EVENT: The Dharma Punks: In Conversation with Ant Sang

Before his best-selling graphic novel Shaolin Burning, cartoonist Ant Sang was known for his highly ambitious comic series The Dharma Punks. A graphic novel published in eight chapters from 2001 - 2003, the story follows Chopstick, a punk from Auckland who becomes embroiled in an anarchist plot to blow up Bobo's, a multinational fast food restaurant. Unable to move on from the recent death of his friend, and struggling to reconcile his spiritual path with his political actions, Chopstick's journey is a meditation on life, love, friendship, and blowing things up!

At almost 400 pages, it was an epic undertaking that struck a chord with local comics readers, becoming one of the highest selling local comic books of all time; it was available from most retailers, and in some comics stores it even out sold such chart topping comics as Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man. The comic series helped launch Ant's career as a go-to creative, leading to his award-winning design work on the animated TV series Bro' Town.

At a special event held at the Auckland Central Library, 44-46 Lorne St, Auckland Central, on Thursday May 1st, I'll be hosting a conversation with Ant Sang, looking back at this landmark comic series: discussing its origins, Ant's creative process: from scripting to final art work, marketing, distributing the series and more! If you are an aspiring comic artist or designer, this will be a great chance to go behind the scenes into the mechanics of creating a graphic novel.

The talk is a FREE event held at Auckland Central Library, Level 3, from 6pm - 8pm on Thursday, May 1st. There will be refreshments available from 5.30pm before the talk starts. You can find more details at the Auckland Libraries events page HERE.

And there will also be an exciting NZ comics publishing announcement on the night - trust me, you won't want to miss this!

- AK!