The man who left an indelible mark on the popular arts almost 50 years ago has curiously never attended San Diego Comic-Con before. To close out the convention’s Hall H presentation, Stars Wars creator George Lucas came out before a huge adoring crowd — some with lightsabers and at least one person dressed up as a lightsaber — to discuss not his space opera, but to discuss his latest feat, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. The museum features art pieces from Lucas’s private collection, an obsession that started after buying Alley Oop comics in college and now reaches upwards of 40,000 pieces. “I’ve been [collecting] for 50 years now, and then it occurred to me, what am I going to do with it all?” he said. “I’ve worked with hundreds of illustrators in my life, and they’re all great, but they don’t get recognized for anything,” so he made what he calls “a temple to the people’s art.”
Alongside Lucas, was moderator Queen Latifah, Lucasfilm artist Doug Chiang, and director Guillermo del Toro, who also serves as board member of the museum. The four of them came together to debut some first looks at some pieces in the museum, including original art from 1934’s Flash Gordon, Peanuts sketches, original drawings from the first Iron Man cover, and a lot of Star Wars concept art. (General Grievous on a wheel-looking bike got a huge ahh from the crowd.) As the panelists spoke on the importance of memorializing underrated art pieces like, for example, comic books, del Toro excitedly exclaimed, “comics were the first ones to punch Nazis! They have a lot of social conscience.” Lucas and del Toro emphasized that idea, explaining that if you don’t build a place to say something is important, then it won’t be regarded as such, especially in such a precarious time when any form of human-made art is used for AI apps like ChatGPT. “Personality, knowledge, and emotion. Those are the three things that need to exist, and I’m sorry, they don’t come in a fucking app,” del Toro pointed out.
So, the museum will span through many eras of narrative art beyond comic books as well. “If you have an emotional connection, then it’s art,” Lucas said. “I’ve discovered just from my experience of making movies that other people’s opinions don’t mean much.”
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