A Five-Episode Season Of ‘Lackadaisy’ Is On The Way After Producers Raise More Than $1M In A Week

More Lackadaisy is on the way after a crowdfunding campaign launched by producer Iron Circus Animation raised enough money, and then some, to fund a full, five-episode first season.

Traditionally, we don’t cover active crowdfunding campaigns at Cartoon Brew except in the most exceptional circumstances where the campaign itself isn’t the story, and Lackadaisy securing funding for an entire season is one such exception.

The original goal of the campaign was $125,000, which looked modest given the viral success of a pilot episode released by the company several months ago; the 30-minute video pulled in more than 10 million views over four months.

Six hours after the new crowdfunding campaign was launched on July 25, commitments had surpassed $300,000. After less than a week, the campaign passed the million-dollar milestone. Where the final tally will end is anyone’s guess, but the film’s crew has promised that any further funding raised will be used in service of creating more animation.

Lackadaisy is based on the prohibition-era webcomic of the same name by Tracy Bulter. Its pilot was directed by Fable Siegel, who spoke with us in April about the work required to adapt the original comic, aesthetic choices made during development and production, and the balancing act required when animating anthropomorphic felines.

After crossing the million-dollar milestone, Siegel said:

Our three years of experience running a studio has taught us a lot about the animation process and given us a great idea of what we want to do going forward to create more animated episodes of Lackadaisy.

Iron Circus producer Spike Trotman added:

The internet is rife with stories of animated series and films that debuted with great fanfare and promise, but are shelved, fumbled, canceled, locked in a vault, pulled from streaming, or left to die on the vine, sometimes for no reason other than to balance the books of a corporate merger or earn a tax break. We don’t want that for Lackadaisy. We want to retain ownership, direction, and oversight. We want to make more of what millions of viewers have already come to love about our animation. And beyond that? We feel we’ve come to the fore at a potentially critical moment for the future of independent animation. We have a chance to help establish the new normal. We don’t just want to do this; we want to prove it can be done.