Characters / Lackadaisy

Lackadaisy Employees

General

• Covert Group with Mundane Front: By day, Mitzi and her employees run the Little Daisy Cafe. By night, they operate the Lackadaisy speakeasy in the caves beneath the restaurant.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Subverted. While Atlas was alive, the Lackadaisy gang worked well together and had a friendly relationship with Asa Sweet. After Atlas' death, Asa turned on Mitzi, Mordecai kneecapped Viktor before defecting to the Marigold gang, and other staff abandoned the speakeasy.
• Meaningful Name: Lackadaisy or its adjective lackadaisical means without interest, vigor, or determination; listless; lethargic. Secondly, it's derived from an old interjection expressing sorrow or regret - "alack the day" or sometimes "alackaday". Rather fitting given the dismal state of the speakeasy and the few remaining retainers who are just going through the motions as if nothing happened instead of changing their ways, be it in morality or criminal. According to the author, this exactly is how she came up with the Protagonist Title.
• Multi National Team: When Atlas was alive, his two most trusted hitmen were Mordecai (the son of German-Jewish immigrants) and Viktor (a Slovak immigrant). After his death, they lose Mordecai but keep Viktor and gain Rocky and later his cousin Calvin who are both Irish-American.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Lackadaisy has brought together a hodge-podge of unlikely characters, including former musicians, a burly Slovak immigrant, the adventure-hungry daughter of a wealthy bootlegger, a trigger-happy young man, and his eccentric cousin.
• Vestigial Empire: When Atlas May was alive, he oversaw a formidable criminal enterprise and a wildly successful speakeasy. After his death, the Lackadaisy speakeasy lost customers and employees.

Roark "Rocky" Rickaby

That's his...eager face. ^*

Voiced by: Michael Kovach (English), ^{Foreign V As}Ricardo Bautista (Latin American Spanish)

"Always be prepared to improvise, Freckle. That's rule number one for jazz players and vigilantes alike."

---

Ladies and gentlemen, our hero! Our quick-witted, over-dramatic, high-energy, a-few-light-bulbs-short-of-a-marquee hero! And if you're worried at the sound of that, you're not alone. After a youth of drifting and doing odd jobs, he's found his place at the Lackadaisy speakeasy, where he plays the violin in the band, as well as being the person in charge of acquiring moonshine, coffin varnish — whatever you want to call the liquor. Cousin of Freckle. It's implied he has a crush on Mitzi, although his attraction might not be to one person so much as a place where he's finally tolerated...

---

• Alliterative Name: Whether using his real or nickname, his initials are R.R.
• Amusing Injuries: He usually suffers from these, getting slapped and popping right back up, totally fine a few panels later. However, the "injury disappears immediately" aspect of the trope is subverted when he is punched in "Rumrunner" — he receives a black eye that doesn't quite go away until the next day. Averted in "Haymaker", where he gets hit head first by a hearse. In addition to receiving a nasty-sized gash on his head, he is knocked out and comes near to dying.
• Arc Symbol: Rivers. Rocky recites poetry about rivers in "Lackadaisy Dirthyramb" and "Lackadaisy Doggerel". Several art pieces, such as the full-color drawing of Rocky on his character page, depict Rocky on or near a river.
• Beneath the Mask: If you haven't picked up on the loneliness and frantic desperation behind his cheerful demeanor, it becomes clearer when you see him throwing himself in front of Freckle's car and getting almost run over, begging him not to tell the police about the shootout because it means he'd have to leave again. It all comes to the surface after he gets his forehead head split open, and he drops the mask completely while under recovery.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: An identifying feature, such as when the speakeasy is being attacked by the pig farmers, they know him as "The one with the eyebrows."
• Butt-Monkey: So much, it borders on chew toy territory, though you couldn't tell by looking at him. If you were to make a list of all the people who have hit him, and all who haven't, you would find it to be about even.
• Car Fu: His favorite method of dealing damage (besides using fire) is by hitting something (or someone) with a car. Sometimes the car is on fire!
• Cheshire Cat Grin: See the character image. Even his human form sports one, as seen here.
• The Corrupter: To Freckle. He recruits Freckle for his plan to exact revenge on the pig farmers and introduces him to the criminal underworld of bootleggers and speakeasies. To be fair to Rocky, Freckle does have this... thing for guns that made him less than suitable for the police anyways, but Rocky certainly doesn't seem to be discouraging the behavior.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He seems to have a grudge against Wick and is trying to scare him off purely because he's dating Mitzi. He might just be worried because Wick giving Mitzi more money means she could afford to replace Rocky, but his forlorn facial expression when observing the couple from behind a window suggests there could be more to it than that.
• Dark and Troubled Past: He used to live with his aunt and cousin when he was younger, which he called "more home than home was." Then he was blamed, or voluntarily took the blame, for a family tragedy. Uncertain whether it was really him or if he was looking out for his cousin. The troubled part never really ended, despite the cheerful spin he tries to put on everything, and he sleeps in his car. It's implied that there are even darker things going on behind the scenes; every time someone tries to dig into his past, he will suddenly change the subject.
• Deadpan Snarker: Every now and again.
  Viktor: ...That is vhy you come back looking alvays like you got hit by train.
  Rocky: Says the one-eyed man with knees that don't bend.
• Death Glare: Rare for him, given his typically cheerful attitude, but he notably gives one to Wes upon noticing the marigold flower pinned to his suit marking him as a Marigold himself. Granted, Rocky's mood was already uncharacteristically sober due to the serious head injury he'd received in "Haymaker", but even he can recognize that the presence of Marigolds is bad news for anyone associated with Lackadaisy.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: As a result of a Noodle Incident, Rocky spends a good amount of years traveling around America trying to find a place to belong after being kicked out of his aunt's home, which was in his own words, "more home than home". From place to place, Rocky only gets in situations where he had to continue traveling until he found it in Lackadaisy, which is why he's adamant to keep it afloat after Atlas' death.
• Disappeared Dad: Tracy has stated that Rocky's father, Ransom Rickaby, while alive is not around. Rocky at one point mentions his dad "working on the railroad" but it isn't clear if this was meant to be taken literally or if it was one of Rocky's odd euphemisms for his dad's non-presence.
  • One of his letters mentions his dad as well, asking Freckle if he'd heard from him and commenting that he (his dad) hasn't been returning his letters, implying that Rocky knows, or knew, where his dad is, but he no longer stays in contact with his family.
• Drives Like Crazy: Including hanging out of the window. That being said, he seems a fairly decent driver, and the only times he is seen crashing is when he does so on purpose, such as when he crashed the Pig Farmer's truck. Into a moonshine still. While the truck he was driving was on fire. The other time he "crashed" was when he used a pie truck to ram Fish's car off the road and down an embankment as Freckle filled the hapless gangster with .45 caliber slugs. Even putting him in the back seat doesn't stop him in the pilot animation, although to be fair, when Mordecai has a gun pointed at you nearly any option is better than staying in his line of fire.
  Rocky: (with a hill covered in long grass to the left) We're here! Left! Sinister! Port!
  Ivy: There's no left here, Rocky!
  Rocky: Use your imagination, Miss Pepper!
• Ear Notch: A side comic reveals that it's the result of an accident while trying to look cool with a pistol.
  Mitzi: (taking away Rocky's gun) That would have been hilarious if you hadn't just blown my ear drums out.
• Escape Artist: His role during his time in the circus. We can see some of that in action where he manages to escape from the pig farmers and avoid being run over by a train in the first few comics.
• Face of a Thug: Played with in the original "Balderdash" draft; Rocky gives Wick a Cheshire Cat Grin / Slasher Smile after the latter implies Mitzi may have hired the former to off her husband and unnerves poor Wick enough to leave. Once he is gone, Rocky turns to Calvin and comments that he thought he was giving Wick his "sincere smile."
• Fighting Irish: He's not afraid to bring the fight (and fire) to competitors when needed, and is ethnically Irish, at least on his mom's side as indicated by his aunt Nina.
• For Science!: Seen when he wants to observe the results of gluing flapjacks to Freckle's head and waiting for bees. Freckle is far less scientifically minded (i.e. desperately climbing over the roof to escape).
• Funetik Aksent: While Tracy mentions that many fans depict him sounding like Nathan Lane, his liberal use of Irish idioms and phrases and often poetic manner of speaking gives the impression of an Irish accent.
• Genius Ditz: He is remarkably well-read, familiar with both archaic language and the theories of Einstein of all people. Despite this, he doesn't really use it to anything except going on meaningless rambles or reciting poetry.
• Homeless Hero: Rocky is no hero, but he's one of the story's protagonists and he lives in his car. Nina kicked him out of her house years before.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Which Mitzi notices and compliments him for in a bonus comic where he wears a tux... no survivors.
• I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: This is what you get when you mix little Rocky with pancakes, at least with pancake syrup. Nina seems to have regret even introducing this to him at an early age.
  "I CAN SEE ETERNITY."
• I Just Want to Have Friends: He likes being in Lackadaisy because they tolerate him and is desperate to stay there and keep the speakeasy afloat.
• Indy Ploy: See the quote at the top of the section.
• Iron Butt Monkey: For as many times as he gets hit, he heals quite quickly. Averted when his head gets split open due to getting hit by a hearse.
• Jerkass to One: Downplayed, but he is this towards Wick. Notable even in the animated pilot where he seems to veer the car to damage the 'Sable Stone and Quarry Inc' sign on purpose and slaps him on the back particularly hard while passively aggressively calling him 'old sport'.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a toxic influence for Freckle and leads his cousin into a life of crime, but seems to legitimately care about him, and is kind to just about everyone (except Wick).
• Keet: He's pretty hyperactive and usually very upbeat... though it's implied that it's actually a facade he puts up.
• Kubrick Stare: In the Defiance arc.
• Large Ham: Part and parcel of Rocky's shtick, to the point that no one can really tell when he's putting it on for his own esoteric amusement and when he's being genuine.
  Rocky: "I don't want to have to leave again! I like it here! THEY TOLERATE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
• Laughing Mad: Rocky has a penchant for this. He thinks of it as "laughing it off" when he does something bad or escapes death.
• Loveable Rogue: Tries to be one, at least. When woozy from a head injury he hinted that this might not be the case all the time.
• Mad Bomber: If Freckle gets crazy in the presence of guns, Rocky gets crazy in the presence of explosives, with a hint of Pyromania. In the webcomic, he cackles maniacally once he manages to wrecks the pig farmers' barn. In the animated pilot, he sees a dynamite storehouse as a circus carnival tent inviting him to come in, and wastes no time rampaging on a steam shovel, chucking dynamites everywhere.
• Missing Mom: Tracy has confirmed that his mom is unfortunately deceased. From references to her being in a Sanatorium and Rocky's comment about her "chasing the Red Death" it was probably tuberculosis.
• Motor Mouth: Seems to be mostly when talking to Viktor or when explaining one of his exploits.
• Never Learned to Read: Not exactly, but joked about by Ivy. She doesn't believe he ever actually went to school.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After the pig farmers tried to kill him, Rocky really should have gotten out of the speakeasy business. His insistence on exacting revenge on the pig farmers ignited a feud between the Lackadaisy crew and the Marigold gang that got a lot of people killed.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: To Wick's dismay.
• Noodle Incident: Years before, Rocky took the fall for something so heinous that it shattered his relationship with his aunt and got him kicked out of the house.
  Rocky: But then came one of those little family tragedies ... and it had an author ... and with already ink-stained hands, I signed my name on it. It won me a long trip, so the reliable lad could finish school undisturbed ... and so time could dull my fresh reminder face.
• Noodle People: Is just as skinny as Ivy, and the only reason she doesn't qualify for this trope is because she's a teenage girl. Viktor even tells him he's like a spaghetti noodle. Mitzi notes that his trying to shield her from an attacker is "like taking cover behind a cornstalk".
• No Social Skills: He spouts poetry at random and is a severe Stepford Smiler. It's heavily implied that he has trouble relating to people and that he only joined Lackadaisy because "they tolerate him."
• Only Known by Their Nickname: About the only person who calls him Roark is his aunt.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The only time he's not crazy, zany, and upbeat is when he's recovering from a potentially serious head wound. And even when he does finally seem to recover, there's still something... seriously off about him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Ivy.
• The Pollyanna: No matter how bad things get, he always has that smile on. Tracy says it's a combination of this and a Stepford Smiler:
  "He's naturally upbeat but, if it's not obvious by now, there's also a sort of frantic desperation behind most of the things he does."
• Psychopathic Manchild: Borders on this due to his Crazy Is Cool tendencies.
• Ramming Always Works: In "Lackadaisy Crackup", he rams Fish' car with his pie truck.
• Rhymes on a Dime: One strip is dedicated to him reciting a poem about the Mississippi River.
• Sad Clown: Something happened to him that got him kicked out of the McMurray house and strained family relations. You wouldn't be able to tell from his horrible jokes and Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, though.
• Sanity Slippage: He always likes to feign eccentricity, but after the incident on the Arbogast farm, his growing insecurity and severe head wound appear to have left him dangerously unbalanced.
• The Scapegoat: During their adolescence, he took the blame for something that wasn't his fault but suited everyone to pin on him so that Freckle could be removed from his influence.
• Scars Are Forever: After being hit by a vehicle at Arbogast Farm, Rocky has a scar in the middle of his forehead.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Every now and then, especially when reciting poetry.
• Slasher Smile:
  • He can give the biggest grin, which can be seen by many, colleagues or otherwise, as unsettling. He gives one to Wick when trying to scare him and the man assumes for his own sanity that it was meant to convey a joke.
  "I thought this was my sincere smile. Isn't this my sincere smile?"
  • Gives Freckle a particularly creepy one at the end of volume 2 when picking him up for a job. The creepy part comes from the big gash on his head from the previous night and his bloodshot eyes. Freckle is shocked, to say the least.
  • Crosses over into Cheshire Cat Grin territory, as noted above. His smile is specifically likened to a "scythe of impending destruction."
• Smarter Than They Look: Due to his happy-go-lucky personality and lack of proper education, it's easy to forget that Rocky is much, much smarter than he truly lets on. In fact, in this side comic, he is capable of having a strangely intellectual conversation with Mordecai of all people regarding the differences between pancakes and waffles.
• Stepford Smiler: Of a sort. According to Tracy, Rocky's constant grin is half genuine and half Sad Clown; he's a naturally cheerful demeanor, but there's also a certain amount of lonely desperation because he knows he's weird and flaky and doesn't have a lot going for him aside from said demeanor, so he's hoping that if you think he's amusing you won't be so quick to discard him once you can afford someone better.
• Supporting Protagonist: In a way; up until the start of the comic, he was the Lackadaisy's fiddler and nothing else, and in the end, is a tiny part of the grand scheme of things thanks to the sheer number of characters in the comic. He is, however, one of the more fleshed-out characters so far.
• Terrible Artist: Judging from Rocky's note to Freckle and the numerous letters he's sent him and vandalizing the walls of Ivy's dormitory, Rocky is not a very good artist.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: His default problem-solving tool is Molotov cocktails.
• Toxic Friend Influence: To Freckle.
• Tuckerization: Rocky is based on Tracy's real life pet cat who was also named Rocky.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pancakes and syrup to the point of addiction. He even puts syrup in coffee.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Brick on a rope! He also tried to glue pancakes to his cousin's head to attract bees. When he refused, he offered for him to swallow the glue instead.
• Unluckily Lucky: Acknowledged by Ivy: "I don't want to be around when your stupid, terrible good luck runs out."
• Walking the Earth: Well, walking around America, that is. After being kicked out of his aunt's home over a Noodle incident, he enters a nomadic lifestyle to try to find a place to belong, which leads up to Lackadaisy.
• Warrior Poet: Well, he thinks he is. Especially with the "Poet" part.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: In his letters to Freckle from his nomadic phase, Rocky was constantly moving around and taking new jobs. It's strongly implied that he kept getting fired from his many jobs due to his incompetence. In one letter, Rocky marvels at how he set both meat and himself on fire during a stint as a cook.

