"At Once More Poetic And More Precise..."

Dreamers, activists, malcontents, I'd like to introduce you to Emily Wernet's fledgling webcomic Moonlighting. Its heroine, a high school girl named Billy, has a secret life that she is still only dimly conscious of -- which probably has to do with the superhero sightings pouring in from the streets of her boring suburb.

What I love most about the orange-tinted supergirl -- and what cements her as a Princess of Cups -- is the way she expresses herself. Where others speak mere words, her speech bubbles are filled with images that express her intent symbolically. It's a wonderful motif that illustrates what it would be like for a dreamworld creature to interact with everyday people. It also reminds me of the alien creature's telepathy in this Aeon Flux episode. (As Trevor Goodchild describes it, "Her language of pictures is at once more poetic and more precise.")

Rather than inducing a state of paralysis or stagnation, the Princess's suspension between the material world and the watery dreamworld compels her to action in both realms. She may not yet understand herself, but she will learn by doing and speaking, articulating her inner vision as it reveals itself to her. Incapable of the Queen's deep-sea excursions, the Princess trains by executing a series of shallow dives into her unconscious. This has the benefit of making her more accessible to the surface-dwellers out there, and let's face it, we all need a hero who encourages us to straddle that divide ourselves.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Princess of Cups