A sweet and funny story, the WEBTOON comedy Cursed Princess Club is a work of love from creator LambCat. The popular series has a 9.81 star rating, 2.3 million subscribers, and 286.2 million views. A turn away from the typical “pretty princesses,” CPC follows Gwendolyn, a princess who appears (literally) not to have everything the stereotypical royal does. Even though she never thought anything of her appearance, after her fiance calls her “ugly,” she finds herself questioning everything. Comfort comes in the form of new friends, and slowly, Gwendolyn learns to love and accept herself again.
The story’s finale premiered this year on March 3rd, making this WEBTOON a complete story:
Meet Gwendolyn – living proof that princesses don’t always have it all. See, although she lives in a castle and her father is the King, Gwendolyn isn’t like a movie princess, or even a fairly-tale princess. She’s got a big heart, but isn’t particularly attractive and doesn’t have a Disney-quality singing voice. But one night, she accidentally stumbles upon the twisted world of the Cursed Princess Club, and her life will never be the same. Hexed and cast out, the ladies of the club are just the people Gwendolyn needs to show her that just because she doesn’t “fit the mold” does not mean she’s any less of a princess.
The first eleven episodes of Cursed Princess Club are available now to read. Currently, the rest of the series is on a “Daily Pass,” boasting up to 173 episodes! If you’re eager to get the whole story, the webcomic has been coming out in graphic novel format, with three volumes out now and Volume 4 ready for pre-order.
Fans can also access a lot of CPC merch, including cute shirts, tote bags, and more on WEBTOON’s official online store. Keep your eyes out for a coloring book and how-to-draw book coming out July 9th.
Now let’s get into some questions!
Fandom Spotlite: What are some of your favorite fairy tales or princess tales? Do you prefer the cleaned-up versions (like Disney stories) or the original tales (like the Brothers Grimm)?
LambCat: I think I’ve always been more into fables than fairytales. They always had very clear moral guidelines for my simple brain to absorb about working hard, pacing myself, or not being too greedy, such as “The Dog and the Shadow,” “The Three Little Pigs,” or “The Tortoise and the Hare.” My favorite Disney movies were always “Hercules” and “Mulan” for similar reasons – I’m a sucker for animations and orchestrated songs about people trying their hardest.
Along those same lines, my favorite princess tale is probably this Chinese / Japanese folktale about their holiday called Qixi / Tanabata. It’s about a princess and a prince who are deities in the sky, and are deeply in love – too much so. They have so much fun together that they neglect all their duties. In the end, the king has them separated by the Milky Way where they can only ever cross and meet each other once a year if they finish all their duties. It makes me feel sad, but I always think about it for some reason.
FS: Do you remember when you first had the idea for Cursed Princess Club? How long did it take for that first idea to spark into your first episode?
LambCat: I do – it was for a story contest that WEBTOON held in 2018. I was making a big list to brainstorm every story idea I could come up with, and one eventually formed into this concept of princesses who never got their happily-ever-afters and were cured from their curses.
I would have loved to spend a lot more time planning designs and concepts out more, but due to the fact that it was a contest with a deadline, I think I had about a month tops to get the first episode done. It honestly looked terrible haha, and has since been redrawn several times over between the contest version and the graphic novel version.
FS: Which came first: Laverne, the character or the name LambCat?
LambCat: Great question. The name and design of LambCat came before my comic journey started. It was just this little creature I doodled one day. I think I just love cute, fluffy, round shaped things too much and am a terrible character designer because I didn’t even notice that Laverne and LambCat’s design were similar until I heard some of my Patreon members ask if Laverne was a self-insert. I love the implication! But I’d never be able to even imagine myself as confident as Laverne in a million years!!
FS: Do you have any specific inspirations for your art style?
LambCat: I’ve always loved the classic shoujo look, so I decided to aim for that with “Cursed Princess Club.” For inspiration, I turned to retro favorites like “Sailor Moon,” “Revolutionary Girl Utena,” and “Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.” However, I feel like I would still very much like to develop and work on my art style and skills though from here on, so I guess I’ll see what happens as time goes on…!
FS: What are some of your favorite character tropes? What characters in your comic fall under these tropes?
LambCat: I will always love a fighting housekeeper. We’ve got some of that in Cursed Princess Club!
FS: What traits do you relate to with the main character, Gwendolyn? Is there another character in Cursed Princess Club that you relate to more?
LambCat: I really love baking, sewing, and crafting in general, just like Gwen (though I’m not great at any of it). But besides that, I think I mostly relate to tiny pieces of many characters, but not one primarily. I love florals and action stories like Lorena, and yet I’m anxious about everything like Monika, and I live very minimalistic and often have awful sinus problems like Whitney, haha.
FS: Can you describe the feeling of having such a popular WEBTOON comic? How did you feel when they released merch for it?
LambCat: It’s 100% a blessing from WEBTOON’s amazing reach and strength as a platform. But yeah, the feeling of having people – so many incredibly smart, passionate, and lovely people – read and bring to life all the imaginary worlds and people you’ve spent a lot of time, sweat, and hope into creating is… It’s a feeling that I can only ever feel incredibly grateful for.
It’s wonderful to know that there are many much more incredible stories that will also get a spotlight and become elevated due to WEBTOON, and I look forward to all of them!
As for merch, it’s something that I never would have been able to figure out or make time to create, and so I’m very, very thankful for WEBTOON’s incredible merch team for making so many amazing books, shirts, and other things for Cursed Princess Club available. I’ve also learned an incredible amount and had a lot of fun making them, especially with the recent Cursed Princess Club coloring book and How to Draw book. It’s very surreal, all in all…!
FS: What’s your go-to self-care activity?
LambCat: Lots of walking and listening to music. I didn’t get to do much of that when Cursed Princess Club was ongoing, and I think my hip flexors and everything around there got pretty deteriorated and tightened up over the years. So I’ve been working on undoing a lot of that lately, and it feels great!
FS: What’s one fun fact that your readers might not know about you?
LambCat: I dislike water and cannot swim[.]
FS: How do you feel about the finale of Cursed Princess Club? What’s next for you?
LambCat: I was always petrified of creating the final arc because when I was first plotting the entire story, I always wanted it to be super big and chaotic with all of the characters. I still can’t believe we were able to finish it in the way that I had always hoped – and it was seriously all thanks to the superhumanly talented people who helped me throughout the series (Shei, CatburgerHelper, ShiHwi, Kyorin, Meeshywy, Spudinacup, Yeajin, and CloverComplex) because I would fallen apart physically without them.
Though the main series is over, I did try to leave a few bread crumbs at the end as to where I would love to take the continuation of Cursed Princess Club next, where I can focus more on specific characters instead of such a large ensemble. And I’m really happy to say that it looks like the first of these next steps is possible, though that’s all I can say for now. So I’m very happy to be writing again!
Fandom Spotlite would like to thank LambCat for taking the time to answer our questions. You can find LambCat on Instagram, Twitter/X, and Patreon. Other important links from LambCat are here.