Calvin "Freckle" McMurray

A shining beacon of innocence in a dark, depraved world.^*

Voiced by: Belsheber Rusape (English),^{Foreign V As}Babychuy (Latin American Spanish)

"Wait! No! I haven't been in any trouble since— I mean, I'm a good— I'm supposed to be a-HAHAHAHAHAHAHeep—!"

---

Rocky's younger cousin and Nina's son. His dream is to become a police officer, but that appears to have been squashed as he's been thrown out of the academy. Normally extremely shy and subdued, but shows a different side when faced with violence and chaos. Rocky thinks that this somewhat ill-balanced demeanor can be put perfectly to work at the Lackadaisy.

---

• Adorably Precocious Child: Granted, he's eighteen, but who could resist those ginormous kitty-cat eyes? This applies especially to when he was a little boy.
• Ax-Crazy: More like gun crazy, but the trope still applies.
• Badass Adorable: He knows how to handle a tommy-gun.
• Badass Longcoat: In concept art.
• Berserk Button: The improper handling of firearms.
• The Berserker: Give him a gun and he turns into one.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Normally, he is a nice guy and quite gentle — that is, until he gets hold of a gun. Then he becomes a completely different person. He's amassing an on-screen body count that could rival Viktor, Mordecai, or Serafine.
• The Big Guy: Serves as Lackadaisy's chief enforcer after Viktor's incapacitation.
• Break the Cutie: He nearly goes catatonic after killing the pig farmers.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: This mixed with a little bit of Slasher Smile.
• Combat Parkour: At one point, Freckle ambushes the pig farmers from a high point in the caves, killing one before flipping gracefully down to chase the other. In the animated pilot, he also engages Mordecai in a night-time gunfight while climbing along steel beams. Freckle's agility is explained in this short as a survival trait he picked up back when he and Rocky were kids.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Rocky is doing this to him, by introducing him to the Lackadaisy, whether he means to or not.
• Cute and Psycho: Again. He seems cute and innocent when he's not holding a gun, but when he is, the psycho comes out.
• Dirty Business: After his rampages, Calvin expresses emotional distress at his actions, no matter how necessary. At the end of volume 1, Calvin throws up and drives off in a panic after killing the Pig Farmers. In volume 3, he emits an exhausted scream after killing Fish, despite Rocky's attempt to make him laugh.
• Disappeared Dad: Tracy has confirmed that his dad is unfortunately deceased.
• Dissonant Serenity: Downplayed. He fades into the background during the pig farmers' raid on the Lackadaisy just as well as he would anytime; it's not until he comes into his element that he seems affected by his environment.
• Endearingly Dorky: When he isn't laughing like crazy while firing, Freckle is a quiet, soft-spoken young man with problems talking to girls and a nervous disposition. Ivy immediately falls for him, and finds a lot of his dorkiness attractive.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Freckle nearly went catatonic after his rampage against the pig farmers, and even threw up.
• Eye Scream: The "Milksop" short comic starts with Freckle's eye being irritated by the horseradish in his sandwich. It goes downhill from there.
  Freckle: MY EYE I SPICENED IT
• Fighting Irish: You wouldn't think it at first. Sure, he's ethnically Irish like his mother and cousin, but he doesn't seem very keen on picking fights....at least until you put a gun in his hands. And then....hoo boy.
• First Kiss: When he alongside Ivy are sitting inside a Pig Truck, she decides to give him a kiss for good luck to help boost up his confidence. Since Freckle has never kissed before, Ivy teaches him how to give a proper kiss before suddenly kissing him.
• Fish out of Water: He is not in his element in the smooth world of speakeasies — but he's also starting to wonder if even could fit in anywhere else, seeing as the police force couldn't accept him either.
• Freudian Excuse: Tracey's indicated in some Q-and-A's that his psycho streak has some of its origins in his overbearing upbringing.
• Gun Nut: Jesus Christ. When not in his usual Shrinking Violet mode, he is almost always depicted handling a gun of some sort, and as shown in "Deadlock" and "Dolally," simply mishandling a gun is enough to trip his Berserk Button and send him on a laughing, shooting frenzy.
• Handy Man: He's a decent one when not accompanying Rocky on hijinks or getting into gunfights.
• Hell Is That Noise: His laugh is this to the Pig Farmers, enough to unnerve Avril and Emery.
  Avril: Ain't no living thing oughta make a sound like that.
• Heroic BSoD: He gets a little out of sorts after the incident with the pig rustlers and cocoons himself up in his bed.
• Hitman with a Heart: He's taken the position of Lackadaisy's primary triggerman, but he'd really rather not kill anyone.
• Laughing Mad: During a killing spree he laughs insanely; this was foreshadowinged beforehand when he struggles not to laugh uncontrollably after he helps burn down a farmhouse with Rocky.
  Rocky: "My cousin."
  Mitzi: "He has your laugh."
• Momma's Boy: Then again it would be sort of hard not to be one if your mother was Nina McMurray
• More Dakka: Seems to be the trigger for his Berserker side. He seems calmer when handling smaller guns or handguns.
• Naïve Newcomer: To the world of booze smuggling and speakeasies.
• Noodle Incident: How he gets booted from the police academy. Supplementary comic shows him being 'overly enthusiastic' in the shooting range, creeping his fellow cadets out, tagged with "The police academy didn't smile upon [his] particular brand of enthusiasm."
• Officer O'Hara: Was on his way to becoming one of these when his...enthusiasm for guns was discovered. It was a bit much for the Academy so they had to throw him out those the details are currently... sketchy. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Rocky was there to scoop him up with a job that suits him perfectly...
• Older Than He Looks: You would swear he was just a child by his appearance in the comic, but according to Tracy, he's eighteen.
• Only Sane Man: Whenever he's away from firearms at least. Otherwise....
• Post-Victory Collapse: After the gunfight with the pig farmers. He throws up, drives home, and collapses in bed with all his clothes on.
• Psycho for Hire: Albeit a reluctant one.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": His "eagerness" when around firearms makes him do this. Mitzi remarks that he has Rocky's laugh.
• The Quiet One: His quiet and straightforward way of talking tends to make him blend in with the background around other characters, so many people end up ignoring him.
• Reluctant Psycho: He's clearly disturbed by the fact that something's not quite right under his unassuming surface, and would like nothing more than to just "be a good boy."
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Even as an adult, mostly because he's Older Than He Looks.
• Shared Family Quirks: Both Rocky and Freckle turn insane in the presence of explosives and guns respectively, complete with mad laughter.
• Shadow Archetype: To Mordecai. Both the most effective fighters in their organizations, but Freckle is an essentially decent person who can't control himself from berserker raging in combat, while Mordecai is a sociopath who holds himself in check by an obsessive commitment to order.
• Shrinking Violet: That is, until he gets hold of a gun.
• Split Personality: He doesn't present himself as 2 different people, but at the same time they are absolutely different. In the animated pilot, he refuses Rocky giving him a dismantled tommy gun, and as Rocky forces the gun on him, Freckle gives a disturbing half-faced snarl as if his other side is coming out.
• The Stoic: Certainly not to the extent of other characters, though his calm, terse disposition and tendency towards small kindnesses sets him apart from the manic Rocky and impetuous Ivy, and he seems to deliberately constrict his emotions out of habit (a police officer obviously being a profession requiring discipline and a cool head). Once again, like a few of his other qualities, this is rendered null and void in the proximity of guns.
• Wham Line: "You're not holding it right."^note He says this while snatching Mitzi's pocket pistol out of Rocky's hands while the others were arguing over it; its the first sign that he is much more savvy about firearms than initially believed.
• Youthful Freckles: He sports one on his human form's right cheek, which is where he got his nickname from. It is covered by his fur as a cat.

Mitzi May

Don't worry, she won't have you killed if you piss her off...she'll just charm you into offing yourself.^*

Voiced by: Ashe Wagner (English),^{Foreign V As}Olinca Hidalgo (Latin American Spanish)

Rocky: Miss M's done a lot for me, y'know? I just get a little, uh, sentimental with her being in a vulnerable spot these days...

Viktor: Vulnerable as like bear trap.

---

The proprietress of Lackadaisy since the death of her husband, Atlas May. Used to be a ukulele player and showgirl, which is how she came to meet her husband. Looks fragile, but is a shrewd and steely businesswoman, who refuses to abandon or give up on her speakeasy. In a tentative flirtation with Wick. The rumors of her involvement in her husband's death may or may not be false and greatly exaggerated.

---

• Age-Gap Romance: Though the art makes it hard to determine anyone's age, it's clear that Atlas was significantly older than her (nine years, to be exact).
• Alliterative Name: Whether you use her current name, Mitzi May, or her old name, Mary-Ellen Montgomery her initials are still M.M.
• Ambiguously Evil: Sweet, sexy widow who just wants to keep her business going or manipulative seductress who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants?
• Berserk Button: Do not touch her pearl necklace.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She is a sweet, intelligent lady in every sense of the word, who will wrestle you to the ground, claw you in the face and kick you in the chin for a pearl.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: That well hidden ruthless streak.
• Blatant Lies: After threatening Lacy with dismemberment.

  Wick: What about dismemberment?

  Mitzi: Oh, nothing, honey. Girl talk.

• Brainy Brunette: She's very intelligent and cunning, and her hair is very brown.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Tends to keep her cool in serious situations, even when her speakeasy is being shot up by pig farmers. She also has little reaction to seeing her employees injured.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Wears a lot of purples. You don't see this too much, since the comic is in sepia but you do see it on the color pages.
• Damsel in Distress: Averted. While Rocky seems to think she is one, he couldn't be more wrong.
• Determinator: It's generally agreed on by the other characters that The Lackadaisy is doomed, yet Mitzi does everything in her power (no, really, everything) to keep her late husband's business afloat, no matter how many tragedies and interruptions that occur on the way.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: When Rocky implies to Wick that she had him kill Atlas and he asks her about it. She continues to make jokes about it in ways that explicitly don't deny having Atlas killed and fairly creeps Wick out. She makes a firm denial on the next page, though.
• Driving Question: Ever since she took over Lackadaisy, there has been a pair of questions people familiar with her and Atlas have discussed: Was she involved in her late husband's death beforehand and, if so, was it by her hand or was it more indirect? There are implications that she may know the details behind his death, even if she herself wasn't responsible, but has always danced around the subject and the rumor mill hasn't exactly helped in her business, according to Wick.
• Femme Fatale: She's a very archetypical one, particularly where Wick is concerned.
• Femme Fatalons: Granted she is a cat, but she's the first character to claw someone to date. Just ask the poor vagrant that tried to take a pearl from the engagement necklace Atlas had given Mitzi back in the good ol' days. Ouch.
• Friendly Enemy: With Mordecai. What little can be gleaned from flashbacks demonstrates they were on civil terms before Atlas' death, but afterwards (and after Mordecai kneecapped Viktor and defected) their relationship has grown frosty. However, she is still willing to have a civil conversation with him in her car even after the pig farmer incident, though the talk turns noticeably frosty when Mordecai upbraids her for keeping the speakeasy open and implies Mitzi has some responsibility in Atlas' death, and Mitzi in return needles him about his obssessive nature and what he did to Viktor.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Tracy states that purple is a color she (Tracy, not Mitzi) equates with vanity and selfishness, but also integrity and strength. Very fitting.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Was otherwise known as "Martini Mitzi" in her early days.
• Hartman Hips: Has the most noticeable hips of the female characters in the cast. The author has stated it's so that she can fit fancy dress designs on her butt.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: When she met Atlas, she was just a poor dancer.
• Little Bit Beastly: She has very little cat influence in her face, especially compared to Ivy, who is very feline and also female. She even has tiny whiskers, while the rest of the cast have very long ones. One exception to this is her tail - it's big and luxuriously fluffy compared to the rest of the cast.
• Miss Kitty: Literally - she's a Miss Kitty who happens to be a kitty.
• Ms. Fanservice: Which she exploits to keep the Lackadaisy afloat.
• Motifs: Flowers, seemingly daisies. A flashback panel showing Mordecai giving her a pistol (or returning it to her?) shows her in a slip covered in flowers that spread into the frame. Likewise, when Mordecai tells Gracie that Mitzi couldn't have been responsible for Atlas' death as she wasn't living with him at the time, her eyes are shown in frame surrounded by a similar sort of petals. Most likely a reference to the Little Daisy Cafe, the front of the Lackadaisy.
• Nerves of Steel: Not even being shot at by a pig farming hick raises much of a response out of her.
• Not a Morning Person: Of note are the nights she falls unconscious with her make-up on.
• Old Maid: Insists that she was born in the "20th century". A careful look at the scrawled-out date on her character sheet shows her birth date is in the 1890s, likely '95.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is Mary-Ellen; "Mitzi" is a stage name she took when she was a lounge singer/ukulele player.
• Purple Is Powerful: She's typically associated with purple because the author herself associates the color with vanity, selfishness, integrity and strength.
• Really 17 Years Old: Inverted. She claims she was born in the twentieth century, which would make her twenty-seven or somewhere around that at the least, being that the comic is staged in 1927, but she is really around thirty-three ^Note If you look closely to where her birth-year was scratched out on her current and new profile, you could could make out that she was born in the 1890s, so, with Atlas being 42, that would place her in her 30s..
• Real Women Have Curves: She is very curvy and very proud of it, despite this body type only becoming popular in the 40s with the likes of Marilyn Monroe, and going out of fashion with as much immediacy as it when it came into fashion.
• Really Gets Around: Downplayed. She had a romantic relationship with Zib, then married Atlas, then entered a relationship with Wick after Atlas' death.
• Rule of Sexy: When asked by a fan why Mitzi has such a curvy behind, Tracy's usual answer is "Because."
• Silk Hiding Steel: Possibly. Her detractors think it's more like silk hiding tin, as she's only gotten into one physical fight and that was with a drunken lout over pearls.
• Skewed Priorities: Occasionally. The main tension between her and Zib later on is that she refuses to leave Lackadaisy behind and get a less dangerous life because of her memory of Atlas. She also will attack someone viciously for a single pearl, albeit a pearl from a necklace that Atlas gave her.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: In her desperation to preserve the Lackadaisy, Mitzi becomes more willing to commit immoral acts. She tries to manipulate Wick into investing in Lackadaisy, destroying their relationship in the process. Later, she steals and forges one of Wick's checks in order to cover expenses. Zib calls her out on her behavior.
  Zib: You might've gone and married a villain, but I never thought you were made of the same stuff as him.
• Southern Belle: Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia.
• Stripperific: She mentions an incredibly bawdy, ridiculous Mata Hari outfit she once wore when she was part of the band during a performance.
• Tareme Eyes: She sports a variant, however, it is ambiguous if she is like the personality associated.
• That Woman Is Dead: She doesn't like to think about the times before she and Atlas got married.
• Troll: In the supplemental comics, she can never resist poking fun at Mordecai.
• The Vamp: She has qualities of this, especially when she's with Wick.
• You Remind Me of X: Done by Rocky in "Weisenheimer"; he asks the price for a set of bear traps in the general store, remarking that they remind him of someone "very dear" to him, hearkening back to Viktor's comments about Mitzi's "vulnerability."

