Subcultura (2006-2018) is one of those internet networks that you don’t even remember how you discovered, but it feels like it’s always been there. What I do remember is the context: 2012, the year I got my graphics tablet, a Wacom Bamboo that I still have; plus, I met a lot of people on Twitter and Tumblr who also drew (something I hadn’t managed to do in previous years). All of that gave me a boost of motivation to keep drawing and take it more seriously, after years of being “dormant.”
I started with Günther, a kind of remake of a short comic I did for a class, without knowing it would be entered in a Teletón comic contest, and that I would eventually win. That said, I set it aside because I felt something more serious wasn’t for me. Habitación 8 came to fill that void: an introverted and quiet cartoonist has to live overnight with one of her creations that came to life out of nowhere, and who is very boisterous. I confess that Paulette, the protagonist, has a lot of what I was and what I wanted to be. Anyone who knew me well could see the similarities. Meanwhile, I tried to revive my old hodgepodge blog LVcosas, which I later reformulated as Stripes Everywhere, and then as Scribbled Life. Years later, already in university, and with my pseudo-UPA minimalist streak now firmly established, I wanted to make stories like the ones I made as a child, with cartoonish characters and a strong comedic element; And by mixing it with an aesthetic and technology from the beginning of the millennium, Cyberboard was born.
However, life happened, and little by little my time for my projects has shrunk: university schedules and assignments, helping out at home, and other things I won’t go into here. All of this has caused me to drift a bit away from the community (although I stayed in touch with several members), but not completely. I had the honor of being the first artist for Rosette the Dragonet, my first webcomic that isn’t a solo project, and I also design the central image for the Christmas Exchanges every year.
The news of Subcultura’s closure caught us completely off guard. What Fotolog or MySpace was to some, Subcultura was to many of us here: a community that was always there, and which—bananas and all—we’ll remember fondly. Even I, who arrived relatively late (2012), felt that way, since that was when I started to make my way in the art world; I also began to meet people who shared my passion for drawing (before the internet, I had an art circle made up entirely of myself), and to my surprise, there were many fellow Chileans there, with whom I started to make connections and whom I would eventually meet in person and even form a collective with. That’s not to mention all the people from other parts of the world I met, with whom I still keep in touch… besides being the reason why a large part of my early Twitter feed was about Spanish topics, which one eventually comes to understand.
This closure will be painful (especially since everything ever uploaded to the site will disappear with it), but… I prefer to hold on to all the good things that came out of it. Sure, it feels like an abrupt end, but I’m sure that (both in my case and in the case of many others here) the bonds created here will continue in other networks, whether on other social media or other webcomic platforms (whether through a move or some successor to Sub that arrives). Many of us will stay in touch, either actively talking to each other or silently following the work you upload; and it’s nice to think that this site, even with its patches, fixes, and everything, made this meeting point for all of us possible.
Thanks for everything, Subculture. And we’ll see each other in the afterlife.
This blog post was uploaded to my Subcultura account hours before it closed. A backup will remain here for posterity.