George Lucas made his first trip to Comic-Con to talk about art

Greeted by a crowd of 6,500 chanting, “Lucas! Lu-cas!” George Lucas, the man who made geek culture palatable to the masses through fussy golden robots, made his inaugural trip to Comic-Con today. Entering Hall H, where for the last 20 years or so, the blockbusters he influenced have made public debuts, Lucas was the centerpiece of the largest Sunday panel in the convention’s history, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But Lucas, who retired from making space operas to make low-budget art movies in 2012, wasn’t plugging a film. He was there for a sneak preview of the soon-to-open Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. One of the reasons for founding the museum came from his refusal to sell his comic book collection. Having collected art since college, Lucas currently has more than 40,000 pieces that he’d like to display publicly, because what else is he doing with them? “I’ve been [collecting art] 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.”