For Immediate Release
21 June 2016

Berkeley, CA. For years, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Chip Sullivan has used comic strips and vibrant illustrations to share his expertise on landscape design and planning. As a regular contributor to Landscape Architecture Magazine, his comics ingeniously illustrated significant concepts and milestones in the creation of our landscapes. Those original works—as well as a number of newly created strips—are being published in Cartooning the Landscape, out in August 2016 by University of Virginia Press.

The book takes readers on a whirlwind journey framed by the narrative of a young man’s search for wisdom and the instruction of a comic store owner on the essentials of illustration. From the living sculptures of the Tree Circus on California’s Highway 17 to the network of tunnels and fortifications of France’s Maginot Line to the theme parks of Walt Disney, Professor Sullivan’s latest work visualizes artists’ concepts and tools for readers in an engaging and interactive way.

In an era increasingly dominated by digitalization, Cartooning the Landscape presents a new appreciation for the art of drawing by hand, further proving how passionate, humorous and illuminating illustration can be when describing the landscape around us.

Roger K. Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Maryland, described the book as much-needed relief from an over-digitized art world, adding, “Today when designers create most drawings digitally, never lifting a pencil, this witty, didactic, manually crafted book is especially timely. Cartooning landscapes and much, much more, Sullivan artfully uses his pencil to craft images, tell stories, and teach lessons, recounting history and nostalgically evoking memories of what life was like before TV and smart phones.”