Viktor Vasko

GLARE BEAM.^*

Voiced by: Jason Marnocha (English)^{Foreign V As}Francisco G. Guajardo (Latin American Spanish)

"One af [my knees] bends somevhat. And is after seven years at this vork."

A Slovak immigrant with a violent and mysterious past, he now works for Mitzi as an odd jobs man and occasional bartender. Is extremely protective towards Ivy, who is just about the only person towards whom he doesn't show barely-suppressed murderous rage. Used to be Mordecai's partner in contract killing, but their relationship has soured since.

---

• Action Dad: According to Elsa, he has an estranged wife and daughter.
• Alliterative Name: Victor Vasko
• Bantering Baddie Buddies: Mordecai and Viktor used to be partners in crime when they worked for Atlas May, though after the death of Atlas, Viktor stayed with his widow Mitzi whereas Mordecai joined the Marigold Gang. Mordecai is an eloquent, well-dressed Wicked Cultured assassin, whereas Viktor is large, intimidating, and stoic. In flashback scenes where we see the two of them working together, Mordecai sometimes goes into rants, to which Viktor responds with brief, snarky answers.
• The Big Guy: Outside the configuration of the Five Man Band, he still fills the role.
• Bilingual Bonus: KUS VOLA! ZABIJEM T'A! (Translation: 'You piece of ox! I'll kill you!'; in Slovak, calling someone a 'piece of ox' is a common insult, similar to calling someone a jackass or a son of a bitch in English.)
• Blood from the Mouth: In "Lackadaisy Anodyne", he coughs while trying to take pain medication for his wounds, spitting out a considerable amount of the medicine along with blood, giving an indication of how gravely he was injured days before.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Ivy's boyfriends. Wheelchairs.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  Rocky: I, uh, have, a bit of a dilemma, Viktor. As fortune would have it, there's a pick-up tomorrow night. But to the contrary, um, fortune-wise, uh, it seems I'll have a gaggle of belligerent clodhoppers to contend with, and, so, well... I was hoping you would have some valuable advice or perhaps some words of inspiration for your young protégé.
  Viktor: Quit.
• Death Glare: One of his primary expressions, and he wields it like a shotgun. Rocky thinks that his single eye lets him focus his emotions into a hate-based eye-laser since he can just about etch plate steel with his glower power.
• Dented Iron: A lifetime marred by war, crime, and violent run-ins has left him with a missing eye, two damaged knees, and an injured lung.
• Dirty Business: Implied. In a flashback, Viktor viciously kills several rival bootleggers and sets their cabin on fire. He's shown leaving the cabin with a melancholy look on his face as if troubled by what he has become.
• Disappeared Dad: He himself is one, who left his wife and daughter so they wouldn't be dragged down by his mistakes.
• Easily Forgiven: He regularly brutalizes Rocky, and yet Rocky treats him like a friend and Mitzi keeps him on staff. Then again, Rocky often deserves it. He has also beaten up Ivy's boyfriends, but other than a loud scolding, Ivy still sees him as a friend, and possibly substitute father.
• Eyepatch of Power:
  Rocky: "You know how when Viktor looks at you, it seems like he's searing a hole through your face? Well, I have a theory about that. By having to pass through that singular ocular of his, the, uh, hate energy he radiates experiences some sort of amplification in a manner not unlike stimulated emission as, uh, Einstein described it, resulting in a kind of highly intensified... glare beam."
• From Bad to Worse: After receiving a gunshot wound, Viktor is incapacitated and spends his time recuperating at home. Additionally, receiving medical care from a horse doctor in unsanitary conditions (during an era with much more primitive medical technology than today) allowed bacteria to enter his lung wound, inflicting pneumonia on him.
• Freudian Excuse: His upbringing was filled with plenty of hardships and tragedies, and it only got worse when he was recruited by Atlas.
• Funetik Aksent: Slovakian.
• Grumpy Old Man: He probably wouldn't curl his lip for a newborn puppy.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • His leg hasn't been the same since Mordecai kneecapped him. Don't think that makes him harmless.
  • Has only one eye too; he lost it in a dockworkers' riot.
• Hitman with a Heart: He's at least a somewhat decent guy. He's protective of Ivy and takes care of his nonagenarian neighbor Mrs. Bapka.
• Homemade Sweater from Hell: Mrs. Bapka gives him an ugly green sweater for Christmas. Combined with a hat from Ivy and a red necktie from Mordecai, Viktor looks hideously festive. When Rocky starts singing "O Tannenbaum" at the sight, Viktor punches him.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With Ivy, which she lampshades in a side comic by demonstrating she can't even get her arms around him.
• Husky Russkie: Well, he's not actually Russian, he's Slovakian, but the accent is similar enough when rendered in text, so the general effect is much the same. He's a large grizzled man who spent his adult life fighting and killing, the visual aspect of the trope is starkly evident when depicted without feline traits and there's even a comedic side comic that depicts him punching a bear.
• Improvised Weapon User: He can do this. When you're as strong as Victor a lot of things can become dangerous weapons in your hands.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Ivy, who is a few decades younger than him.
• Intoxication Ensues: Dr. Quackenbush administers anesthesia to Viktor while tending to his injuries so that Viktor doesn't attack him. Mitzi finds Viktor unconscious with a big smile on his face.
• I've Come Too Far: Implied to be the reason why he continues to work in Lackidaisy is that he crossed too many lines in his servitude under Atlas as a hitman.
• Jerkass: He's rude and blunt with almost every character in the comic. He's also needlessly violent toward Rocky and Ivy's boyfriends.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • He bluntly tells Rocky early on to quit Lackadaisy after the pig farmers tried to murder Rocky. Had Rocky listened, a lot of chaos could have been averted.
  • Although his Papa Wolf tendencies make him needlessly violent towards Ivy's previous boyfriends (especially how broken limbs can take a rather long time to heal, given the medical practices at the time), if some of his "answers" to Ivy when being confronted by her are to be taken as a grain of truth, it's implied that most of them had less than well-meaning intentions for dating her. There's also the fact that Ivy's connections to Lackidaisy, along with still hanging around the establishment, is something of an Open Secret on her campus (as far as her peers know, she's just part of a gang), making her a potential target for anyone whose got a grudge or is looking for an advantage. This means that even a well-intentional boyfriend won't cut it and would be a liability if he's also unable to protect her, or worse, would save his own skin at her expense.
• Knee-capping: Mordecai shot him in the knee before defecting to the Marigold gang. As a result, Viktor moves slowly and can't walk upstairs.
• Like a Daughter to Me: His relationship with Ivy.
• Made of Iron: He takes a shotgun to the chest fighting the pig farmers, but still manages to kill one of them (possibly barehanded) before collapsing. Since then he's been on bed rest.
• Mighty Glacier: Very strong. Very slow, especially with his bad knees.
• No Badass to His Valet: His relationship with Ivy in a nutshell. He may be a grizzled war veteran, a speakeasy hitman/employee, and an all-around grump who can punch anyone who annoys him, but Ivy still considers him a friend of hers.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "Lackadaisy Anodyne" features several moments in which the normally grim Viktor displays uncharacteristic emotions. Viktor covers his left eye with his hand, then looks through his fingers at a photo of his daughter. It's the first time readers see fear in his eyes. When he accidentally drops the photo on the floor and it falls between the floorboards, he looks uncharacteristically anguished. Viktor is so determined to retrieve the photo that he braves the basement stairs to locate it, despite his bad knees. When he answers the phone and speaks with Elsa, his facial expression is one of pain, sorrow, and relief at once.
• Papa Wolf: He is unusually protective of Ivy, to the point where he's scared away most of her previous boyfriends. (Probably by injuring them, if what happened to Chad is any indication). He's also not happy with her attraction to the speakeasy lifestyle and tells her to quit hanging around, to her displeasure. This is likely because Ivy reminds him of his estranged daughter.
  • Viktor thinks he's being this when he brutalizes Ivy's boyfriends.
  • When the pig farmers lay siege to Lackadaisy, Viktor finds Ivy struggling with Benji, who nearly shoots her. Viktor responds by grabbing Benji by the head and punching him in the face over and over.
• Perpetual Frowner: His default expression is frowning; Mordecai (at least before their falling out) and Ivy are of the only people to make him smile.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In a Christmas comic, Viktor is shoveling snow for his neighbor, Mrs. Bapka. In "Lackadaisy Dotage", Mrs. Bapka visits Viktor in the hopes that he can fix her clogged pipe, suggesting that he has helped her before.
  • During a siege on a rival gang's cabin, Mordecai drops his glasses. Viktor retrieves the glasses amidst the chaos and returns them to Mordecai afterward.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Ivy, who he treats like his own daughter.
• Precious Photo: He cherishes a photo of his daughter Alena. When the photo accidentally falls through the floor boards, he painfully braves the stairs to retrieve it.
• Put on a Bus: He spends most of Volume 2 bedridden with pneumonia since he was shot in the first Volume.
• Reflective Eyes: Well, just one. Viktor's remaining eye does this when he turns on his Death Glare upon meeting Calvin.
• Retired Badass: Not quite retired. Viktor's got only one eye and bad knees, and his official job is as a bartender. He can still hold his own in a fight though, and Lackadaisy's dire situation brings him out from behind the bar regularly.
• Scars Are Forever: Years of combat and violent run-ins have left Viktor with disfigurements and disabilities, including a missing eye and a knee that won't bend.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Not a defining trait, but it’s in his background. The trenches of World War I left him like "a wire stripped of its sheathing", and he plunged back into violence with labor conflicts before turning to a life of crime.
• Shirtless Scene: Viktor is shirtless when Dr. Quackenbush tends to his injuries. Readers get to see just how broad-chested and muscular he is.
• The Silent Bob: Viktor speaks, but communicates more effectively with facial expression. In this preview comic, he and Mordecai have a mild argument. Victor never says a word. Mordecai reacts entirely to Viktor's Facial Dialogue.
• Silent Snarker: If feeling particularly snarky, he can snark without opening his mouth.
• The Stoic: When he's not beating the ever-loving crap out of someone.
• Terse Talker: Most of the time. It could be partially because he isn't completely fluent in English.
• Weak Sauce Weakness: Stairs, on account of his bad knees. He was kneecapped less than a year prior: in addition to being one of the most painful places to get shot, many victims who've been kneecapped go on to suffer residual paralysis in the muscles of their lower legs.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Lackadaisy Anodyne", Viktor sits at his table with a pile of letters from his daughter that go back five years. He opens one, suggesting that he hadn't read them until the present. In one of the letters from December 1925, his daughter Alena asks, "Will you write back? You don't have to write in English if you don't like to," indicating that Viktor has not kept in touch with her.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Despite his violent streak toward males, Viktor does not retaliate when Ivy berates him or makes a laughable attempt to rough him up.

Ivy Pepper

Despite her innocent looks and disarming grin she actually has no idea what she's doing.^*

Voiced by: Lisa Reimold (English)^{Foreign V As}Desireé González (Latin American Spanish)

"You will read these magazines and you will like them. And so help me, you'll learn to enjoy the banjo hour. There's not gonna be any moping, Viktor. There just isn't."

---

A cheerful and hyperactive college student and the only person Viktor treats with anything resembling affection. Her father, Reuben "Ruby" Pepper, was a friend of Atlas, her now late godfather. She has a big crush on Freckle.

---

• '20s Bob Haircut: As befitting of any flapper girl. A bonus comic shows her cutting her hair into it when she was a little girl.
• All Women Love Shoes: Which Viktor never seems to hear the end of.
• Beneath the Mask: Ivy may seem like an exuberant girl who loves adventure, but under the surface, she feels frightened by the events of the story and obligated to help her friends.
  • In "Lackadaisy Heebie-jeebies", Ivy lists a number of reasons why she's participating in a bootlegging run (thirst for adventure, following in her father's footsteps, carrying on Viktor's legacy). A few moments later, she admits that she's really participating because she's worried about Rocky's erratic behavior and wants to help him. She also admits that she doesn't understand a lot of what's going on in the St. Louis speakeasy world, which scares her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Don't let the fancy flapper outfits and the ditzy demeanor fool you; she has a temper that's proven nothing to sneeze at. And she manages to handle a gun well enough to convince some gin-runners she's genuine, too.
  • Though the fact that she was also mishandling it and obviously freaked out at the time also helped them give in - a scared person who is mildly competent with a gun can be far more dangerous than a well-trained expert.
• Book Dumb: Studying isn't a top priority for her, nor is it a priority at all. Lampshaded by Mitzi when she asks her which professor assigns her magazines to read.
• Chekhov's Skill: Her profile mentions her skill with a rifle. She shows it off by nabbing a handgun from some moonshiners who tried to run down her and Rocky and firing a warning shot at them.
• The Cutie: Her biography page on the website describes her as "all sweetness and sunrays." Technically, "calculated sweetness and devious fib-telling little sunrays."
• Dirty Business: In a dream, Ivy sees Rocky and Freckle unearthing a grave filled with liquor bottles and bones. Freckle tells her that Rocky insisted that the bottles and bones had been separated, but viewers can see that the bottles and bones are jumbled together. On a subconscious level, Ivy may feel guilt over the bloodshed that is part of the speakeasy business, or at the very least beginning to realize, thanks to the story recounted by Bobby previously, that bootlegging is not all adventures and fun times. "Heebie-Jeebies" expands on this, as she admits that despite wanting to answer the call for adventure, she really has no idea what is going on, hinting that she is in way over her head due to having no experience in actual bootlegging.
• The Ditz: Regularly abuses her father's funds for things like matching scarves and hats, shoes, and magazines, usually when she should be using that money to buy school supplies. Despite this, she's not so bad, just a bit shallow, ditzy, and naive.
• The Flapper: Well, it was the style for women at the time. Freckle and Rocky refuse to let her meet Nina, on the basis that Ivy is wearing pants.
• Floral Motifs: Some of Tracy's art for Ivy has her with daisies in the background. Other than her connection to Little Daisy, they seem to represent her being the most "innocent" of the cast
• Genki Girl: A lying, occasionally mean-spirited one, but a genki girl is a genki girl.
• Guile Hero: Convinces the Arbogasts to sell to them, manages to muscle her way into recovery classes to work at the Lackadaisy over the summer, and convinces Wick into paying for Viktor's medical costs.
• High-Class Gloves: Wears a pair with her evening dress. While flappers didn't tend to be photographed wearing them, they were still in style, and the comic is known for doing the research.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: With Viktor.
• Important Haircut: In this collection of character sketches, we see Ivy about to cut her long hair into a flapper's bob.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Viktor.
• Like Father, Like Son: Her father, Ruby Pepper, was also involved in the bootlegging/speakeasy world.
• Little Miss Badass: Managed to strike up a deal with the Arbogasts, with a combination of guilt-tripping, intimidation, and Rocky having a huge hole sawed in his head by their hearse.
• Little Miss Snarker: Despite being in a World of Snark, she can certainly hold her own against the adults.
• Mafia Princess: Ivy remembers her father bringing her to the Lackadaisy speakeasy when she was younger and being treated like royalty, which explains why she's still so loyal even when the speakeasy has fallen on hard times. And while Ruby Pepper doesn't seem to be involved in bootlegging any longer, Bobby Bastion speculates that his ill-gotten gains from his partnership with Atlas are what's paying for Ivy's college.
• Morality Pet: To Viktor. He waits until she's out of the room before he visits horrible violence on someone. Likely she reminds him of his estranged daughter.
• Motivational Kiss: She gives this to Freckle to help boost up his confidence while sitting inside a Pig Truck.
• Motor Mouth: Occasionally when talking to Victor. He never seems to mind, though.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Is deliberately failing a class so that she'll have to take recovery classes in the summer, and thus have an excuse to stay at the Lackadaisy. By all accounts, she's actually pretty smart.
• Open Secret: Downplayed. Everyone in Ivy's college knows that she has a connection to a gang, but no exact details.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Viktor and Rocky.
• Really Gets Around: She's had several boyfriends, which have nothing to do with Ivy and everything to do with Viktor. Every break-up is a direct consequence of Viktor breaking their limbs so that they are 1. in a wheelchair and 2. petrified of even saying "hello" to her. Ivy is not happy when she figures this out.
• Sailor Fuku: Wears one at the start of the comic and in concept art.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: She is on her school's woman's rifle team.
• Spit Take: She spits out her tea when Elsa tells her that Viktor has a daughter.
• Spoiled Sweet: Ivy's a Mafia Princess who, on her own account of her childhood, felt treated as royalty during her visit to the Lackadaisy speakeasy. She's also one of the nicest characters in the series, if somewhat ditzy of the world around her.
• Supreme Chef: Handles the restaurant that leads to Mitzi's speakeasy, seemingly without any assistance.
• Tsundere: Mostly dere, but her tsun side is definitely there-e.
• Tuckerization: She is based on another pet cat the author has in real life.
• Womanchild: She's an immature 18-year-old girl who doesn't grasp how dangerous and morally corrosive the bootlegger lifestyle really is.

