The Doctor Reviews Lackadaisy
If you read only one webcomic this year, make it Lackadaisy. I’m serious. Read it.
Well, read it isn’t quite the correct word, either. Like a bottle of fine wine or a good book, you’ll have to actually experience the work in all of it’s detail before you can truly appreciate it on all the levels it has to offer. From the characters to the storyline to the imaginative take on the time period it’s set in, the work is just incredible. Although I cannot possibly do it justice here, I’ll once again use the Power of the Peerless Prose and do my best.
Lackadaisy is set in 1920’s Saint Louis in the heyday of the speakeasies and prohibition. (If you young’ins out there dont know what those words mean, do two things - Google them and then go to your history teachers and tell them to stop teaching that America is evil and start teaching HISTORY! (ahem) Rant over.) The characters are anthropromorphic cats, rather than people, since the author feels that “The mobile ears, tails, and big eyes help me emphasize gesture and expression more than I could with human characters, they allow me to be as ridiculous as I like, and, well, they’re just plain fun to draw.”The story revolves around the widow of a prominent figure in the town, her little band of assorted cohorts, and their efforts to keep their particular speakeasy going in the face of rivals and competition. Competition, kiddies, of the machine-gun and .45 caliber kind. From the first panel to the last, it’s obvious that you’re dealing with absolute talent, here. The art is clean and incredibly detailed, the characters are alive and 3 dimensional, and the story itself is engaging. Let me break it down for you.
The art of Lackadaisy is without question the finest I have ever seen in a work of this type. (I refuse to call it a “webcomic” as it doesn’t deserve to be in the same category as most of the hatchet jobs (inside joke for the author, should she read it) out there. The backgrounds are filled in, the clothes are realistically drawn and detailed, and the fur on the cats show detail, highlights, and actually looks like fur! The facial expressions, actions and gestures work incredibly well with the dialogue, and the artwork itself is done totally in a sepia-toned background, as though the pictures actually came from the 20’s. A combination of hand-drawn work and computer editing, it will take your breath away as expect the characters to suddenly look out at you and wink (or grin, depending on the character) I can’t say enough about the incredible work done here, save that every stroke and brush shows the care put into it. This is not some hastily thrown together work, and is made even more incredible by the fact that per the artist’s own words, she has never been officially trained.
I’ll wait while the other artists out there moan and whine about how unfair the universe is that they weren’t blessed with that talent. When they’re done with their obligatory angst moment, I’ll continue. Done? Thanks.
The characters themselves are an integral part of what makes the work come to life. They are thought out, fully developed people that you actually WANT to know more about and wonder about as you read. You pick up on hints about them as they go, and everything from their choice in clothing, actions, words, makes them individuals. Rocky, the former violin player in the band turned rum-runner, is manic and it shows. His grin is infectious (and also VERY disturbing), his gestures wild and varied. His cousin, whom they call “Freckles” (and no I wont tell you why - read the work yourself!) wanted to be a police officer but couldn’t make it in the academy. Why? Well…read it an you’ll see. There’s a bit more of Rocky in him than he may like, when all’s said and done. I could go on and on but I’ll digress, simply saying you have to read it to believe it.
Finally, the story. Set during Prohibition, it opens after the main character’s husband has been killed by a rival gang and the speakeasy in question is on the decline. It is here that we pick up the engaging story complete with knight-wannabe’s, damsels in distress (well, kind of) and ordinary people who did what they felt they had to do to fight against the law that they felt was unfair, make a living, and also save their own skins when confronted with rivals. There’s no attempt to varnish or gloss over the time, which could make it not a good choice for VERY young children or the “rigidly righteous”(from a poem by Robert Burns), but it still is, I believe, a family friendly comic. The blood is kept to a minimum, there’s no filthy or vulgar language (Even I have occasionally uttered a “damn” or “sons-a-bi***es” when the going got REALLY tough) nor are there the crude sophomoric cheap laughs so prevelant in webcomics today.
For incredible art, intense and engaging storyline and characters who seem so alive you could shake their hand but probably wouldn’t want to, I personally give this comic 7 stars even though the rating system here maxes me out at 5. This one is a re-read, and one I will follow, hoping that more is coming. Rating: 
The Doctor
Lackadaisy
by Tracy J Butler
http://www.lackadaisycats.com/
review by The Doctor
(12 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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June 21st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Good review!
