Wednesday Webcomics: “Cursed Princess Club”

Cursed Princess Club tells the story of a princess, Gwendolyn, who stumbles upon a group of outcasts known as the Cursed Princess Club. Her life is forever changed.

Cursed Princess Club by LambCat is a comedy. It centers around Gwendolyn, a princess with a big heart, who joins those cast out of society, who help her realize that even though she isn’t “normal,” she can still be a princess like all the others.

As a warning, this review discusses some spoilers for Cursed Princess Club!

Gwendolyn, the 16-year-old daughter of the king of the Pastel Kingdom has two sisters (Maria and Lorena) and a brother (Jamie). She and her sisters are excited about the princes from the Plaid Kingdom (Lance, Blaine, and Frederick) their father requested they marry. While Lance and Blaine bond with Maria and Lorena, Frederick does not bond with Gwen. Instead, he calls her “really ugly.” After inadvertently overhearing this, she runs into the haunted forest, wanting to get away from everything. She is frightened by a group of mysterious women and awakens in the headquarters of the Cursed Princess Club. And the story goes on from there.

Cursed Princess Club has compelling characters and storyline. There is a focus on identity and acceptance. For instance, Gwen finds acceptance among the Cursed Princess Club (CPC), headed by Calpernia, composed of princesses like Nell, Jolie, Syrah, Thermidora, Monika, Abbi, Aurelia, Renée, and Safron (a man, but part of the club), with “incurable” curses. Later on, it is revealed that one of the CPC members, Nell, is the girlfriend of Jolie.

Apart from the CPC, Gwen’s siblings are nice and caring. In fact, they raise her self-esteem, as does her father, who wants to marry her off. None of them care what she looks like and accept her for who she is.

There is a funny gag throughout the comic where people continually think Jamie (Gwen’s brother) is a girl because of his feminine looks and hair, when he is actually a man. In this way, the comic subverts gender norms, and pushes back the idea that girls have to be physically “pretty” to be beautiful, with the idea that people can be loved no matter what they look like The CPC itself is a place for those who don’t fit “societal expectations.”

There is even, in one comic, a ceremony to awaken Jamie with a kiss, but people don’t want to kiss him because he is “too pretty,” and instead he is awoken when a waffle falls on his face. The comic is inspired by “Disney-esque fairy tales” and trying to turn those tropes upside down, than everything being hunky-dory for the princess despite her “curse.”

Cursed Princess Club, has over a 100 episodes is written and illustrated by LambCat. In a 2019 interview, LambCat said she came up with the idea of the comic in 2019, liking the idea of “creating a comedy centered around fairy tales,” and began imagining a world where fairytales weren’t just success stories but there were princesses weren’t “able to lift their curse successfully” or weren’t saved, creating their own happily-ever-afters.

LambCat also said that Gwen plays on the trope of a female protagonist ignored or ridiculed for their looks but becomes loved by all when she becomes “conventionally attractive,” with the character meant to remind people that “outward looks are just a small fraction of what makes someone lovely.” She noted that Gwen’s siblings were meant to look like “very stereotypical 90’s shoujo anime girls.” In a 2020 interview, she added that she was glad people sympathized with Frederick, who grew as a character during the comic. Lambcat also said she hired new art assistants to help her, and stated that the future comic will be “4 acts” like most fairytales.

Unlike many other comics, Cursed Princess Club has music which accompanies each issue of the webcomic. LambCat has said that she added music because she feels it “brings extra life to the story.” It is amazing that this is LambCat’s first foray into comics, releasing over 100 tracks along with the comic to date! This is also thanks to the art assistants, which allow for more comic panels for each episode, and her editor, Eunice Baik. She has further said that she hopes the comic will inspire people who are “afraid their art isn’t good enough to make a comic.”

Cursed Princess Club is available to read on Line Webtoon. It can be supported on Patreon.

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You can find LambCat on Twitter and Instagram.

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For more great webcomic recommendations, check out our Wednesday Webcomics archives!

Author: Burkely Hermann

Burkely is an indexer of declassified documents by day and a fan fic writer by night. He recently earned a MLIS with a concentration in Digital Curation from the University of Maryland. He currently voraciously watches animated series and reads too many webcomics to count on Webtoon. He loves swimming, hiking, and searching his family roots in his spare time.

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