Dorian "Zib" Zibowski

To him, the difference between "awake" and "asleep" is more of a spectrum.^*

Voiced by: Valentine Stokes (English)^{Foreign V As}Jose Cortez (Latin American Spanish)

"Couldn't sleep after last night's fireworks... so I figured I'd practice sitting around looking troubled and pensive."

The band's cynical saxophonist, and occasionally clarinetist. Was in a relationship with Mitzi at some point before she married Atlas. Keeps out of the gin-running business as well as he can, and more often acts as the voice of reason for Mitzi.

---

• Deadpan Snarker: It's part of a mystique he's deliberately cultivating. He'll even snarkily admit to it.
• Defector from Decadence: Is starting to think like one, becoming disillusioned with some of the things Mitzi is doing in order to keep the club running.
• Erudite Stoner:
  • When Zib and Mitzi go to Sleaze Town, their conversation dregs up bad memories that he decides to soothe with "medicine". In the next scene, readers see Zib lying on the sidewalk, inebriated and pouring his heart out to a local vagrant. It's unclear if Zib got drunk, if the cigarette he was smoking was actually a marijuana joint, or if he indulged in something ... stronger.
    • Right after that, when he's thrown in jail, one of the cops mentioned how "we picked you up at a hop house."
  • In a side comic, Rocky is hugging the Lackadaisy characters. When he tries to hug Zib, Zib is so intoxicated that he can't even stand.
  • Tracy has noticed how some fans wonder if is Zib "is a viper", having a "Texas tea party", doing the "golden strut", "kicking the gong around", "copping a deuceways", "courting the white lady", and having a "''whizbang'' good time".
• Hypocrite: He's disgusted when Mitzi steals a check from Wick and forges his signature to get money to pay the band. Mitzi retorts that Zib was happy to accept dirty money from Atlas back in the day.
  Mitzi: Where'd the sudden qualms about the cash come from, anyway? Every red cent my husband paid you over the years was blood money of one sort or another, and you knew it.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Is implied to have been a victim of it, being a creative black sheep compared to his brothers.
• Mr. Fanservice: In some of the side strips his sex appeal to the audience is displayed—particularly in human form.
• Never Bareheaded: Almost never seen without his fedora.
• Not a Morning Person: He doesn't get up well in the morning. Consciousness is more of a continuum than a binary.
• Not So Stoic: When Freckle goes on his murderous rampage in the caverns, he is very visibly shaking. He later tries - and fails - to light a cigarette because he's shaking so much.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Everyone forgets that Zib's first name is actually Dorian.
• Only Sane Man: Not that it amounts to much in the long run. He's one of the only people to realize that the Lackadaisy is dying and it'd be better to get out now.
• Perma-Stubble: His human form.
• Perpetual Frowner: More of a sullen, uncaring look than a frown, for the most part. When readers inquired as to whether or not he'd ever smiled, this was the result.
• Sexy Sax Man: Plays the saxophone in the Lackadaisy's band. He's also the clarinetist, but he much prefers to be seen with the sax precisely because of this trope.
• Smoking Is Cool: Regularly seen with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
• Stepford Snarker: Behind that "artist's mystique", he's a Papa Wolf who just wants to get his band and Mitzi away from the danger of the speakeasies and gangsterhood.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Crossdresses when he's drunk, mostly Played for Laughs. It doesn't come up in the main story, though.
  Zib: Who smeared lipstick on my face?
  Mitzi: You did.

  Tracy: ...Why are you wearing high heels?
  Zib: Well, your guess is as good as mine.
• Working with the Ex: With Mitzi. They're still on good terms, sometimes.

Horatio Bruno

Voiced by: Walter Tomas Vitola (English)^{Foreign V As}Eduardo Garza (Latin American Spanish)

Works as the Lackadaisy's doorman and bouncer. Seems sweet and friendly, if a bit naive.

---

• Hidden Depths: Apparently, he can sing an opera tenor.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Wears an impeccable tuxedo.
• Shrinking Violet: His demeanor could be described as one that makes a trembling spring lamb seem inordinately aggressive.

Atlas May

^*

The currently deceased founder of Lackadaisy and Mitzi's husband. He was murdered under mysterious circumstances.

---

• Affably Evil: Mitzi loved him, and his employees respected him. That said, flashbacks of the murders that Viktor and Mordecai committed under his employ make it clear that Atlas was a ruthless man with blood on his hands.
• Age-Gap Romance: Was about nine years older than his wife Mitzi.
• The Corrupter:
  • He married Mitzi — previously an innocent dancer and musician — and introduced her to the criminal underground.
  • He helped Viktor get out of jail after he was arrested for being involved in riots, and thus could be certain Viktor was indebted to him. The tasks Viktor carried out for Atlas ended up estranging him from his wife and daughter, as he didn't want them endangered by his mode of work and didn't feel worthy of them any longer.
  • He also rescued Mordecai from his pursuers...and made the young man into a ruthless killer. While Mordecai had been involved in criminal activities as a teenager (and Tracy revealed that he had murdered at least one person before he had to flee New York) it was under Atlas' patronage that he evolved into a soulless hitman.
• Driving Question: Who killed him? And, in that line, "Why?"
• Father to His Men: Almost everyone in Lackadaisy worked for him because they owed him big. A subversion; as detailed on the main page, his habit of collecting "strays" may not have been out of kindness at all.
• Happily Married: Zig-zagged. From what we can tell, he and Mitzi really did love each other. However, "Lackadaisy Confessional" reveals that their marriage was on the rocks at the time of Atlas's death. Mordecai tells Gracie that Mitzi wasn't living with Atlas at the time of his murder and that their marriage had "visibly deteriorated".
• The Lost Lenore: He still has a lot of influence on Mitzi. She's trying to maintain his legacy by keeping Lackadaisy alive, she talks to his portrait, keeps his necklace, and has to deliberately turn away from a photo of him when she kisses Wick.
• Manipulative Bastard: As lampshaded by Zib. Atlas showed kindness to desperate people who were then in his debt, and in doing so built a criminal empire. He married the previously poor Mitzi, paid Viktor's legal fees, rescued Mordecai from his pursuers, gave Zib's band a permanent gig, and allowed the Arborgasts to move somewhere quiet for Elsa's sake. In return, Mitzi became involved in his speakeasy business, Viktor and Mordecai became his hitmen, Zib and company provided entertainment for his illegal speakeasy, and the Arborgasts imported high-quality liquor that made Lackadaisy popular.
• Meaningful Name: In Greek mythology, Atlas was a titan who held up the sky on his shoulders. This Atlas held up the Lackadaisy speakeasy on his shoulders. After his death, the speakeasy suffered financially and lost several key staff members.
• Panthera Awesome: He looks like an anthropomorphic tiger.
• Posthumous Character: His death kicks off the plot.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Elsa recalled that Atlas has a gentle voice and demeanor.

The Marigold Gang

General

• Covert Group with Mundane Front: By day, Asa Sweet and his colleagues run the Maribel Hotel. By night, they oversee the Marigold speakeasy contained therein.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: With the exception of Nico, who has a casual wardrobe, all of the Marigold gang members are impeccably dressed.
• Multi National Team: Well, multi-ethnic, at least. Asa Sweet (a white man) oversees a team of criminals comprised of Mordecai Heller (a Jewish man) and the Savoys (a pair of ambiguously brown Cajuns).
• We ARE Struggling Together: The Marigold thugs are constantly struggling against each other. Serafine carves a Voodoo symbol into Mordecai's skin when he refuses to join her cult. Wes punches and insults Fish, who later leaves Wes pinned down in the woods during a gun battle.

Asa Sweet

Literally a fat cat of St. Louis.

Voiced by: Jason Marnocha (English)^{Foreign V As}Rodolfo Navarro (Latin American Spanish)

"The longest death rattle I think I've ever witnessed... I don't have time for this. But that's what I get for betting on a bunch of pig rastlers to know how to deal with a lame horse."

Formerly a business associate of Atlas May; now makes no secret of the fact that he's just waiting for Lackadaisy to die for good. A pleasant, cheery tycoon with no scruples.

---

• Affably Evil: He doesn't wish misfortune on Mitzi or any of Lackadaisy's staff personally. He's willing to drive Lackadaisy out of business with utter ruthlessness, but that's just business.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: His human version looks a lot like John Goodman (who is also from St. Louis). According to Tracy, he also sounds like John Goodman.
• Dirty Business: Asa Sweet admits to feeling pangs of guilt when he arranged to meet Mitzi for lunch, the morning after he sent the Pig Farmers to besiege Lackadaisy.
  Asa Sweet: Nothing's ever easy, is it? And the doe eyes won't make it any easier. I was hoping to avoid that.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: His team of thugs includes a Jewish man and an ambiguously brown woman, which is surprisingly enlightened for an era in which racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism were prevalent.
• Fat Bastard: Noticeably overweight.
• Ironic Name: Downplayed. As gangsters go, the guy isn't that much of a fiend. But, y'know, he's still a gangster. Tracy says that he has one heck of a Sweet Tooth too.
• Jerkass: He's condescending to Mitzi and teases Mordecai.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Asa does make a valid point about Mitzi lacking the means to continue operating Lackadaisy. He also warns her that she'll be in over her head in the current crime world climate.
• Pass the Popcorn: Or rather, pass the candy. When the Pig Farmers angrily recount how Rocky burned down their home, Asa impassively eats Nut Zippers and offers some to Mordecai.
• Visual Pun: He's an overweight cat who wields a great deal of power in the speakeasy world. He's literally and figuratively a fat cat.

Mordecai Heller

He'll either kill you for being asymmetric or because he was paid to kill you, whichever happens to come first.

Voiced by: SungWon Cho (English)^{Foreign V As}Christian Franco (Latin American Spanish)

"It was nothing so indulgent as a grand time. It's merely work ethic."

Previously a member of Lackadaisy and Viktor's partner-in-crime, but left the gang on pretty bad terms after Atlas was killed (which he seems to know some truth about). He now works as a bootlegger and hitman for former rival Marigold, though he doesn't look too happy to be there either.

