Ant Sang
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sang, Ant (–) is a cartoonist, illustrator, storyboarder and author. He began creating comics in 1994 with the release of his first minicomic, Filth #1. The Filth series became one of the most popular minicomics in New Zealand at that time. Writing in Pavement magazine in 1994, Nick Hanson described Sang as ‘part of a new generation of sequential artists who challenge the tired misconception that comics are juvenile and lacking in literary merit. His comics are intelligently conceived works dealing with personal and political issues... [and his] artwork is superb, pared down, always punchy.’
From 2001 to 2003, Sang published eight issues of the comic The Dharma Punks, which became a cult classic in New Zealand. The Dharma Punks Parts 1–4 won Best Serialised Comic at the Eric Awards 2003 and The Dharma Punks Part 8 won the Eric Award 2004 (The Gotham Comics-Staedtler NZ Award) for Best Comic. The Dharma Punks has since been republished in book format by Earth’s End Publishing (New Zealand, 2014), Conundrum Press (Canada,2015) and Presque Lune (France, 2015). One review describes it as ‘an amalgamation of street punk attitude and aesthetic with Eastern spirituality and asceticism’ (Matt Bowler, Nelson Mail, 19 Feb 2011).
Sang’s graphic novel Shaolin Burning (HarperCollins NZ, 2011), an edgy kung fu–style retelling of a Chinese legend, won the New Zealand Post Book Awards Honour Award in 2012.
Ant Sang also works as a freelance illustrator and his work has been published in a number of magazines, including Rip It Up, Pavement and The Fix, and in children’s books, such as Going Bananas: Kiwi Bites Series (Penguin, 2003). His comic art has featured in the Contemporary New Zealand Comics exhibition (Fisher Gallery, NZ, 1996), The Dharma Punks comic launch exhibition (Alleluya Gallery, NZ, 2001), and The Cartoon Show (Auckland Art Gallery, NZ, 2001–2002).
Sang was the designer for the popular Bro’Town television series, which won the Air New Zealand 2006 Achievement in Production Design and the Qantas Film and Television Awards 2008 Achievement in Production Design in General Television. His artwork for the series was published in The Bro'Town Annual 1–3 (Random House NZ, 2005–2007).
In 2012, Ant Sang attended the Auckland Writers Festival, and the Shanghai and Beijing International Literary Festival in 2013.
In 2014, Sang attended the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival and was one of three New Zealand graphic novelists/comic artists to take part in the first residential exchange between Taiwan and New Zealand. This graphic novelist exchange was courtesy of a joint initiative between the Publishers Association of New Zealand, the Taipei Book Fair Foundation and the New Zealand Book Council. It culminated in a six-novelist work titled Island to Island, which was published in February 2016.
Sang is currently working on artwork for The Ballad of Helen and the Go-go Ninjas, a dystopian, sci-fi time-travel graphic novel which will be written by Michael Bennett.
Last updated May 2016.
MEDIA LINKS AND CLIPS
- Ant Sang’s website: http://www.antsang.co.nz
- Extract from Dharma Punks on Booknotes Unbound
- Ant Sang writes of his love of comics on Booknotes Unbound
- Ant Sang recommends five graphic novels for young readers on Booknotes Unbound
- Ant Sang postcard from the 2014 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Indonesia
- Ant Sang on the New Zealand/Taiwan graphic novelist exchange
