Lackadaisy Fanart

[alias_sqbr]

I'm a HUGE fan of the webcomic Lackadaisy which is set in 1920s St Loius but with talking cats.

The artist recently posted a bunch of pictures of the characters as humans and I was struck by how totally different they were to my mental images. So I decided to draw them. I started by sketching the two main characters but didn't put so much thought into those since I haven't had a "BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE" moment with them.

• Rocky: Character, My version
  
• Freckle:Character (on the left), My version
  
• Ivy: Character, My version, Artist's version
  
• Mordecai: Character, My version, Artist's version
  
• Wick:Character, My version, Artist's version
  

As you can see I didn't look at the colour versions of these characters before I coloured my art :) But overall I'm much more literal with the colouring (dark fur -> dark skin/hair etc)

I have some further thinky thoughts about this but for now just want to collect all the links.

Comments

[nixwilliams.livejournal.com]

the links to your versions of the first three characters aren't working for me!

[alias_sqbr]

They should be fixed now.

[nixwilliams.livejournal.com]

wow, yes - yours do highlight how whitey-mc-white the others are!

[alias_sqbr]

That's the thing: American society was so segregated back then that (as I understand it with my very shallow knowledge) perhaps it's more plausible for those particular characters to all be white (except maybe Mordecai, and I think having your heartless assassin be black is kind of creepy, and am glad he's not meant to be read that way, even if he's fun to draw) But I do wonder if ANY of the characters are meant to be non-white/POC, I'm thinking of emailing her to ask. Because maybe they are and I missed it!

[nixwilliams.livejournal.com]

American society was so segregated . . . perhaps it's more plausible for those particular characters to all be white

yes, but they are also talking cats, which (to me) is also slightly implausible! where does one draw the line?!

i'll be interested to hear what the artist has to say, at any rate.

[alias_sqbr]

Absolutely. This has gotten me thinking thinky thoughts about anthro art in general and it's portrayal of ethnicity. They may take a while to percolate though.

[sanguinity]

New Orleans has a different history than the rest of the South; there is/was (as I understand it) a third racial/social class in New Orleans: Free People of Color, also known as Creole People of Color, or Gens de Couleur Libre. Obviously the "free" part of the description was more relevant to antebellum New Orleans, but the social class persisted after slavery. I know there was a lot of pressure during Reconstruction to dismantle that social class, but I don't think that they ever quite succeeded. That particular social group can and does "cross the color line" such that you'd have some family members identifying as white, and some identifying as black, in any given generation.

Which is to say that if there was a city in the 1920s South where you wouldn't necessarily expect that cast to be exclusively white, New Orleans is a decent choice for it.

[sanguinity]

And now I clearly see that your post says St. Louis, and not New Orleans. So never mind. Sheesh.

[alias_sqbr]

It did originally say "New Orleans" but then I realised I got it wrong :)

(But that was interesting to find out anyway)

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

The creator of Lackadaisy has said *somewhere* in the past that the two characters that currently spend time with Mordecai are Creole/Cajun. (Conveniently seen here (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/exhibit.php?exhibitid=4) with Mordecai.) ^_^

The rest are indeed Caucasian, more or less.

[alias_sqbr]

I always assumed they were Cajun but white, like Gambit from the Xmen, but I guess they might not be. Hmm. Thinking about it, either way there seems to be an unfortunate correlation between being from anything other than mainstream middle class-ish American white culture and being an (evil) assassin :/ (Mordecai is jewish, they're Cajun, and there's the pig farmers. Plus Victor, who isn't evil at least)

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, Lackadaisy, I do love the adventures of that crew of crazy folks.

And when Tracy posted some art of the original Rocky I was all "Duh! Of course he's a Seal Tabby Point Siamese!" *headdesk*

^_^

[alias_sqbr]

I haven't met many Siamese cats but from what I've seen..yes :)

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

When I was in High School we had two Seal Tabby Point Siamese, and believe me, Rocky's level of nuts was not at all unusual. ^_^

[alias_sqbr]

There was a siamese cat at the cat shelter when we got Kira. He was..intense :)

[baby-elvis.livejournal.com]

I love your version of Ivy.

[alias_sqbr]

Thankyou!

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

I still find the guy-anthro-animals-don't-have-hair/girls-do thing odd.

[alias_sqbr]

Me too. Though I have a lot more sympathy with it after drawing my own talking cat comic, getting gender across can be hard! (See also: comics where all female characters have giant boobs, xkcd)

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Can cats tell sex by sight, or is it a scent thing, I wonder?

[alias_sqbr]

My glib ignorant answer is that they can probably tell by sight about as well as humans can tell by smell. (So..I have no idea :))