---

• Ambiguously Jewish: He was all but confirmed to be Jewish by using the holiday greeting "chag sameach" in one of the extras and also using Yiddish when insulting the author in a fourth-wall breaking interview. In a flashback, the letter he writes to his mother includes a safe combination written in Hebrew letters (as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet correspond to numbers). Tracy finally confirmed him to be Jewish when fans kept asking if it was true or not.
• Ax-Crazy: Do NOT let his aloof, sophisticated demeanor fool you for a second; Mordecai is a stone-cold, amoral sociopath who will murder an innocent person at the drop of a dime.
• Badass Bookworm: Is just as often seen murdering the shit out of people as he is doing or saying something immensely nerdy or math-related.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Mordecai wears his tuxedos so impeccably that it makes him look more like a bookman than a triggerman.
• Badass Longcoat: Occasionally wears a long coat, he wears one rather prominently in the animated pilot that increases his menace. It's a cold night after all.
• Bantering Baddie Buddies: He and Viktor used to be partners in crime when they worked for Atlas May, though after the death of Atlas, Viktor stayed with his widow Mitzi whereas Mordecai joined the Marigold Gang. Mordecai is an eloquent, well-dressed Wicked Cultured assassin, whereas Viktor is large, intimidating, and stoic. In flashback scenes where we see the two of them working together, Mordecai sometimes goes into rants, to which Viktor responds with brief, snarky answers.
• Berserk Button:
  • Mordecai was probably planning on killing you anyway, but you just made the last moments of your life so much worse with your blatant disregard for symmetry.
  • Anything dirty or unhygienic (bloodshed notwithstanding) upsets him. He shot Sniffles off-screen because the driver was crusty, mucusy, and smelled like mayonnaise. In another comic, Mordecai is mortified by hordes of rats in the Lackadaisy armory.
  • He won't usually raise his voice, but he'll get noticeably annoyed and discomfited when people touch him, outside of family members like Rose.
  • Mordecai does not have short arms. Mitzi suggesting otherwise first horrified him and later goes to Viktor to say that his arms are not short. One assumes that he is offended by the idea of being asymmetric.
• The Butcher: While not as blatantly obvious, Mordecai has used the alias "Elijah Metzger," which the creator mentioned is "perhaps altogether too appropriate for him." "Metzger" is a German word meaning "butcher." We're first introduced to Mordecai (in canon) wielding a bloody hatchet and an irritated expression. It fits.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: The one time Mordecai consumed alcohol, it hit him like a freight train. After drinking Bunny Hugs (cocktails made from gin and absinthe), Mordecai was slurring his speech and fawning at Viktor. He hasn't touched alcohol since.
  Mordecai: Whaddid I juss drink? When do I get my braain back?
• Carved Mark: Serafine carves a Voodoo symbol into his chest when he refuses to join the Maitre Carrefour cult.
• The Chew Toy: Not in the comic proper, but in bonus material? Absolutely. Mordecai takes almost as much abuse as Rocky! It's hysterical, mostly because he's so prim and stoic.
• Clocks of Control: Clock gears, symbolizing Mordecai's punctual, orderly nature, appear alongside Mordecai in the comic and supplemental art pieces. In the animation, an ominous sound of ticking clocks can be heard when he takes aim with his gun.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: He has to be explicitly told when women are hitting on him.
• The Comically Serious: He's a tuxedo cat because, as Tracy puts it, "I never met a tuxedo cat that didn't take himself entirely too seriously." Many times in bonus art pieces the joke involves Mordecai losing his dignity.
• Cop Killer: A "wanted" poster states that he killed two police officers under the alias Elijah Metzger.
• Counting Bullets: In the animation, he tracks Freckle's shots and makes his move at six.
• Deadpan Snarker: A subtle one.
  (on hacking a body to pieces and arranging its parts in alphabetical order): "...Well, 'A' is for Amygdala, Mr. Sweet."
  • Another example, after having a voodoo mark of protection carved into his chest:
  Serafine: So don' cross [the loa] or he'll eat you from inside out.
  Mordecai: You're confusing germs for spirits.
• Death Glare: He gives Mitzi a blistering glare in "Lackadaisy Monomania" when he berates her for keeping Lackadaisy open. His glare looks even more intense when he's in human form.
• Didn't Think This Through: Mordecai shot Sniffles because Sniffles was dripping mucus everywhere. Viktor pointed out that shooting Sniffles made their vehicle even dirtier.
  Mordecai: He was getting snot all over everything.
  Viktor: Vell, now he iss getting brains all ova everything.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Oh yeah. Nose dripping snot? Bullet through the head. Dressed asymmetricaly? Bullet through the head. Case in point, if Mordecai can't find an excuse to kill you, he'll make one up on the spot.
• The Dragon: To Atlas years before. He was always at Atlas' side, serving as his "ferocious little shadow", as Bobby explained to Ivy. He now performs a similar role for Asa Sweet.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Turns out he only switched over to Asa Sweet to find out if he played a role in Atlas's death.
• The Dreaded: Developed this at a pretty young age - when relating the story of an early job Viktor and Mordecai did for Atlas, Bobby refers to Mordecai as the other one. This was when, as also described by Bobby, Mordecai wasn't much older than the teenaged Ivy. He's also frequently described as 'scary' in-universe, and a nightmare version of him appears in one of Ivy's nightmares alongside Viktor.
• Easily Forgiven: Atlas never punished him for murdering Sniffles in cold blood.
• Establishing Character Moment: Hacks a guy to pieces, not understanding that the order was a joke, and freely admits he has no idea what the guy did wrong, but hey, orders are orders. Oh, and he doesn't show any remorse for this whatsoever.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • It is shown that after leaving home, he wrote his mother a letter, telling her where he hid savings for her, and urging her to move to "a more suitable living space", as her current lodging was "poorly ventilated, moldy, and unhealthful". He also has fond memories of his little sister, Rose. And it seems he's aiming to get revenge for Atlas's death.
  • In the animation pilot, he has a clear shot of Ivy as the Lackadaisy gang attempts to escape but ultimately refuses to take it even though it means letting them escape with the booze.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He assures Mitzi that he has told no one the story behind Atlas' death since the circumstances were between Mitzi and himself.
  • In the animated pilot, he could have prevented the Lackdaisy gang from escaping by shooting the driver of their car — but since said driver is Ivy and it would have meant killing her, he doesn't take the shot.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Mordecai just can't understand sentimental types like Viktor Vasko.
  Mordecai: "The important thing is no one was hurt."
  (Cut to a scene of at least 5 dead/dying gangsters and an incredulous Viktor)
  Mordecai "...No one who counts."
• Evil Counterpart: To Rocky, of all people. Both men were forced to leave their natal homes because of a mysterious past event. Both men experienced head traumas that undermined their mental health. Both men have extensive vocabularies. Finally, both men received scars from ostensible or would-be allies.
  • Even their designs and coloring are opposites. Mordecai's facial fur is fashioned downwards in contrast to Rocky's upward style, further illustrating how the former rarely ever smiles while the latter often does (sometimes to a disturbing degree). They even have the same eyebrows, but Rocky's are dark-colored in contrast to Mordecai's light-colored ones.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: When he was told he was going to be a "hatchet man," Mordecai hacked a guy to pieces because he didn't get that "hatchet man" was only a turn of phrase.
• Face–Heel Turn: Before the comic began, he was a member of Lackadaisy. He kneecapped Viktor as part of his resignation. It's revealed that Mordecai is actually a Fake Defector looking into Atlas's death.
• Fake Defector: It's implicitly revealed that Mordecai only switched over to Marigold to find out if they played a role in Atlas's death.
• Foil: To Rocky, as outlined above, but also arguably with Mitzi. Both were plucked out of obscurity by Atlas and through their interactions with him, changed from their younger to their current incarnations (Mordecai went from an amateur criminal runaway to a sharp-dressing ruthless triggerman, and Mitzi went from playing in the band to Atlas' glamourous wife who holds her nerve during shootouts), but act as foils in their reactions to Atlas' death and their relationships with the remaining Lackadaisy crew: Mordecai wanted to physically force Viktor to retire and kneecapped him, then immediately left the Lackadaisy with the assumption it would stop operating so he could investigate Atlas' death/murder. Mitzi refused to let go of the Lackadaisy, and let Viktor keep working behind the bar. Both seem to want to keep Viktor safe but neither asks his opinion about it, Mordecai focusing on his physical state with Mitzi prioritising his mental well being in allowing him to keep working. They are also foils in how first appearances disguise their true selves - on first appearance Mordecai is cold and rational to a fault, but is much more driven by emotion than he would want to admit (repaying his debt to Atlas and trying to ensure he'll never have to outright kill Viktor himself by putting him out of harm's way) and Mitzi appears to be hanging onto Atlas' lost legacy but is willing to do increasingly immoral and cold things for the Lackadaisy's survival (potentially seducing Wick solely for his money, stealing from him later on, employing anyone she can get as her staff regardless of how competent they are).
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A ruthlessly unsympathetic triggerman who wears spectacles.
• Good with Numbers: His biography on the website lists statistical math as one of his talents.
• Hates Being Touched: On several occasions, Mordecai has shown extreme discomfort at being touched. When Asa affectionately elbows him, he pulls away. He initially refuses to let Elsa treat his injuries and only consents once she injects him with morphine. He's stiff as a board and visibly uneasy when a woman pressures him into dancing with her. When he first meets the Maitre Carrefour cult, he's uncomfortable when Zulie touches him. During a foray at Gracie Grumbach's speakeasy, he frowns and folds his arms when Gracie places a hand on his shoulder (and looks uncomfortable when Gracie pats him down during their first meeting).
  • The only time Mordecai doesn't recoil or look unhappy at being touched is when his sister Rose puts her hands on his arm in "Lackadaisy Critique".
• Hidden Depths: Increasingly implied, over the course of his antics with the Savoys, to have had something like Undying Loyalty to Atlas May, which is surprising given his self-professed pragmatism and lack of sentimentality. He also pauses to reflect on a moment from his childhood spent with his little sister, Rose, which actually makes him crack a genuine smile.
• Hypocritical Humor: On occasion, mostly due to his lack of social skills. When he gives a description of the Savoys to the Maribel receptionist he uses so many complicated words that the receptionist clearly doesn't understand him, then he finishes with 'Yes, they are quite hard to understand'. A short with Rocky and he discussing the virtues of waffles vs pancakes has Rocky zone out when Mordecai hits him with a Logic Bomb, leading Mordecai to comment 'yes, that was quite rude' when Rocky says he 'went somewhere for a second'.
• Ice Queen: Gender-inverted. He's cold-hearted, emotionally muted, asexual, and oblivious to romantic overtures.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: The animation portrays him pulling off some impressive shots, including one that would probably have killed one of the Lackadaisy trio if Rocky hadn't grabbed the wheel and nailed Freckle with one shot in a darkened area at night.
• Improvised Weapon User: Not as much as Victor, but he's been in enough fights that he can improvise weapons pretty well.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: He brushes off a girl trying to ask him to dance (and another girl berating him for brushing the first one off) by suddenly taking up botany, studying a ficus tree. "It's an excellent ficus."
• Intoxication Ensues: A running gag through the series involves Mordecai ingesting mind-altering substances.
  • In a side comic, Tracy reminds him of the time he got drunk on Bunny Hugs and fawned on Viktor.
  • In another side comic, Rocky replaces his tea with hallucinogenic "space coffee". Mordecai's pupils dilate, and he recoils from hallucinations of giant microorganisms on the table. The last panel shows Mordecai curled up in a ball, surrounded by hallucinations of eldritch abominations.
  • After sustaining an injury, Mordecai is taken to Elsa, but he refuses to let her treat him. After she injects him with morphine, a sloshed Mordecai finally consents to treatment.
• Jerkass: He's peevish and often condescendingly rude. Nico nicknamed him Peekon ("thorn") because he's so prickly.
• Jewish and Nerdy: Confirmed by Tracy to be Jewish, and by far one of the smartest characters and a bookworm who prefers doing matrix math on waffles rather than eating them.
• Laughably Evil: Moments with him can be hilarious even when he's about to kill someone. Sometimes especially when he's about to/just has killed someone. Side comics and supplementary material turn it up by making him the butt of jokes at almost every opportunity.
• Literal-Minded: Tends to think this way, as demonstrated after a girl asks him to dance, by asking if he thinks it looks fun, instead of outright asking him, to which he describes exactly what he sees ("It looks like a heavily sequined sea of limbs flapping about in tandem to the sounds of discord and witless conversation Does that meet the criteria for fun?").
• Married to the Job: The reason why Mordecai has never shown any signs of having a love life. That and romantic cues go completely over his head. His character description lists "cooking for one" as one of his skills.
• Master of Unlocking: He picks the lock on the door of a pool hall hiding a speakeasy. He also does this in a bonus comic demonstrating when he broke into the Lackadaisy armory to steal their weapons (and then freaked out at the dust, spiders, and rats in the room).
• Motifs:
  • Clock gears, symbolizing his punctual and orderly nature.
  • Blood splatters (as seen here and here), symbolizing his bloody work as a hitman.
  • Marigolds, befitting his status as a Marigold employee.
• Neat Freak: Very much so; partly due to being raised in slum housing.
  Zib: Who robs a place, then tidies up and dusts the shelves before leaving?
• No Love for the Wicked: Justified. Mordecai has shown zero romantic or sexual interest in any women, mainly due to a combination of his Jewish upbringing (In very conservative Jewish communities, unrelated men and women do not touch each other or spend time alone.) and a Noodle Incident regarding a cranial injury.
• No-Sell: When Mordecai first meets the Maitre Carrefour cult, Zulie's attempts to entice him only succeed in annoying him, probably because he's an asexual man who hates being touched.
• No Social Skills: He's good at what he does, but is utterly out of his depth when it comes to interacting with people without killing them. Especially if said people are female, at which point he will find a ficus and stare at it until they (hopefully) leave.
  Q: How well would Mordecai handle straight-up flirting?
  Q: Can Mordecai dance?
  A: On both accounts: about as well as a ficus.
  • This plus Viktor's hard-headedness led to a nasty break when he had to convince his former ally Viktor to leave the business.
• Nonchalant Dodge: Gracie charges at Mordecai, but Mordecai steps out of the way before Gracie can tackle him. Gracie runs head-first into a car.
• Obsessively Organized: He has an impulse to clean everything and is hideously terrified of anything untidy, unclean, or unorganized. Taken to comedic levels in a bonus comic where he freaks out on their hostage because he keeps moving to the side of the car and breaking the symmetry.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
  • Joey, Gracie's speakeasy bartender, notices blood on Mordecai's shirt. Mordecai explains that the blood came from a struggle with Serafine when she forcibly carved a voodoo symbol into his chest. Joey thinks Mordecai is talking about a kinky sexual encounter.
    Joey: It looks like you were having a good time necking with that bearcat.
    Mordecai: This? I was trying to fend off a feral animal. I don't know why she had to involve knives.
    Joey: Woah—What? Where can I find a gal like that?
  • Later, the two men discuss a painting of two cabaret girls in the pool hall. Joey loves the idea of a threesome, whereas Mordecai thinks Joey is talking about the merits of symmetry. The two completely talk past each other.
• Perpetual Frowner: Mordecai's default expressions tend to vary between three things: a neutral, vaguely displeased default, annoyance and outright frowning. In ''Lackadaisy Expressions' Tracy uses Mordecai as the examples for how to do annoyed expressions. It makes the few times he looks shocked, sad or genuinely smiles noteworthy as a result.
• The Peter Principle: Rather than being one half of a pair of enforcers as he was at Lackadaisy, Mordecai's new position as Asa Sweet's right-hand man at the much larger Marigold gang has him managing a set of his own, overkill-happy bandits called the Savoys. He is depicted as being near-universally terrible at reining them in, with No Social Skills to judge when they'll steamroll him, or otherwise ignore his orders, a fact they readily Exploit to do anything from hazing him to scarring him.
• Professional Killer: He's currently the Marigold Gang's head triggerman.
• Scars Are Forever:
  • Mordecai will have a scar on his chest in the shape of a wheel with eight spokes. Serafine forcibly carved the Voodoo protection glyph into his skin.
  • If one looks closely at the drawing of Mordecai in an undershirt from "Mordecai Faces", one can see scars on his left shoulder. He likely received these when his shoulder was injured during a fight with rival bootleggers in "Lackadaisy Powder-Keg".
• Selective Squeamishness Suppression: Mordecai is an extremely fastidious and tidy person...who you first see in blood-splattered underwear, having just chopped someone up with a hatchet.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Occasionally. It goes with the looks-a-bookkeeper territory, although an extra shows him being just as long-winded when he was younger.
• Scary Black Man: "Scary Black Cat" in his case, though his human form shows that he's of light-skin color.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Very sharply dressed at all times. Unless he's gotten into a fight, there's never a thread out of place in his suits.
• The Sociopath: Probably the only genuine example among the cast. He has no sense of loyalty or love to anyone except his family members and Atlas, will kill at a moment's notice, and experiences a very narrow gamut of emotions. Some of this might even have occurred because of brain damage.
• The Stoic: Mordecai's the rare example whose limited emotional range seems downright pathological. Asa Sweet calls Mordecai a "one trick pony" because the only emotion he ever shows is annoyance. The Defiance morticians tell rumors that he might have suffered some sort of brain damage from a headshot wound.
  • While he may seem unemotional, Tracy states that while Mordecai "doesn't parse emotions well, it doesn't mean they aren't doing some of the steering."
• Stoic Spectacles: He very rarely shows any emotion of any kind. And he rarely goes without his spectacles.
• Straight Edge Evil: Readers never see him drinking alcohol (at least after the Bunny Hugs incident), smoking, knowingly using illicit substances, or engaging in romantic pursuits. He's also impeccably neat, clean, and orderly.
• Strong Family Resemblance: A photograph from Mordecai's childhood reveals that his sisters and mother are also tuxedo cats.
• Technically a Smile: Provides the page image, from this comic. Also counts as The Unsmile and Slasher Smile (especially the last panel).
  Viktor: Dark look like Valentino is different from dark look like, ehh, I vill like to murder your family...vith ice pick, probably.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: This drawing shows that Mordecai is just under six feet tall. Asa Sweet describes Mordecai as "swarthy" due to his black fur. The way several women react to Mordecai suggests that he's good-looking in-universe. His human form is definitely dark and handsome.
• Tick Tock Terror: His "Leitmotif" in the animated pilot is an ominous ticking noise.
• 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: It's implied that Mordecai's lack of social skills and empathy may be because of a brain injury. Bobby shared a rumor with Ivy that "some long-ago incident left a little bit of lead rattling around [Mordecai's] cranium, and carved him that wonky streak." According to Tracy Butler, the injury impacted his criminal career trajectory.
  "He once upon a time had the chutzpah to try and might have succeeded as a gangster entrepreneur in that vein were it not for the traumatic excision of his interpersonal skills ... if Bobby’s stories are to be believed, at least. So, he’s an ornery pain in the ass with some brain and a gun perhaps, but ... he has not insofar risen above the dirty work."
• Torture Technician: In "Lackadaisy Confessional", Mordecai calmly threatens to torture Gracie with a corkscrew wine bottle opener if he refuses to answer questions. He informs Gracie that he brought along the "conventional assortment of instruments" to underscore his threat.
• Undying Loyalty: To Atlas as it turns out, which is shocking considering he's otherwise been characterized as The Sociopath. Him switching over to Marigold was to find out if they were involved with Atlas's death.
• The Unsmile: If you try to make him smile when he doesn't want to, this will be the result. Not a pretty sight. The only time he doesn't do this is when he's remembering his family.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Well, maybe "sweet" is the wrong word for it, as it's pretty obvious something was "off" about him from the start, but flashbacks (both in the main comic and in bonus strips) show that he wasn't always as heartless as he is today.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: He prefers a nondescript semiautomatic handgun, in contrast to Serafine's and Freckle's submachine guns, and fires less shots overall, aided by his impeccable aim. This highlight his nature as a ruthlessly efficient Professional Killer.
• When She Smiles: Well, a real, non-Slasher Smile, non-The Unsmile smile, that is. His small smile at the end of "Lackadaisy Critique" after recalling a memory with his younger sister, Rose, is surprisingly sweet. He also smiles when gifting a tie to Viktor (before immediately pivoting to insulting his former partner's dress sense).
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Mordecai is terrified of spiders. In "Lackadaisy Vermin", Mordecai is alarmed when he notices a spider on his sleeve and wildly cortorts himself trying to remove and kill the spider. In "The Art of War", Esther sprinkles spiders on Mordecai, who loses his marbles, disrobes, and jumps out of a window.
• Younger Than They Look: In his cat form, his stylish suits, stoic demeanor, and large vocabulary make him seem much older than 28. In his human form, he looks like a man in his mid to late-30s instead of a man in his late 20s.

