George Lucas to Make First-Ever Appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, an Event That ‘Star Wars’ Helped Put on the Map

And in turn, some of the success of "Star Wars" is owed to Comic-Com, where the film was promoted in spoiler-y fashion almost a year before it came out.

George Lucas has been to the Met Gala, but he’s never been to San Diego Comic-Con before. That’s about to change, as an appearance for the “Star Wars” creator at the annual gathering has been announced for the forthcoming edition.

Lucas’s appearance will take place on Sunday, July 27, in Hall H, and he’ll be joined by director Guillermo del Toro and legendary Oscar-winning Lucasfilm Senior Vice President and Executive Design Director Doug Chiang for a conversation moderated by Queen Latifah. The panel will discuss Lucas’s ultimate passion project, his forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which will open in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park in 2026.

The museum will feature Lucas’s personal collection of work from story-focused artists such as N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Frida Kahlo, and Beatrix Potter, as well as comic book artists Alison Bechdel and R. Crumb, and photographers Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. It will also house the Lucas Archive, with props and models from Lucas’s filmmaking career.

It’s easy to see how that intersection of media to power storytelling would fascinate mixed-media legend del Toro, and certainly Chiang. He won an Oscar as a visual effects supervisor on “Death Becomes Her.” In 1995, Lucas hired Chiang to oversee the look of the entire prequel trilogy to come, and he’s stayed on with Lucasfilm even after its sale to Disney to shape and curate the look of “Star Wars” ever since. No one artist since Ralph McQuarrie has done more to shape the look of the franchise.

This panel will also be a remarkable full-circle moment: Yes, Lucas has never appeared at San Diego Comic-Con before. But “Star Wars” helped put San Diego Comic-Con on the map. Legendary publicist Charles Lippincott brought promotional materials for the original “Star Wars” film to Comic-Con in 1976, almost a full year before the film was released. Howard Chaykin’s iconic “Star Wars” poster was on display then, and Lucasfilm told attendees a lot about what the film would be. They were not averse to major spoilers in those days: In fact, the novelization of “Star Wars” by Alan Dean Foster in December 1976, almost six months before the film came out.

David Glanzer, chief communications and strategy officer of Comic-Con, said in a statement: “We are beyond thrilled to welcome George Lucas to Comic-Con for the very first time. Nearly five decades ago, ‘Star Wars’ made one of its earliest public appearances at our convention, along with a booth featuring Howard Chaykin’s now legendary ‘Star Wars’ poster as a promotional item. Now, to have Mr. Lucas return — this time to debut the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art — is a true full-circle moment. His lifelong dedication to visual storytelling and world-building resonates deeply with us and our community, and the museum’s mission to celebrate narrative art in all its forms perfectly reflects what Comic-Con has championed from the very beginning.”