Dharma Punks comic sparks interest

Bro Town cartoonist Ant Sang plans to re-release a cult comic following successful crowd-funding.

The plans were revealed after Spark Week 2014 brought a panel of four  experienced  crowd funders to Wintec’s campus.

Ant Sang is perhaps best known as the designer of  the characters for the hilarious TV show, Bro Town.

But Sang also created the comic book Dharma Punks, a cult classic that was originally released more than  a decade ago and which  will be re-released later this year as a collector’s edition following successful crowd-funding.

In 2001 Sang first self-published Dharma Punks in eight issues over two years – totalling just less than  400 pages.

“It sold pretty well in the comic shops and over the years it’s gained a kind of loyal, cult following throughout New Zealand.

“When I’m at conventions people always ask when Dharma Punks is gonna be reprinted and when they can get a collected edition of it. It’s been at the back of my mind for ages but I never really got off my behind to do anything about it,”  Sang says.

Friends  wanted to start a boutique comic book company with the plan of publishing one New Zealand comic book per year.

“They thought that Dharma Punks would be a great place to start because it’s got a whole history behind it,”  Sang says.

The idea was to use crowd-funding via the Kickstarter website to raise $8000 to reprint all of the Dharma Punks comics in a single collectors edition.

“The response to the crowd funding campaign was what we hoped it would be but we weren’t sure, as the date of the campaign launch grew nearer we got really nervous about whether we had misjudged things, will there be enough people who will actually want the book but the response was really great so we were relieved about that.”