Serafine Savoy

If looks could kill, that grin would leave a dinner plate-sized hole in your chest.

Voiced by: Benni Lathan (English)^{Foreign V As} Miso Rodriguez (Latin American Spanish)

Serafine: De hatchet, cher. It was a joke.
Nico: We didn' tink you was really gone to use it.
Serafine: ...till you stripped down to you drawz.

Part of a Brother–Sister Team of assassins from the Bayou. Serafine dabbles in voodoo and dresses to the nines; she's just as beautiful as she is deadly. Appears to be the leader of the team.

---

• Ace Custom: Boudreaux, her personal weapon, is a Browning Automatic Rifle sporting a "Clyde Barrow Custom" sawed-off barrel with an alligator carved onto the front grip.
• Alliterative Name: Two S's.
• Ambiguously Brown: In her human form, she's portrayed with darker skin (as a cat, she appears to be pale colored) and it's not clear as to what descent she's of.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: She wears a tailored man's suit while on the job, complete with tie.
• Bantering Baddie Buddies: She and Nico are a Brother–Sister Team of Professional Killers working for the Marigold Gang, sharing a twisted sense of humor.
• BFG: Her weapon of choice is a B.A.R. with a sawn-off barrel. For those not versed in firearms, that's a Browning Automatic Rifle, a light machine gun developed on the eve of the First World War and which saw extensive use during the Second. And it is massive, even with the sawn-off barrel which allows Serafine some extra maneuverability.
• Blood Knight: As demonstrated in the animated short, Serafine has no objections to her targets putting up a fight.
  Nicodeme: Looks like we got some live ones tonight!
  Serafine: Yeah, c'est bon. The chase is the best part!
• Brother–Sister Team/Siblings in Crime: With Nico, below.
• Cold Reading: Serafine uses a cold reading technique known as "shotgunning" in an attempt to convince Mordecai to join the Maitre Carrefour cult.
  Serafine: But you should know — Maitre Carrefour, he set us on dis criss-cross path. He says he knows you. You met him before. On a lonely road somewhere. In an alley. By de tracks. On a train maybe. When you was in dat same little boat as us. When you was lost.
• Dark Action Girl: By all indications. Marigold hired her and Nico because they were making too much trouble.
• Depraved Bisexual: When asked by a fan if Serafine has any interest in the lady cats, Tracy answered that, by and large, she does.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Serafine's description of Maitre Carrefour's patronage sounds like a description of the criminal lifestyle: it demands everything, it closes off other righteous paths in one's life, and leaving it means destitution or death.
  Serafine: But once you take dat direction, once dat light is on you, dat's all you got. De other paths gone forever. De other loa leave you. You are obliged to him only. Always. Or else you are lost again. Alone in de dark, not sure if you comin' or goin', dead or alive.
• Don't Split Us Up: She and Nicodeme were in a catholic orphanage as children and when told that girls and boys had to be separated, she insisted that her hair be cut and she live as a boy. When the nuns refused, she and Nicodeme ran away.
• Dressed to Kill: Wears a suit around the Marigold Room.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: As a cat, her hair is black while her fur is a cream color, making her one of the lightest colored cats. Her human form is Ambiguously Brown, though.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being a murderer, a bootlegger, and an all-around dangerous person, Serafine truly and deeply loves her brother Nicodeme.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the animated pilot. While Serafine is quickly established as a Sadist who loves to draw out gunning down the competition, even she's weirded out by Rocky's insane antics — particularly at the climax, when the latter mans a steam shovel and starts hurling dynamite with reckless abandon.
  Serafine: Child, that's eleven kinds of stupid!!
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Or rather, Everything Sounds Sexier in 'Cajun French.
• Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry: She's decked out in rings and an impressive necklace during the Voodoo fete.
• Famous Ancestor: In "Lackadaisy Voodooienne", Serafine claims that her ancestors include Marie Laveau (a famous Voodoo queen) and Jean Lafitte (a famous French pirate). Whether she is actually a descendant of Laveau or Lafitte, is lying about her lineage, or merely means this metaphorically is unclear.
• Freudian Excuse: "Lackadaisy Voodooienne" makes it clear she and her brother had a rough life before they got into crime. They were presumably orphaned and sent to an orphanage run by nuns, who wanted to separate boys and girls. Unable to bear being apart, the two ran away, and very nearly starved to death until a local took pity on them.
• Funetik Aksent: Cajun.
• Hollywood Voodoo: She practices this, and the trope's quite invoked. The author outright states she's a poseur.
• I Call It "Vera": She calls her gun Boudreaux. Appropriate enough for a BAR.
• Ironic Name: "Serafine" is derived from the word seraphim, a class of angels mentioned in the Bible. Serafine is anything but angelic.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Did Maitre Carrefour take pity on Serafine and Nicodeme and send a moon-white alligator to guide them to Maman Eulalie? Or, did the children merely find an albino alligator and arrive at Maman Eulalie's home by coincidence?
  • During the Voodoo fete, she correctly surmises the details of Mordecai's past, given his reactions. The fact they only recently began working together and don't know much about each other makes it more ambiguous; is she truly capable of reading into him or was she previously informed about him by their mutual boss, Asa?
• Must Have Nicotine: She's shown smoking in a few scenes. She smokes a cigar during the fete scene.
• Professional Killer: For the Marigold gang, who hired them away from small-time rivals.
• Psycho for Hire: She has a real taste for wild violence.
• Ragin' Cajun: She's about as violent as her brother, just not as muscular.
• Religion of Evil: She follows a corrupt form of Voodoo that honors the loa Maitre Carrefour through criminal activity. She has assembled a cult of about a dozen devotees around her.
• Sadist: She's shown smiling in a flashback when she massacres rival bootleggers, and again when she kills Gracie's henchmen. She also took pleasure in intimidating the patrons of Gracie's speakeasy.
• Shout-Out: In this collection of character sketches, Serafine appears in a while suit and top hat, possibly as a shout-out to blues singer Gladys Bentley. Her hair style also resembles that of dancer Josephine Baker.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: She counts considering her rifle is actually important enough to be named by her. See BFG above.
• The Sociopath: She joyfully kills people without hesitation or remorse, carves a symbol into her unwilling colleague's chest, and manipulates a cult of approximately a dozen people. She shows no loyalty to anyone except her brother, no empathy, and no moral qualms about lying, murdering, or bootlegging.
• Troll: Is this along with Nico much to Mordecai's perpetual exasperation.
• Undying Loyalty: To her brother - as a child, she was willing to live like a boy if it meant not being separated from him.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Made even more obvious when she cleans up and ties her hair back.

Nicodeme "Nico" Savoy

Quiet, friendly, easygoing...and deadly as a swamp gator.

Voiced by: Malcom Ray (English) ^{Foreign V As}Alain Garcia (Latin American Spanish)

"Mais, you looked pretty fixed on finishin' what you started."

Part of a Brother–Sister Team from the bayou with his sister, Serafine, and a one-time (at least) career boxer, "The Cajun Gator." A strapping fellow, who appears to let others - namely his sister or Mordecai — do the thinking.

---

• Affably Evil: Even in the midst of doing a job, he is friendly, laid-back and exceedingly playful.
• Ambiguously Bi: Along with his stated popularity with the ladies, he is shown in one strip blowing a kiss to Mordecai, but unlike his sister there is no confirmation from Tracey if he's bi as well.
• Ambiguously Brown: In his human form, like his sister, as he's portrayed as darker-skinned and it's not clear as to what descent he or Serafine is of.
• Animal Motifs:
  • He's compared to an Alligator in his bio, and as stated above The Cajun Gator was his boxing title. When they were younger, he and his sister were allegedly rescued by an alligator when they ran away and wandered the swamps, explaining his motif. At the fete for Maitre Carrefour, he rattles a set of alligator bones.
  • His feline design is also more lionesque than housecat-like.
• Axe-Crazy: Like his sister.
• Bantering Baddie Buddies: He and Serafine are a Brother–Sister Team of Professional Killers working for the Marigold Gang, sharing a twisted sense of humor.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Being a boxer and all. He still bandages his hands.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Relaxed, nonchalant and way too amused by the gruesome practical joke that he and Serafine play on Mordecai.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Playful, goofy and ruthlessly competent at his job.
• Big Brother Instinct: He's two years older than Serafine, and just as fiercely protective of her as she is of him. In the animated short, he uses his own body to protect her from an explosion without a moment's hesitation.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Especially prevalent in his human counterpart.
• Blood Knight: He absolutely loves fighting, and is tickled pink when he realizes he'll get to have some fun with a target before taking them out.
• Brother–Sister Team/Siblings in Crime: With Serafine.
• Chick Magnet: In-canon, at least, he enjoys "an effortless popularity with the lady types".
• Dissonant Serenity: This guy is weirdly calm in the oddest moments, like when Serafine carves a glyph in Mordecai's chest for example.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Just like his sister he's got cream colored fur, but the trope is again averted in his Ambiguously Brown human form.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Say what you want about Nico and his criminal activities, but there's no doubting that he and his sister truly love one another.
• Funetik Aksent: Cajun.
• Freudian Excuse: He and his sister both had rough lives before turning to crime. They were parentless and sent to live in a strict orphanage run by nuns, who wanted to separate them. They ran away as a result and were lost, starving, in the bayou until being lead to one of the locals, who took them in.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's noted as being popular with the ladies and it's true among his fanbase; he's one of the most physically fit members of the cast and often wears shirts with his arms exposed or no shirt at all.
• One Head Taller: Than Serafine.
• Professional Killer: His bio states that his job is "though it's rarely personal, beating the snot out of helpless adversaries."
• Psycho for Hire: Downplayed. His amusement at the gruesome practical joke that he and Serafine play on Mordecai has shades of this.
• Ragin' Cajun: He was a professional boxer and still does violence for a living.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: Especially when your nickname was "the Cajun Gator."
• Troll: Is this along with Serafine much to perpetual Mordecai's exasperation.

Wes Clyde

A hoodlum through-and-through.

One of the thugs employed by the Marigold gang. He has been seen in Defiance, spying on the Arbogasts.

---

• All There in the Manual: The Lackadaisy card game reveals that his full name is Wes Clyde.
• Berserk Button: He hates being called Weaselface. He punched Fish in the nose for calling him that nickname.
• In-Series Nickname: "Weaselface". It's appropriate since Wes looks more like a weasel than a cat.
• Jerkass: He's rude and physically violent with Fish, the Marigold colleague who accompanied him to Defiance. He also pulled up Elsa's flowers when he and his colleague visited her house.
• Kick the Dog: Wes engages in several actions that reveal his Jerkass nature, such as ripping out Elsa's flowers, referring to Bobby as a "limey", punching Fish, and making fun of Fish's looks.
• No-Neck Chump: His neck is very thick.
• Pet the Dog: When Ivy gets lost on Defiance's roads, Wes politely gives her directions back to St. Louis.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He is shown wearing an impeccable suit.
• Slimeball: His attempts at being friendly come across as creepy and intrusive.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In Waylay, he takes Rocky's stalling for time when opening the back of the pie truck as a sign that someone was waiting inside the truck to ambush them, and promptly shoots through the door. However, as it turns out, this was exactly what Rocky wanted him to think, as Freckle (hiding on top of the truck) uses the gunshots as a signal to open up with his Tommy Gun.
• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Both his irises and sclera are yellow.

Fish

A gangster out of water.

One of the thugs employed by the Marigold gang. He accompanies Wes in Defiance.

---

• Affably Evil: Mild-mannered and is shown to be surprisingly friendly when he isn't being cowed by Wes.
• Butt-Monkey: Wes threatens him, punches him, and taunts him and this is before he gets gunned down by Freckle.
• The Dog Bites Back: In "Lackadaisy Crackup", Fish leaves Wes pinned down in the woods and tries to flee from Rocky and Freckle in his car.
• Fish out of Water: He's mild-mannered, submissive, and unskilled with a gun. He's clearly unsuited for life as a thug.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: He fires a pistol at Rocky from several feet away, but misses. Later, he fires his gun at Rocky and Freckle through the windshield of his car but misses, even though his targets were right in front of the vehicle.
• Meaningful Name: Fish clearly lacks the temperament needed for gangster life, making him a "fish out of water."
• My Girl Back Home: He complains that he can't take his girlfriend on weekend dates because of his Marigold responsibilities. Wes refuses to believe that Fish could have a girlfriend.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Wes. These two don't like each other and Wes is openly hostile to him.

