It was arguably the first big Sunday AM panel post Covid at Comic-Con, as Star Wars creator George Lucas, 3x Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro and Oscar winning Death Becomes Her production designer Doug Chiang gathered to tease to a very packed Hall H, the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
For Lucas, it was the first time he’s appeared onstage at San Diego Comic-Con.
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The panel was narrated by Oscar nominee Queen Latifah.
“It’s a temple to the people’s art,” said Lucas about the Mobius-strip building designed by Ma Yansong which is opening next year near the USC campus in downtown Los Angeles.
“I refused to sell it,” says Lucas whose been collecting myriad comic books and thrifty pieces of art since his youth.
One of Lucas’ inspirations for opening the museum stemmed from the filmmaker needing a place to display his 40,000 pieces of art. But also, it’s about creating an epicenter that pays respect to the myth-telling pop art which has informed our culture.
“(Art) is more about a connection and emotional connection with the work, not how much it cost or what celebrity did it. I don’t think it’s anything anyone will tell you. If you have emotional connection, it’s art. If you don’t, just move onto the next painting,” Lucas added.
del Toro, who is a board member at the new museum, says that after surviving the L.A. fires earlier this year, he’s looking to the new museum as a place to house his own personal collection of art.
Chiang says the museum “is giving respect to an artform that hasn’t been honored before.” The designer credits comic books for setting him on course to a creative career. However, during his youth, comic books were never respected. He gave props to Lucas who told him that when creating any art, it requires a story behind it. Chiang worked in the art department on Star Wars: Episodes I-III and went on to be a production designer on current Disney Lucasfilm projects such as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Disney+ series The Mandalorian, Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew.
Chiang shared, “I hope this museum inspires the next Norman Rockwell or Frank Frazetta.”
Dropped exclusively in the room was a sizzle reel narrated by Episodes I-III star Samuel L. Jackson which previewed some of the prolific works attendees can expect, i.e. General Grievous bike, the landspeeder from the original Star Wars, and Anakin Skywalker’s spaceship from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Many of the Star Wars pieces of art, in particular those from concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, will be housed in the cinema gallery, one of 30-40 galleries at the museum.
Other works include paintings from Frida Kahlo, Norman Rockwell, and comic-book work from R. Crumb and Jack Kirby. Of note, there’s also the very first character drawing of Flash Gordon from 1934, the original Peanuts comic strips from the 1950s and 1960s, the original drawing from the first Iron Man cover in 1968, and also the first pen and ink splash of Black Panther from 1968.
Lucas, in speaking about his adoration for Rockwell’s Thanksgiving “Freedom From Want” painting said “family is important, it keeps society together, even if it’s tough.” As Lucas mentioned in the sizzle reel, family, is a chief reason why he’s building the museum.
“We realize that stories shape the world,” says del Toro, “one of the narrative branches brutally applied is propaganda. Art is celebrating the work of incredible people, but also is celebrating the thing that belongs to us: Myth, belongs to us. Propaganda belongs to a very small group. Myth unites us and propaganda divides us.”
The panelists also discussed how the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art’s building has no right angles, just curves.
The intent for that stems from the notion that art is endless in its life, it outlives humanity, and passes on to the next generation who can savor and prize it.
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