Prepare to enter the wild brain of inventor Steve Mushin in his new mind-blowing graphic novel titled Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan for Rewilding Every City on Earth.
Mushin’s ultra-detailed and researched graphic novel offers all manner of sci-fi fixes for real world problems such as habitat-printing robot birds, water-filtering sewer submarines, and compost cannons.
We spoke to Mushin all about his plans and designs in this exclusive interview with the creator.
Where did the idea to do Ultrawild originate?
Steve Mushin: Ultrawild is a sketchbook of absurd sounding, but theoretically possible inventions to rewild cities into high-tech jungles. But the book’s journey actually began with real composting, concentrated solar, biogas and aquaponic city farm projects. At the time I was working as an industrial designer at CERES Environment Park in Australia. We had a small team of scientists and engineers, about a million dollars of government funding, to develop technologies to showcase how cities could reduce carbon emissions. I started drawing comedy versions of our technologies – like seed-spreading compost cannons. My drawings gradually evolved into an exhibition in Tokyo, and eventually became Ultrawild.
Why did you choose the graphic novel format/medium for Ultrawild? What did it allow you to do that you couldn’t in a different medium?
Mushin: When I started working on Ultrawild I’d never drawn a comic panel, or even a character of myself. The original concept was just design sketches. But as the book developed, I realized that I needed a graphic structure to guide readers through my design experiments. It also needed a narrator – so I learned to draw myself. The eventual graphic-novel-style format has allowed me to explore complex design ideas with a sketchbook feel, as well as bringing the reader on my journey testing out ideas and learning about rewilding.
Do you consider the inventions and ideas about rewilding cities more “hard” plausible sci-fi or more traditional sci-fi ideas?
Mushin: I think of Ultrawild as a design/science comedy. Its inventions – such as toilets with compost firing cannons – are ludicrous sounding, and horribly dangerous. But technically possible, and incredibly sensible.
Do you think your graphic novel can be used as a teaching tool?
Mushin: Ultrawild has a secret agenda to be an extreme and hilarious STEM resource – to explain environmental science and engineering ideas in outrageous and engaging ways. It almost certainly contains more comedy explosions than any other science book ever created. And it’s already used in schools across the UK, Australia, Germany and New Zealand. For any teachers reading this: please download the free Ultrawild STEM lesson plans at www.ultrawild.org. You can also download the calculations behind my inventions – and build a compost cannon in your classroom!
What is your favorite invention in the book and why?
Mushin: I’m a bird lover. And bringing birds back to urban areas is often difficult, because many birds require very large old trees for their habits. I don’t want to wait hundreds of years to grow urban trees large enough to invite our bird friends back, so I decided to invent a way to 3D print lampposts into comfy bird homes. This is the 3D Printer Bird Project in Ultrawild. It goes like this:
The world’s 2.5 billion lampposts, utility poles, traffic lights, street signs are ‘nearly trees’ – they’re perfect for 3D printing into armored luxury habitats for native animals. We’ll need to 3D print these as fast as possible to house the billions of animals and insects we need to welcome back to help with ultrawilding – for pollination, seed dispersal and soil fertilizing. And to do that we’ll need a trillion or so 3D printer birds.
3D printer birds are flying tree-printing robots. They 3D scan trees – with all their hollows and other animal habitat features included. Then they 3D print lampposts and other ‘nearly trees’ into fake trees that are perfect animal homes. 3D printer birds print using recycled plastic which they melt by concentrating heat from the sun using mirrors on their wings. They can also 3D print copies of themselves, or self- replicate. It would take roughly ten months for 3D printer birds to multiply to one trillion if we started with just one self-replicating 3D printer bird today. And it would take 1000 3D printer birds roughly one month to 3D print an LA lamppost into a maple tree.
Did you have many inventions/plans that didn’t make the cut?
Mushin: There’re over 100 inventions in Ultrawild, and probably twice that number got edited out. Not because they were too ridiculous – nothing is too ridiculous. We just ran out of space!
What advice would you give to readers right now that they can do to help curb climate change?
Mushin: While Ultrawild is ostensibly a book about inventions, the real story is rewilding. Rewilding is an incredibly powerful concept that can massively boost biodiversity and absorb vast amounts of carbon. And almost anyone can get involved with rewilding, starting today. By rewilding a corner of your garden for birds and insects. Or by joining a project restoring native forests. But of course, the most important thing is to work together to demand our governments and corporations quit fossil fuels. Because ultimately that is the only way to stop climate change.
Future projects?
Mushin: Recently I’ve been super busy touring schools with my Ultrawild Design Workshops. But I’ve just started work on a couple of new books about rewilding and future technologies. I’m not great on social media, but I’ll post about these projects soon @stevemushin on Instagram.
Ultrawild will be published on September 9, 2025 from Graphic Universe™, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group.