I just feel you might have a bit of contempt for (others) webcomics. (i.e: “I refuse to call it a “webcomic” as it doesn’t deserve to be in the same category as most of the hatchet jobs […]out there”)
I know that now everybody and their grandmother can come up with a webcomic but I disagree that webcomics should be a derogatory word. It’s a comic you publish new panels on the web at a certain rate, it’s a webcomic.
Some are better, some are worst, but no need to generalize.
Also, Lackadaisy as the most gorgeous art of all the webcomics I simply know of. It has a wonderful cast, a lot of research and the story seems well thought.
BUT there is the factor of …time? Between each update of lackadaisy, months can easily pass. And some of them are actually updates telling the author/artist has redone some older panels as they weren’t to her liking anymore.
Now, I understand she has a life, that her work is an incredible piece of art, and I am also an artist so I understand why she is redoing panels and the such.
But, speaking of webcomics, it is a down factor.
Like in newspaper comic, the artists must come with a new cartoon everyday, you’d expect of webcomics to be updated on a certain basis.
I really like Lackadaisy but I am more compelled to, let’s say… a webcomic such as “The Order of the Stick” -which is made of stickmen! (but nice stickmen)- as it updates on a quite regular basis and often enough to keep track with it’s storyline.
Lackadaisy takes a bit too much time and arduous, precise work to be done to have a regular updating pattern, and it takes so much time you might lose track. Of course it’s always a pleasure to re-read the gorgeous past panels before reading the new ones but it’s not that convenient, if truth be told.
Sincerly, I’d be almost more happy to have the artist work on it and publish it as a comic book than be fed updates so seldom… but I know I’d have a hard time finding the book, and it’s actually nice to see, let’s say, the difference between the old panels and the new, see her Lackadaisy artworks…
But you get my point (I hope).
Now I’m really sorry to hear me writing “complaints” about her work, I certainly wouldn’t be able to do the same. But I agree with all the praises you said, no need to repeat, but I think that little bit of critisism.
Lackadaisy is a webcomic- don’t be so glum about them!- and probably the most gorgeous there is, but maybe not the best webcomic-wise. It IS an exerience though, as you said; a work of art that should be appreciated for what it is.
But you ARE reviewing webcomics- so you might want to see some other, more technical points such as the regularity: it’s important for the readers that choose to follow one!
xoxoxoxo!
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:43 am
If you chose to see the manner in which I used “webcomics” as a derogatory manner, then I guess I can’t change that. Obviously, you read far more negativity into my review than I believe was present. If you read my review in its entirety, I believe it is clearly stated that in MY opinion, it is not a “webcomic” but instead was akin to a work of art. (I am not an artist with pen and paper and so will not give a comic a great review simply because “it’s hard to make a comic,” nor will I gloss over potential bad points to avoid possibly offending someone. As I understood the purpose of the site it is to give personal opinions so that people can make an informed decision about the comics being reviewed. If I like or dislike something on a personal level, I will make that clear and let you make your own decisions after that; my review for Kidnapped by Gnomes, for example) I call them as I see them, essentially.
Most of the comics we have reviewed have seemed sloppily drawn, poorly written and in many cases, were simply vulgar. This one was a cut far above the rest, and so I drew that comparison, as I have done for others. I also used the word “most,” when dealing with webcomics, as I recall, which by definition cannot be said to be all inclusive. Generalization, in many instances, is preferable to drawing specifics, i.e, “this comic makes XYZ comic look like JUNK!” It’s also much less tedious than wading through 10,000 examples.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
While I agree it is most sad for everyone who loves the comic that the updates are so slow in coming, I personally prefer her to take her time and make these beautiful, incredible, and (let’s not forget) LONG pages. I have a tendency to cycle through webcomics because their trite humor and slow-advancing story even WITH thrice-weekly updates combined with uninteresting or just average art makes me lose interest very quickly.
Not so with Lackadaisy. The art is so beautiful and the story is so vivid that each time a new page comes out there is literally squee-ing in our household as me and my roommate gather around the glowing screen of life (re: our computers) and fully enjoy each installment. Each page has massive re-reading value, simply because the art is so detailed and each panel is so fantastic that you can still find new hilarity hiding in the background after three or four re-reads. It’s something to be digested, not skimmed.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
“Squee-ing”? As in the noise a mouse makes? Interesting terminology for a comic about cats.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Hmm… As soon as I saw “Squee” my mind was already off in Jhonen Vasquez-land.