On July 27th at Comic-Con International in San Diego, George Lucas offered an exclusive first look at his highly anticipated Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, set to open in 2026 in Los Angeles.

Lucas was joined by famous guests Guillermo del Toro and Doug Chiang, with Queen Latifah moderating the panel. It was a popular session with over 6,000 people in attendance. It was one of the most talked-about events at Comic-Con.

The museum will be the first of its kind. Lucas and Mellody Hobson co-founded it. It will celebrate narrative art. The art comes from all cultures and eras. It will include ancient cave drawings. Children’s book illustrations will be shown. Comic books and digital media are also included. Lucas called it a “temple to the people’s art.” He believes illustration is vital to society.

The Power of Narrative

Guillermo del Toro, a Lucas Museum board member, spoke passionately about the emotional depth and social power of narrative art. “Imagine if we only had classical music, and rock-n-roll was never created? This is rock-n-roll, and rock-n-roll needs to be enshrined,” he said. Del Toro emphasized that figurative art, which was often frowned upon after the invention of photography, is an art form that “captures a moment and an emotion for many, many people.” He noted that this type of art, along with graffiti and other popular forms, “is not just propaganda once it’s liberated from church and state.”

For del Toro, the museum isn’t just about one man’s collection; it’s a “lineage of images.“ He explained that storytellers have a special vocabulary to trace where an image comes from, delving into its “etymology.” Referencing linguist Noam Chomsky, del Toro stated, “The limit of your language is the limit of your universe. If you cannot name something, you cannot own it. The same is true for images.” He believes the collection gives a step-by-step account of how a form of expression came to inform who we are today, memorializing “a popular, expressive, and eloquent moment in our visual past that belongs to all of us.”

“When you have the twin goals of hindering a mystery and providing eloquence and emotion, you realize something profound. Once photography enters the picture, much of the art that is figurative starts to be historically frowned upon. And yet, it’s an art that captures a moment and an emotion for many, many people. It’s an art form always able to express things that are not just propaganda, especially once it’s liberated from the church and the state—and before movies and so forth.

You have graffiti; you have many of the popular minor forms of art that do that. They are not dominated. And for me, what’s magical about the museum is not a man and his collection. It’s a lineage of images. A lineage of images that have spoken to us. And we, as storytellers and visual storytellers, have that vocabulary to see where that thing came from the etymology of that image.

When you think about that, you remember what Noam Chomsky said: ‘The limit of your language is the limit of your universe.’ If you cannot name something, you cannot own it. The same is true for images. And what’s amazing about this collection is that it will give you, step by step, how a form of expression came to inform what we are today. We are in a critical moment in which one of the things people like to disappear is the past. And this is memorializing a popular, vociferous, expressive, and eloquent moment in our visual past that belongs to all of us. And the museum celebrates this.”

Doug Chiang on acknowledging and giving respect to artists who haven’t been highlighted before

Doug Chiang, Lucasfilm’s Senior Vice President and Executive Design Director, provided a fascinating testament to the importance of exposing young people to comic art and illustration. Chiang shared, “Comic art and magazine illustration were kind of looked down upon… but it was a way for me to enjoy art, and it invited me to learn more about art. And what I love about what George and Mellody are doing with this museum is they are acknowledging and giving respect to artists who really haven’t been highlighted before.”

“I feel so incredibly honored to be here to celebrate narrative art. I haven’t shared this before, but I grew up loving comic books, and that’s how I fell in love with art. Growing up as a kid in Michigan, art like narrative art, comic book art, and magazine illustrations were kind of looked down upon, and it was sad. But it was a way for me to enjoy art and it invited me to discover more.

What I love about what George and Melody are doing in creating this museum is that it’s celebrating, acknowledging, and giving respect to an art form that hasn’t really been highlighted before. It’s time to celebrate the artists who have committed their whole careers to creating this because it is really hard. As an aspiring artist when I was young, I wanted to draw, and this gave me a portal into this world to discover more. The museum describes all the variety of forms of narrative art—you have Charles Schulz’s ‘Peanuts,’ Windsor McCay, ‘Heavy Metal’ magazines, Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta, and Moebius. Those are all different avenues for a kid to enjoy art and to entice them to come in.”

Chiang also shared a personal anecdote about his early work with Lucas. Despite being a skilled industrial designer, he initially struggled with narrative art. Lucas taught him that story must always come first. A design means nothing without context and history. “Narrative art is driven by story,” Chiang explained. “The art comes second.” He learned to present designs within the context of a scene, inventing entire scenes to validate the designs and ensure they fit into the larger story.

“One of the things I found kind of sad was that when I was growing up, comic book art wasn’t taken seriously. It was always diminished. It was kind of like, ‘Okay, Doug, you’ll outgrow that someday.’ And I’m so glad I didn’t. It opened up a whole world of people behind the scenes creating the art that I love growing up. This was never really exposed to me before. The museum is going to highlight a good portion of that, but what it did was allow me to start learning about art. I didn’t go to art school; I’m self-taught. I started to find as many magazines as possible and honed my craft as best as I could. I thought I was pretty competent. But then I started working with George… and no. That’s when I realized I knew nothing about design and narrative art. I knew about industrial design. I could do product designs and cool spaceships.

