The Dharma Punks
Ant Sang

This is a short excerpt — just three of 400 pages — of the iconic Aotearoa comic The Dharma Punks. Ant Sang self-published the eight-issue comic in 2001 and it quickly hooked readers and reviewers, often outselling titles such as Spiderman and X-Men in local comic shops. Set in Auckland in the mid-1990s, The Dharma Punks follows Chopstick and his anarchist friends, who are planning to blow up a multinational fast-food outlet on its opening day. Personal and philosophical choices face Chopstick at every turn and Sang describes the series as ‘a metaphysical meditation on life, love, friendship, punk rock and blowing things up’. The Dharma Punks remains deeply admired for its inky artwork, which unleashes raw energy and punk grit, as well as its poignant narrative, distinctive local setting and fidelity to youthful experience. After the comic being out of print for over a decade, Sang and Earth’s End Publishing released a collected edition in 2014, which was followed by several international printings.

Ant Sang is a critically acclaimed cartoonist and graphic novelist. Of his childhood in Aotearoa and Hong Kong, Sang says he ‘lived on a heady diet of comics, cartoons, anime, sci-fi and Shaw Brothers kung fu films’. In the mid-1990s he began self-publishing comics, with The Dharma Punks becoming a breakout success that led to work in the film and television industry as a storyboard artist and character designer — including for the hit animated series bro’Town. Sang is still based in Tāmaki Makaurau, where he continues to write and illustrate award-winning books, contribute to screen projects and work on commissions.