of Hell, on her quest to find a way for sinners to be "rehabilitated" and allowed into Heaven, via her "Hazbin Hotel", as an alternative to Heaven's annual "Extermination" of souls due to Hell's overpopulation. The series is produced by SpindleHorse Toons in collaboration with A24, Amazon Studios, and the animation studio Bento Box Entertainment.

Skydance Animation, LLC is an American animation studio that is a division of Skydance Media, founded on March 16, 2017. The studio is based in Los Angeles, with offices in East Hartford, Connecticut and Madrid, Spain; the Madrid branch was originally Ilion Animation Studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivienne Medrano</span> American animator and producer (born 1992)

Vivienne Medrano, also known by her online alias VivziePop, is an American YouTuber, animator, writer, director, producer, and voice actress. She is best known as the creator of the musical television series Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. She also created the webcomic ZooPhobia.

<i>ZooPhobia</i> Webcomic

ZooPhobia is an American webcomic originally published in 2012 by Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano, from which she later loosely adapted characters and plotlines for her animated musical television series Hazbin Hotel. It follows a young woman named Cameron, who travels to an interspecies sanctuary named Safe Haven. Two ZooPhobia short films, "The Son of 666" and "Bad Luck Jack", were released in 2013 and 2020, respectively.

Events in 1917 in animation.

<i>Nimona</i> (film) 2023 film by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane

Nimona is a 2023 American animated science fantasy film directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane from a screenplay by Robert L. Baird and Lloyd Taylor. It is based on the 2015 graphic novel of the same name by ND Stevenson. Set in a science fantasy world influenced by the Middle Ages, the film features the voices of Chloë Grace Moretz as the eponymous shapeshifting character and Riz Ahmed as her boss and former knight Ballister, with Eugene Lee Yang and Frances Conroy voicing supporting roles.

References

  1. ↑ Simons, Dean (March 29, 2023). "The Iron Circus animated LACKADAISY movie is here". Comics Beat. Archived from the original on June 3, 2023. Retrieved June 14, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 Lang, Jamie (April 12, 2023). "Crafting A Viral Sensation: 'Lackadaisy' Director Fable Siegel Shares Behind-The-Scenes Stories And Artwork". Cartoon Brew . Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  3. ↑ McMillan, Graeme (March 16, 2020). "Iron Circus Comics Moves Into Animation With 'Lackadaisy'". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on March 23, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  4. ↑ Horne, Karama (April 16, 2020). "Hit webcomic Lackadaisy's Kickstarter pounces on $280K for animated short, hopes for series". SYFY . Archived from the original on April 17, 2023. Retrieved June 14, 2023.
  5. ↑ Shaunette, Morgan (April 3, 2023). "Lackadaisy Webcomic Gets Moving in Animated Pilot Episode". CBR . Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  6. 1 2 Bricken, Rob (January 16, 2023). "Watch: Fan Favorite Webcomic 'Lackadaisy' is Now an Animated Short". Gizmodo . Archived from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  7. ↑ Alexa, Laurén (April 3, 2023). "Watch: Fan Favorite Webcomic 'Lackadaisy' is Now an Animated Short". Animation World Network . Archived from the original on August 24, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  8. ↑ Massone, Marcello (July 11, 2023). "Lackadaisy Animated Short Film Lands First-Ever Public Screening". CBR . Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  9. ↑ King, Samantha (March 23, 2023). "LACKADAISY Movie Clip Introduces the Hit Webcomic's Feline Speakeasy (Exclusive Preview)". Screen Rant . Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  10. ↑ Milligan, Mercedes (March 22, 2023). "Exclusive Clip: 'Lackadaisy' Short Delivers Rum-Runner Action on March 29". Animation Magazine . Archived from the original on April 11, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  11. ↑ Carpou, Madeline (January 26, 2023). "This Movie Had Me at "Prohibition-Era Gangsters, but Cats!"". The Mary Sue . Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  12. ↑ Colangelo, BJ (April 7, 2023). "Incredible Indie Animated Lackadaisy Pilot Deserves The Hazbin Hotel A24 Treatment". SlashFilm . Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved April 12, 2023.
  13. ↑ "PARANOiD DJ - Liquid Gold ft. Michael Kovach, Belsheber Rusape & Lisa Reimold". YouTube. August 5, 2023. Archived from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
  14. ↑ McCullough, Hayley (July 28, 2023). "Lackadaisy Announces Crowdfunding With Season 1 Teaser Trailer". Comic Book Resources . Archived from the original on July 28, 2023. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
  15. ↑ "LACKADAISY Season 1 Teaser - YouTube". July 25, 2023. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023– via YouTube.
  16. ↑ Johnston, Rich (August 1, 2023). "Lackadaisy Webcomic Hits A Million Dollars Fundraising After One Week". Bleeding Cool . Archived from the original on August 1, 2023. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
  17. ↑ Lang, Jamie (August 3, 2023). "A Five-Episode Season Of 'Lackadaisy' Is On The Way After Producers Raise More Than $1M In A Week". Cartoon Brew. Archived from the original on August 3, 2023. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  18. ↑ Lang, Jamie (August 25, 2023). "'Lackadiasy' Wraps Crowdfunding Campaign With More Than $2M Raised". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  19. ↑ "Lackadaisy: What Comes Next. Books, Plushes, and Animation! - Project FAQ". BackerKit. Archived from the original on August 6, 2023. Retrieved August 6, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.