But that’s not what narrative art is. Narrative art is driven by story. Story comes first; the art comes second. It was one of the biggest lessons I learned. You’ll see in some of my early art on the prequels that they weren’t very successful because I was designing in isolation without context. Part of it was because I didn’t know what the story was, but the designs were always kind of presented as individual items, and I was forgetting how they fit into the overall picture of the story. Later on, I slowly started to evolve because I started to take lessons from George. I learned that those designs need history and context and need to fit within the scenes. So I started to present designs within the context of a scene. I started to invent the scenes to try to see and validate the designs. This is something I learned from George: cinematic narrative design is very specific; it’s story-driven.”

The Search for Meaning

Lucas revealed that his interest in mythology started when he was a child. When he asked his mom, “If there’s only one God, why are there so many different religions?” The rest of his life has been a quest to answer that question.

I started out wanting to be an architect and then I realized it actually involves a lot of math, so I decided that wasn’t such a good idea. Then I went to building and racing cars and almost got killed. Decided that probably wasn’t a good idea either. But then I went, and I didn’t do that well in high school, so I decided I’d just go to junior college. This was during the Vietnam War, and there was a certain advantage to going to college.

I liked social science—it was always very important to me. So I decided I’d just take a lot of social science classes because it was something I was interested in. I got really hooked on anthropology and fell under the sway of a mythologist. He was an English teacher, but he really understood mythology, which I was extremely interested in. That interest goes back to when I was about five or six. My mom would put me to bed, and I asked her, “Mom, if there’s only one God, why are there so many different religions?” She really couldn’t answer that. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to answer that.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I believe in God, but I have no idea what God is. I don’t think anybody does. When you’re born, the baseline is fear. As you go through life, you’re curious about things, especially things you don’t understand, and that’s a threat to you. As a result, you make up stories to make it feel good.

You know, it goes dark periodically. What happens if the sun doesn’t rise? What if it’s just night? Back in Greek times, they said it was Apollo, a god with a chariot on fire, and when it flies over, it’s daytime. At night, it’s dark. “Oh, I feel better now.” And it’s true—it’s stories that make you feel connected to other people, but it also gets rid of some of the problems you have with the fact that you have to know everything.

Of course, one of the real problems we have is that humans think they know everything, even though they don’t know anything. If you take the universe, we know so little about what’s going on that we’re like ants. We have no knowledge whatsoever; we just think we do.

One thing this kind of art will celebrate is science fiction. Science fiction is a myth, and we have made it real because of science fiction books and art. That makes people say, “Oh, well, we could go to the moon.” Once that idea is implanted, we sort of believe we can do it. But we think, “We can go to the moon, we can go anywhere.” No, I don’t think so. Everything is in elements that are so huge, so fast, and so impossible to understand for a human being that you can’t depend on what we know. You can be inspired by what we think we know, but you can’t really depend on it.

He concludes that stories and myths are a human response to the fear of the unknown. They help us make sense of a world that is often too big and complex to understand.

“Illustration is about the mythology that creates stories. We believe in the common mythology of today—things like love, community, and family. We live with these illustrations of a particular mythology. They may not be ‘real,’ but they’re ideas that give us a common belief system. Without a common belief system, you can’t build anything. You can’t build pyramids, palaces, or airplanes by yourself. You have to have people you can do it with.

The Norman Rockwell painting, ‘Freedom from Want,’ is an illustration of this. It’s a painting of a mom bringing in a turkey, and everyone at the table is smiling. The idea that Uncle Jim is drunk or that Sally and Billy are having a huge argument is not mentioned. What the painting does is it says the modern mythology of Thanksgiving isn’t about the Indians and the Pilgrims; it’s about family. People go to Thanksgiving, even if they dread it, because that painting tells you that family is important. It’s part of what we need to keep society together, even if it’s tough.

That’s where illustration is vital—to show us what that common belief system means in everyday life. Society cannot exist without it, and a lot of our art centers around those ideas of what we believe in and how important it is to have a community and to be able to build off a common belief.”

He spoke about the importance of a common belief system to build a community. “You look at cave art and you immediately get the message: we hunt, we gather food, we must work together to survive,” Lucas explained, drawing a direct line from this ancient art to contemporary narrative art forms. These are the stories that bind us together.

“A huge part of building a community is you need art to make it seem real. Whether it’s the Renaissance or the Stone Age, you’ll always have a story that people believe. It’s mythology; it’s not really true, but people believe it and it binds them together with a common belief system. That common belief system is what’s really important. What we’re doing here with the museum is trying to make people aware of the mythology that we live by and, at the same time, let them have an emotional experience looking at art that tells the modern mythology. And as Doug pointed out, it’s a more exact science than people think it is. The art part of it is a way of making it really accessible to people and making it so they believe it.”

An Emotional Connection

Moderator Queen Latifah linked the panelists’ creative journeys to the emotional power of storytelling.

“The connection that I hear in our various conversations is emotion, an emotional connection that the art evokes from you. That’s one of the most important things to never forget. I think when people step into this museum, they will be emotionally affected by it.”

During the panel, Latifah also mentioned some of the other art in the collection. This includes the first-ever Flash Gordon comic strip and an original splash page from Black Panther (1968). There will also be an original Peanuts strip from the 1950s and ’60s. The panel concluded with a standing ovation, a testament to the audience’s anticipation for this first-of-its-kind cultural institution.

In advance of the museum’s launch, the public are encouraged to sign up to be the first to hear about exclusive opportunities with the Lucas Museum at lucasmuseum.org/join-us.