Starring Michael Kovach, Belsheber Rusape, Lisa Reimold, SungWon Cho, Malcolm Ray, Benni Latham, Bradley Gareth, Ashe Wagner, Jason Marnocha, Valentine Stokes and Walter Tomas Vitola as Horatio Bruno, the doorman of the Lackadaisy entrance.

Directed by Fable Siegel

Based on the comic by Tracy Butler

In Prohibition era Mississippi everybody wants to be a cat. Especially a cat with booze.

Lackadaisy is a long running and magnificent web comic about cat gangsters in the ’20s and the maniacal crimes they commit. It’s one of the most beautiful comics on the market and, now it’s made the jump to animation.

Directed by Fable Siegel and with a 150 strong crew including series creator Tracy Butler, Lackadaisy is the breath of fresh air you didn’t know you needed. The pilot starts with Rocky (Michael Kovach), Freckle (Belsheber Rusape) and Ivy (Lisa Reimold) locating a hidden stash of hooch. Freckle is gentle, dutiful and really really fond of violence. Ivy is fast talking, fast driving and one day plans on learning to actually drive. Rocky is, as described by the website itself, a ‘a shining blue star of idiotic brilliance.’ As the three of them fall foul of the Savoy Family, their rivals, the story kicks into high gear. A chase, a fight with a real sense of danger and a wide variety of note perfect sight gags ensue. All of it’s fun, and frequently beautiful but what really puts it over the top is the combination of the animation and the voices.

Kovach, Rusape and Reimold in particular are so much fun. Kovach’s perfect blue idiot is a cat to his claws; brilliant, idiotic, zero impulse control. Reimold’s fast talking endlessly perky Ivy is far more than just a foil and gets some of the best lines, while Rusape’s Freckle is the breakout; a cheery, determined little cat who can’t help himself when a gun and a chance to use it is around. The cast are all fantastic, especially the always great SungWon Cho as bad guy Mordechai and Earthspark’s Benni Latham as one of the surprisingly cheery Savoy twins. Arguably best of all though is Ashe Wagner as the idiot trio’s boss. Wry, funny, melancholy and willingly haunted by the memory of her dead husband she provides a dark counterpart to our heroes’ (?) joyous property destruction. They’re all cats, and all act like them. But they’re all criminals too and all act like them.

Verdict: This is a pilot and it deserves to be a series. Relentlessly inventive, screamingly funny and straight up beautiful it was produced by a worldwide team during the pandemic and that makes it all the more stunning. An absolute joy. An absolute must see. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

 

 

Lackadaisy is available, legally, for free on YouTube