The Arbogasts

General Tropes

The residents and owners of a funeral home in Defiance, Missouri. The family consists of Bobby Bastian, British-born war vet of portly build, his lovely ex-nurse wife Elsa, and her brother Reverend Abelard Arbogast, who has yet to realize that he's a little late to the Second Great Awakening. They aid the Lackadaisy gang by using their unassuming hearse as a means of booze transport.

---

• Affably Evil: The trio is involved in bootlegging, with full knowledge of the violence that comes with the lifestyle. Bobby and Abelard mistake Ivy and Rocky for "high school jellybeans", nearly running them over and leaving Rocky with a nasty head injury. Once they realize who Ivy and Rocky are, they become much more affable, offering Ivy tea and treating Rocky's injury.
• Alliterative Name: Bobby Bastian and Abelard Arbogast.
• Fat and Skinny: The aesthetic is found between Bobby and Abelard, but they don't quite fit the personalities associated with the trope.
• Happily Married: For a couple who met after a horrible war, and are now living on a farm called Defiance, they're pretty happy together.
• Knight of Cerebus: An unintentional example. Being the first person to cause an injury on Rocky which is not Played for Laughs resulted in a darker tone shift for the overall webcomic.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Abelard and Bobby's decision to chase down Rocky and Ivy with their hearse without asking questions first resulted in Rocky's skull fracture and the family getting roped back into supplying for Lackadaisy in return.

Elsa Bastian nee Arbogast

A former army nurse who lives with her brother and husband in Defiance and sells high-quality booze to criminal organizations with them.

---

• Back-Alley Doctor: Elsa seems to unwittingly share this duty with Dr. Quackenbush, though she doesn't charge Ivy and Rocky for it. She also patched up Mordecai in the past.
• Broken Bird: Elsa implies this of herself while talking to Ivy. She tells Ivy to leave the business while she still can.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Elsa and Bobby met while she was treating him for trench foot.
• Head-Turning Beauty: The fandom's reaction to Elsa; Bobby agrees (he married her). For further proof, here's some of Tracy's renderings of her as a human woman.
• Hospital Hottie: Elsa once worked as a combat nurse during the war, and she is pretty easy on the eyes.
• Loners Are Freaks: Averted. While Elsa has such a need for privacy and seclusion her entire family moves to the middle of nowhere for it, she proves herself to be one of the kinder and wiser characters in her brief appearance.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Implied by Elsa — she states the reason for moving to the country after the war was because she couldn't deal with "the noise" after the war, with sensitivity to loud noises being one of the symptoms of PTSD.
• The Stoic: Faced with all manner of danger and excitement Elsa's expressions can be generalized as world-weary. This even extends to the extra with studies of her face rendered as human, where unlike other such pages which are full of amusing expression studies her expressions are all very mild.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Jury's out on whether Bobby counts as ugly, but Elsa is by far easier on the eyes.

Abelard Arbogast

Spindly minister. Abelard is Elsa's brother.

---

• Badass Preacher: The first time we see Abelard, he's chasing kids down with a hearse and carrying a pistol.
• Comicbook Fantasy Casting: According to Tracy, Abelard is supposed to be modeled after actor Peter Cushing. As proof, here is his human rendition.
• Dirty Business: In "Lackadaisy Sendoff", Abelard becomes defensive when Ivy points out his hypocrisy, but later admits that bootlegging activities are his family's "greatest sin." He laments that he and his family are passing on bootlegging to a younger generation "like a cursed heirloom."
• Hypocrite: Abelard preaches against sin and warns Ivy of hellfire, but his illegal activities are far from virtuous. Ivy points this out in "Lackadaisy Sendoff", calling Abelard a "contradiction".
• Necessary Evil: Abelard's rationalization for being anti-Prohibition is, roughly, that temptations exist for good people to resist, and the government's "moral reform" is too extreme a violation of human rights to side with.
• The Quiet One: Unless he's in the middle of a "sermon," Abelard limits his conversation to a few words at most. Elsa too, if only because of her husband's talkativeness.
• Noodle People: Abelard could hide behind a post if so inclined. His sister is almost as slender.
• Sinister Minister: Abelard is a clergyman who participates in his family's bootlegging activities. He rationalizes it by deeming the government removing people's opportunity to sin to be the greater evil.

Bobby Bastian

Chatty mortician. Met his wife Elsa when she treated him while he was a soldier in WWI.

---

• Funetik Aksent: Mostly averted with Bobby, as there were few signs of his British background until his bio came out except his use of stereotypical Britishisms like "bloody", "blimey", "right proper", and "chaps". He does say "awright" though.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Elsa and Bobby met while she was treating him for trench foot.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Jury's out on whether Bobby counts as ugly, but Elsa is by far easier on the eyes.

Maitre Carrefour Cult

General Tropes

• The Beautiful Elite: Everyone at the Savoy's fete is attractive and well-dressed.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: At the fete, Nico and Zulie say a few lines, but Serafine does almost all of the talking to Mordecai. None of the other cultists say a word.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The cult has both male and female members. Judging by the members' appearance, it also includes people of different races and socioeconomic classes.
• Join or Die: Mordecai was subjected to forcible scarification the first time he refused to join. It's implied that his fate will be even more ominous unless he relents.
• Religion of Evil: The devotees follow a corrupted form of Voodoo that honors the Maitre Carrefour loa.
• Tranquil Fury: Look at the cultists' facial expressions in "Lackadaisy Congregation". Many of them appear angry at Mordecai for disparaging their group and their god.

Zulie

A member of the Maitre Carrefour cult.

---

• Femme Fatale: She tries (and fails) to charm Mordecai so he'll let his guard down at the cult's gathering. Later, she assists with his involuntary scarification.
• Meaningful Name: "Zulie" may be a reference to "Erzulie", an epithet for a variety of Voodoo loa associated with love, femininity, and motherhood.
• No-Sell: Her flirting has no effect on the asexual Mordecai, other than making his skin crawl.
• No Sense of Personal Space: She repeatedly gets in Mordecai's personal space, even after he tells her to stop. She was actually getting close to him so that she could assist with his ritual scarification.

Archie

Archie as depicted in "Lackadaisy Congregation"

A member of the Maitre Carrefour cult who seems ... absent.

---

• No Name Given: He hasn't been named in the comic so far, but Tracy has said that his name is Archie.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: He spends the entire fete scene staring into space.
• Unknown Character: He's just there, staring off into space. We only know his name and that's it.
• The Voiceless: He doesn't say a word. He just sits next to Serafine, staring into space.

Other Criminals

Captain Kehoe

The captain of a riverboat and seller of questionable spirits to non-decerning clientelle.

---

• Bystander Syndrome: When Kehoe notices the Pig Farmers aproaching behind Rocky he just tells them to settle their differences without involving him, unconcerned as they assault and drag Rocky away to kill him.
• Clandestine Chemist: Kehoe has been cutting his products with arterial fluid.
• Grumpy Old Man: Kehoe is a grump, older than most of the cast by a significant amount and has little to no compassion for others. His demeanor (and hygiene) has earned him the unflattering nickname of "Crusty Bugger" from his crew.

The Pig Farmers

Four pig farmers who attempt to kill Rocky during the opening of the comic; brothers Avril, Avery, and Emery, and their friend Benjy. They also provide corpse-disposing services for Marigold, as "their pigs will eat anything."

---

• Complexity Addiction: The brothers decide to kill Rocky for annoying them, but choose to make a spectacle of it rather than just shoot him which gives him a chance to escape.
• Fed to Pigs: A service they've been known to provide.
• Funetik Aksent: 'Southern Rustic' English.
• Hillbilly Moonshiner: Even though they're also trying to take the alcohol shipments from Captain Kehoe, they're also making moonshine on the farm. Rocky stumbles on their whiskey operation when he's burning their farm down and is shocked at their avarice.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Their attempt to kill Rocky and monopolize Captain Kehoe's moonshine routes drives Rocky to burn their house down, effectively ending their moonshine business. Later, they besiege the Lackadaisy with the intent of killing Rocky, only to be killed by Rocky's cousin.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After their farm is burned down, they take their grievances right to the speakeasy and start shooting up the place.
• Siblings in Crime: All of the pig farmers, save for Benjy, are brothers working for a criminal speakeasy.
• Starter Villain: They are the first antagonists of the story, with their attack on Lackadaisy resulting in the initial status quo.
• Too Dumb to Live: Attacking the Lackadaisy with no plan, no map of the caverns, and no idea who is staffing the speakeasy was not their smartest move. Bad luck and lack of planning cost them their lives when Freckle shot the three brothers and Viktor killed Benjy.

Benjy

• A Friend in Need: Benjy was willing to help his friends get revenge on the gangsters that burned everything they owned. By the time he was trying to flee it was clear they weren't going to be getting that revenge and anyone who stayed was getting killed. He still waited too long to bail.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the attempt to assault the Lackadaisy goes wrong Benjy tries to flee. Viktor's not feeling that charitable towards someone who shot him and nearly shot Ivy though, so Benjy's truck becomes Lackadaisy property.

Gracie Grombach

The manager of a small speakeasy hidden in a pool hall. He purchases liquor from the Marigold gang.

---

• Accidental Murder: In "Lackadaisy Confessional", Gracie explains to Mordecai that he arranged for Gerhardt to have a bad fall. Gracie intended to take control of Gerhardt's business while Gerhardt was recuperating so that he could provide information about the operation to the feds. Gerhardt died from the injury, which was not what Gracie intended.
• Actually Pretty Funny: When he's kidnapped and interrogated by Mordecai, and gets a front-row seat to just how freaking weird Mordecai actually is, he bursts out laughing.
• All for Nothing: Gracie laments that all his efforts as a federal informant, including the accidental murder of his uncle, were for nothing.
  Gracie: What gets me, after all that, I've never given 'em anything. No information they didn't already have. Nothing they could do anything with. And they don't seem too bothered by that, like they just wanna hear me talk. What a waste.
• Alliterative Name: Gracie Grombach.
• Attack Its Weak Point: After Gracie slams into a car and stuns himself, Mordecai cuts his Achilles' tendon with a knife, incapacitating him.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: He owns a pool hall. He's first shown playing pool in a hidden speakeasy.
• Dirty Business: Gracie is overwhelmed with guilt over causing the fall that killed his uncle. He only meant to injure the old man, not kill him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gracie's "spiteful old badger" uncle, Gerhardt Grombach, was the only person who looked after Gracie when he got in trouble as a kid. When Gracie was an adult, Gerhardt brought Gracie into his speakeasy and gambling business after Gracie's run-in with the law.
• Gender-Blender Name: With the name "Gracie", you'd think he was a girl.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Gracie holds his own against Nico during a fistfight. Nico's blows don't even slow him down.
• Hidden Depths: "Lackadaisy Confessional" reveals that Gracie was in and out of trouble as a young man, and that his uncle was the only person who looked out for him. Gracie feels enormous guilt over his uncle's death, and nearly wept while recounting the story to Mordecai. He's heartbroken that all of his efforts and sacrifices as a federal informant have been for nothing, and wants something positive to come out of his actions.
• Jerkass: He threatens to pummel Mordecai for being late, then towers over Mordecai and stares at him for several moments in an attempt to intimidate him.
• King of Beasts: He looks more lion-like than cat-like.
• Large and in Charge: He's a hulking, broad-chested man who towers over other characters.
• Lured into a Trap: Mordecai poses as a Marigold alcohol supplier and lures Gracie and his men outside. In the alley, Nico fights Gracie while Serafine shoots the henchmen.
• The Mole: When Gracie was arrested for grand larceny, Revenue, and Prohibition agents arranged for a plea deal. In return, they expected Gracie to give them information on his uncle's speakeasy and gambling ring.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Deeply regrets the death of his uncle, especially since so far it's been All for Nothing.
• No-Neck Chump: As lampshaded by Nico.
  Nico: I'd choke him out but I don' tink he got a neck. Hey, you got a neck?
• Stealthy Colossus: Lampshaded; the description "Gracie, the former jewel thief" suggests a woman on the slender side, only for it to be a tall, bull-necked hulk of a man, to Mordecai's surprise.
  Gracie: I'm pretty sneaky.
• The Stool Pigeon: Implied. Dom Drago's notes mention a "G.G.", suggesting that Gracie gave him information. He later confirms to Mordecai that he cut a deal with the feds in exchange for a reduced prison sentence, though he claims he hasn't been able to find out anything substantial. This may be why the Marigold gang targeted his speakeasy.

Joey

A bartender who works at Gracie Grombach's speakeasy.

---

• The Bartender: He tends a bar at the speakeasy.
• Motor Mouth: He's rather chatty, straying onto different topics instead of focusing on the matter at hand.
• Non-Action Guy: He stays behind in the speakeasy while Gracie and the burlier men go outside to investigate the Marigold vehicle. When Serafine robs the patrons of the speakeasy, he's just as frightened as the others.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
  • Joey and Mordecai talk past each other regarding a painting of two cabaret girls. Joey thinks they're talking about how fun a threesome would be, whereas Mordecai thinks they're discussing the merits of symmetry.
  • Joey also notices blood on Mordecai's shirt. Mordecai explains that he was trying to fight off a "feral animal" who insisted on using knives. Mordecai was actually fighting off a knife-wielding Serafine, but Joey thinks Mordecai is describing a kinky sexual encounter.
• You Talk Too Much!: Mordecai finds him tiresome and tells him, "Please go back to tending the bar, or whatever it is you do."

Other Characters

Sedgewick "Wick" Sable

His idea of a good time involves a quarry and some dynamite.^*

Voiced by: Bradley Gareth (English), ^{Foreign V As}Alejandro Vargas (Latin American Spanish)

"I just don't know how to entertain a lady who doesn't want to hear about rocks or bugs."

---

Old money, a quarry and mining magnate, and sweetly naive about the world. He's loyal to the Lackadaisy through thick and thin (and Mitzi may have more than a little something to do with that). Pleasant, amiable, hardworking, bit of a tippler, and rather idealist too.

