George Lucas tells Comic-Con crowd his new museum will be ‘a temple to the people’s art’

SAN DIEGO (AP) — George Lucas finally came to the stage at Comic-Con Sunday to an ovation from thousands, some holding light sabers in the air, with soaring “Star Wars” music filling the room.

The 81-year-old, appearing for the first time at San Diego’s pop cultural extravaganza, looked decidedly earthbound in his jeans and flannel shirt, and a bit embarrassed by the attention. The quiet, thoughtful discussion that followed about the art museum he’s building stood in contrast to the sci-fi and superhero bombast that came from Comic-Con’s huge Hall H in the previous three days of the convention.

He’s quietly passionate, though, about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, co-founded with his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson. Long in the works, the project was first announced in 2017 and is set to open its doors in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park next year.

“This is sort of a temple to the people’s art,” Lucas told the crowd.

The museum designed by Ma Yansong resembles a giant space cruiser, and at 300,000 square feet it’s about the size of an average IKEA store.

“Star Wars” art and artifacts will be well-represented as shown in an introductory video narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

But Lucas’ focus on the comic art and populist paintings are just as central to its aims. He’s is one of the main collectors of the paintings of Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, and Hobson has made a specialty of collecting the work of Black painters including Norman Lewis and Kara Walker.

The panel discussion also included director Guillermo del Toro and production designer Doug Chiang, who has worked on Star Wars films since the Lucas-directed “Star Wars” prequels in the 1990s.

Rapper, singer and actor Queen Latifah, a friend of Lucas and Hobson who called herself a “sci-fi nerd,” served as moderator and chief energizer of the panel.

“Are y’all pumped up for this museum now or what?” she shouted to the crowd at the end.

The project began in part just to have a place for everything Lucas has collected since he was in college in the 1960s, when he learned original drawings from comic books and comic strips were surprisingly affordable.

“I could get an ‘Alley-Oop’ for $30,” Lucas said. “I’ve been collecting narrative art ever since.”

He owns the first drawing of Flash Gordon, original panels of “Peanuts” comic strips complete with notes from artist Charles Schulz, and early drawings of Iron Man and Black Panther, along with original artwork for political cartoons and alternative comics. He would later move on to paintings and art from films, after the “Star Wars” money began pouring in.

“What am I going to do with it all?” Lucas said. “I refuse to sell it. I could never do that.”

Del Toro, himself a famous hoarder of pop culture artifacts and a museum board member, said the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year came “frighteningly close” to the collection he keeps at home.

“Now that the museum exists, a lot of it may go there,” Del Toro said.

He emphasized throughout the panel the political importance of comics since their beginnings.

“Comics were the first one to punch Nazis,” Del Toro said. “Before movies.”

While unusual for the big room, the discussion was very close to the kind of talks that have constantly happened in the less flashy corners of Comic-Con for more than 50 years.

Lucas is easily on the Mount Rushmore of figures whose work has had the greatest inspiration on the kind of films and other pop cultural celebrated annually in Hall H.

But the convention wasn’t a common showcase for blockbuster films when he was directing them himself. And he sold “Star Wars” and Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Co. in 2012.

The Lucas museum’s 11-acre campus sits right next to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and near several other major museums and the University of Southern California.

An exact date for its opening has not been announced.