---

• Aerith and Bob: While some of the more outlandish names in the comic are nicknames, Wick's full name is legitimately Sedgewick. (It's a real surname, so potentially it was his mother's maiden name.)
• The Alcoholic: He can hold his alcohol like a champ, apparently. He also constantly adds liquor to his drinks and food, much to Lacy's dismay.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Gender flipped. He's a law abiding (drunk-driving and drinking at speakeasies notwithstanding) guy who is mostly known for being very nice and hardworking, and he's attracted to Mitzi, the ruthless proprietress of the Lackadaisy.
• Alliterative Name: Without his nickname, it's two S's.
• Art Evolution: While all the characters got a fair amount of it, such as the proportions becoming much more human, Wick - partly due to not having any major role in the comic up until halfway through Volume 1 - has changed significantly, originally having a much flatter nose, making him stand out among the cast. This is what he used to look like.
• Classy Cravat: Being a very wealthy and erudite man, he wears one.
• Doomed by Canon: Various sketches from Tracy confirm that Wick is not going to fare well during October 1929.
• The Dulcinea Effect: To an extent. He'll go out of his way to bring business to Lackadaisy thanks to Mitzi's charms, but he's not willing to actually become a business partner.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Rocky speculates that this is how he got his name when his East Coast aristocrat parents decided to call him 'Cedric'.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: A male example.
• Gentleman and a Scholar: He's a collector of historical artifacts and is a genuine wine-and-booze aficionado.
• Foil: As a competitor for Mitzi's regard, Wick is everything that Rocky is not: well put together both materially and mentally, wealthy, self-assured...
• Hidden Depths: Everyone seems to think he's just a hard working business man who is very, very nice. He's a sleepless workaholic, has alcohol issues, knows that being a business partner for Lackadaisy is not a good idea (his crush on Mitzi not withstanding) and has deep psychological trauma after he killed a duck at an early age.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: In his human form, he has blond hair. He has a kind-hearted personality and is more than a little naive.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: As seen after his encounter with the ghost duck.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: One of the few characters in the comic without any capacity for guiltless violence and a thoroughly honest occupation.
• The Insomniac: Lacy says he hasn't been getting much sleep since an influx of paperwork. Indeed, he's rather jumpy.
• Manchild: Downplayed; while he's rather childishly innocent, and his bio notes how he likes "the finer things" (read: overpriced toys for adults bad with money), he's also an extreme workaholic.
• Moral Guardian: In-universe. When Calvin is drinking with him and Rocky at the Lackadaisy, Wick knocks the 18 year old Calvin's drink on the ground when he's looking away.
• Must Have Caffeine: Coffee is one half of his calorie count. The other is alcohol, as revealed by Tracy.
• Nice Guy: He's always very nice, even when he's snarking.
  Mitzi: Wick? Don't worry. He's too nice to go seeking reprisals.
• Non-Action Guy: Drawn from time to time with a snazzy revolver, even though he'd have no idea what to do with one.
• Romantic False Lead: Rocky sure thinks he is.
• Rule of Cool: Why he's brandishing those snazzy revolvers in the first place.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Usually wearing a suit. In some of the art, it borders Costume Porn territory.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Enjoys blasting giant holes in the earth.
• Uncle Pennybags: He pays for Viktor to get stitched up and brings his friends down to Lackadaisy to help out Mitzi—he does draw the line at an actual business agreement with her, but she steals his chequebook to make him an unwitting one of these.
  Ivy: Hey! You have money!
  Wick: Uh... thanks?
• Unkempt Beauty: Him when he's up from having a hangover or drunk.
• Workaholic: To the point where he forgets which day it is.

Lacy Hardt

She has her work cut out for her, that's for sure.

Voiced by: Lisa Reimold (dubs), Ashley Nichols (series)

Wick: (sigh) Why does blasting giant holes in the earth require so much paperwork?
Lacy: Um... no rest for the wicked, I suppose.

Wick's mild-mannered secretary and coffee girl, who often works at his home to ensure that he gets finished with unfinished paperwork (which is a rather common occurence). Though she isn't one to butt into personal affairs, she is getting a bit suspicious of her boss's personal life, specifically his drinking and his "new paramour."

---

• Beleaguered Assistant: Her boss is boyish, infatuated with a woman running a criminal enterprise, makes a living by blowing up rock, and drives drunk (though the last isn't seen as nearly as big a deal as it would be today).
• Deadpan Snarker
  Wick: Where would I be without Miss Lacy?
  Lacy: In a ditch, Mr. Sable. Hopelessly trapped in the twisted wreckage of your car.
  Wick: Rhetorical. Question.
  Lacy: Mangled limbs.
  Wick: You're ruining the sentimen-
  Lacy: Probably on fire.
  Wick: I don't think we need all the gruesome det-
  Lacy: With your tax records all out of order...
• Girl Friday: Wick's. She's his right-hand woman for secretarial and accounting work both, and frequently works at his home.
• Good with Numbers: Lacy is noted for her fastidious account managing skills.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's definitely one of the most morally upright of the cast.
• Only Sane Woman: At least when Wick is drunk or not thinking straight.
• Plucky Office Girl: She gets fairly frustrated by it sometimes.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Wick, it seems. She tends to him at his home and in the office, but it's shown to be no more than a work/colleague relationship. More than a few fans have compared them to Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.
• Sassy Secretary: Lacy doesn't hide her disapproval towards Wick's drinking habits (apparently he adds liquor to his scrambled eggs) or the thugs that come calling from Lackadaisy.
• Servile Snarker: She often makes sarcastic remarks about Wick, to Wick.
• Unkempt Beauty: Observe: regular, tidy Lacy versus mussed hair Lacy (especially panels 8 and 14).

Jeanine "Nina" McMurray

Rocky better hope he gets Freckle back before curfew.

Voiced by: Ashe Wagner

"Sit up straight or the devil will steal your backbone and lash you with it for all eternity."

Rocky's aunt and Freckle's mother. Extremely religious, and protective of her son. She also genuinely loves her nephew, despite all of the trouble he gets himself into. She's probably the closest thing to a parent in Rocky's life right now.

---

• Apron Matron: Do not cross her. But she'll get pretty much any unholy stain out of your clothes if you're her nephew.
• Death Glare: Gives one to Rocky that sends him fleeing for his life after she sees he shaved Calvin's face.
• Funetik Aksent: Irish.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Pictured with her sister Sophie (Rocky's mother) as a young woman, looking rather lovely.
• Mama Bear: Over Freckle. She doesn't approve of Rocky's malign influence on him.
• My Beloved Smother: A very Catholic version. The combination of Nina and Rocky has kept Freckle from having any really close friendships.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She pretended to be "a voice of God" at one point to get a young Rocky to behave for one. She immediately regretted it as she is seen confessing about it one evening in church.
• Nephewism: She took in Rocky, while his mother was sick (and later passed away) and his dad was nowhere to be found.
• Never Mess with Granny: Both Freckle and Rocky are terrified of her wrath, which involves the combination of guilt and physical pain.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is Jeanine.
• Oireland: Subverted. While she is Irish Catholic, has the accent, and seems the archetypal dour Irish matron, she doesn't display any other characteristics of this trope.
• Pet The Cat: While she did kick Rocky out of her house and all but disowned him for the incident that Rocky took the blame for, she still lets him hang around with Calvin and (begrudgingly) washed his coat when he asked. It seems, however, that her acceptance of Rocky is as much for Calvin's benefit as Rocky's; Rocky is the only person Calvin trusts completely, and she warns Rocky not to mess that up between them.
• Prim and Proper Bun: To show her straight-laced and strict nature.
• Proper Lady: She acts as such, to a degree that her son (and nephew) can be terrified of her, with Rocky refusing to let Ivy meet her.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Implied with her deceased sister, Sophie; in a photo of their younger selves, Nina has a serious frown on her face, while Sophia is smiling impishly like her son Rocky.
• Textile Work Is Feminine: One comic displays her using a sewing machine.

Dominic "Dom" Drago

Possibly one of the few cops in St. Louis who isn't corrupt.

"Tell you what — we can pretend for now you're a good little tax payer, not a sax player. Trust me. I've got much bigger fish to fry."

A sharp-eyed, suave member of the Treasury Department, Dom seems to be up on his history, at least when it comes to speakeasies. However, he seems to be after something much, much larger than the local bootleggers in St. Louis.

---

• Alliterative Name: Two D's.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has especially prominent ones, more so than the rest of the cast.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Fair Cop: His human form is quite good-looking.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: In his first appearance, has a pipe hanging out of his mouth the whole time, and chastizes the Dirty Cops openly bragging about the money they stole.
  • If you look at the pipe, he seems to just chew on it and not smoke anything. Although, it might just not be lit yet.
• Hero Antagonist: He's an honest, pleasant man who works for the Treasury Department. While his job duties will likely undermine Lackadaisy and the other speakeasies, he is upholding the law.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: An agent of the Treasury department wearing quite a nice suit in Sleazytown.
• Southern-Fried Genius: He is from Austin, Texas after all.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Inverted; he's a treasurer with the FBI, and the worst thing he does is snark.

Dr. Leo Quackenbush

A doctor that the Lackadaisy cast calls on to help them when medical expertise is required, is much more discreet than a hospital—although pricey.

---

• Back-Alley Doctor: Actually, a horse doctor ^note Either an equine veterinarian or a doctor who's not good at their job that gets called when there needs to be medical attention and is like what one would expect from this trope, complete with unsafe conditions, having (and prescribing) controlled meds, and, from what's implied, more people dying on his watch, enough to bet on if his patients recover.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has the most noticeable of all the cast.
• Dr. Jerk: He demands payment upfront when Ivy tries to call in a favor. (Apparently, they owe him.)
• Expy: If the name wasn't enough, he's got a white version of Groucho's greasepaint mustache.
• Meaningful Name: Named after what Groucho Marx's character in A Day at the Races (1937), also a horse doctor, was going to be called (before they changed it to Hackenbush after finding several real doctors of the same name).
• Pajama-Clad Hero: Well, a doctor; Ivy calls him out in the middle of the night. His character page on the site describes him as a "horse doctor by day and a pajama-wearing gangster doctor by night".

Mrs. Bapka

Viktor's kindly, well-meaning, and senile Slovak neighbor.

---

• Bilingual Bonus: Practically everything she says is in Slovak.
• Evil Old Folks: Tracy has jokingly said Mrs. Bapka is a hardened criminal - because she disposes of food products down the sink drain. In reality, she's a very sweet yet senile old lady.
• Homemade Sweater from Hell: She knits a hideous green sweater for Viktor one Christmas.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Tracy would draw a younger version of her for a Patreon livestream.
• Lethal Chef: She serves sardine sandwiches to Ivy and Freckle. It's implied that they're the same sardines that Freckle dislodged from her clogged drain.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: The site's character page calls her 'minuscule', and she is shorter than pretty much every other adult character, as well as teenagers Freckle and Ivy.
• Poor Communication Kills: Elsa calls Viktor's house after Marigold gang thugs visit her house. Mrs. Bapka answers, but because of the language barrier, she never passes along the call to Viktor.

Edmund Church

Voiced by: Mike Pollock

A wealthy business acquaintance of Wick's.

---

• Hypocrite: He looks down his nose at Mitzi for running a speakeasy and at Wick for dating her, but he has no moral qualms about patronizing a speakeasy.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He's not wrong when he makes cutting comments about how dating Mitzi could ruin Wick's reputation. He also calls Mitzi out for trying to involve him in "criminal reputations".
• Passive Aggressive Combat: While drinking at Lackadaisy, he repeatedly makes passive-aggressive comments to Wick and Mitzi.

Virgil

down on his luck

A vagrant who lives on the streets of Sleaze Town

---

• Cloudcuckoolander: He's scatterbrained and very strange. From all things considered, you'd think he was a junkie.
• Didn't Think This Through: He threatens Zib and Mitzi with a can opener. Zib points out that it isn't a very intimidating weapon.
• Gargle Blaster: Zib warns him not to drink radiator fluid again.
• Insane Equals Violent: He's a disturbed man who threatens Mitzi and Zib with a can opener when they first arrive in Sleaze Town. Later, he and Mizti fight over a pearl that fell from her necklace.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Virgil receives one from Mitzi when he tries to take one of her pearls.
• Noodle Incident: How he came to drink radiator fluid and what happened when he did is anyone's guess.
• Odd Friendship: The deranged Virgil and smooth Zib somehow know each other. Virgil seems to like Zib. Zib pours his heart out to Virgil while intoxicated, shares some liquor out of a flask with him, and then posts Virgil's bail when they're both incarcerated.
• Shout-Out: Virgil comforts Zib by telling him, "Forget it, Zib. It's Sleazy Town." This is likely a reference to the last line in the film Chinatown, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
• The Tooth Hurts: After his fight with Mitzi, he yanks out a loose tooth and offers it to Zib for a dollar.

The Heller Family

Mordecai's relatives, who appear in photographs and childhood flashbacks. Their names are Tzipporah (otherwise known as "Zippy"), Rose, and Esther. The ones we don't see are named Isaac (Mordacai's dad) and Hannah (Mordacai's passed on sister).

---

• All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Word of God states that Tzipporah and Isaac (Mordecai's parents) were German-Jewish immigrants to the U.S.
• Big Brother Worship: Of the two, Mordacai is closest to Rose.
• Bookworm: Esther quotes passages from The Art of War.
• Cheerful Child: Rose is an exuberant little girl with a big laugh. In "Lackadaisy Critique", she laughs hysterically when Mordecai uses big words to critique her stick figure drawing.
• Death of a Child: Hannah (Mordecai's infant sister who appears in an old photograph) died in infancy, according to Tracy in a forum discussion.
• Disappeared Dad: Isaac, but we get more of a backstory, as Isaac suffered a stroke and lived in a nursing home for the rest of Mordacai's childhood. He departed by the time the comic takes place.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Or "family" in this case. As cold and unfeeling as he tends to be, Mordecai does think of his family fondly. Because of this fondness, they don't know what he does for a living, however, Zippy has her suspicions.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: Rose tickles Mordecai in "The Art of War".
• Meaningful Name: Rose is, certainly, sans doubt "rosy".
• Sibling Rivalry: Esther and Mordecai exhibit this in "The Art of War". Esther sneaks up on Mordecai and smacks him with a feather duster, after which Mordecai holds her back with his hand. Esther reveals that she swept up spider webs with the duster and sprinkled spiders on him.
• Slasher Smile: Esther gives one to Mordecai when she sprinkles spiders on him in "The Art of War".
• Strong Family Resemblance: An old family photograph shows that Tzipporah, Rose, and Esther are tuxedo cats like Mordecai.
• Terrible Artist: Rose draws an atrocious stick figure and shows her drawing to Mordecai in "Lackadaisy Critique".
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: During a childhood scuffle, Esther places spiders on Mordecai, who promptly loses all composure, disrobes, and jumps out of a window three stories high.

Rocky's Parents

Rocky's absent parents. His momma was named Sophia "Sophie" Rickaby (nee McMurray) and his dad was named "Ransom"

---

• All Girls Love Bad Boys: Sophie and Ransom's relationship, from what do know about 'em. One thing that's clear is that Nina disapproved and, according to Tracy, Nina felt upset that she couldn't prevent Sophie and Ransom from marrying.
• Delicate and Sickly: Sophie was sick for much of the Rocky's childhood, before passing away.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Rocky has more fonder memories of his mom than he does his dad.
• Disappeared Dad: Ransom ran off at some point during Rocky's childhood, somethin' about "working on the railroad"
• Parental Abandonment: By the time the childhood flashbacks happen, both Sophie and Ransom were absent, though, in Sophie's case it was because she was sick all the time and has passed away by a point.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: It's not flat-out said what sickness Sophie had but, Rocky's lines about "chasing the red death" and sanitariums", imply it was tuberculosis.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Sophie looks a lot like her son Rocky, complete with the same smile.

Alena (Spoiler Character)

Alena Vasko

Viktor's estranged daughter.

---

• Blood-Stained Letter: When Viktor has a coughing fit, he spews blood and medicine all over Alena's letters, making for gruesome symbolism.
• Daddy's Girl: She clearly loves Viktor and wants to stay in touch with him.
• Disappeared Dad: Viktor has been out of Alena's life for years. The content of her letter suggests that he has not written to her.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Viktor isn't ugly so much as burly and grizzled, but Alena by contrast is beautiful and cherubic in the photo she mails to him.

---