“Star Wars” instruktøren George Lucas har altid været en stor tegneserie fan og samler. “Star Wars” universet er som grebet ud af tegneserier som “Flash Gordon” og “Buck Rogers”, og hans “Indiana Jones” produktioner for Steven Spilopmager er vel egentlig også inspireret af det kulørte medie, omend “Indiana Jones” filmene nok i højere grad bygger på cliffhanger film føljetonerne fra 1930’erne. I 1977 blev Hollywoods nye wunderkind, George Lucas, interviewet til musik bladet “Rolling Stone”, #246, august. 1977 var selvfølgelig året hvor “Star Wars” havde premiere og blev et kultur fænomen verden over. “Stjernekrigen” hed den faktisk på dansk dengang. I 1977 kaldte danskerne også et skateboard for et “rullebræt”. Det var andre tider dengang. I 1977 gik danskerne ikke rundt og sagde “nice”. Jeg tror ikke engang, de sagde “fuck”. Anyways, Lucas snakker om sit tegneserie galleri og om hvordan han betragter tegneserier som en renere kunstart end de finere kunstarter, fordi tegneserien beskæftiger sig med drivkraften i mennesker på en basalt pubertær og ligefrem måde. George Lucas var kun 33 år gammel, da han sad for dette interview:
fra http://comicscomicsmag.blogspot.com/2009/08/comics-enriched-their-lives-12.html
“Yeah. Star Wars is designed with the international market in mind. The French are very much into this genre. They understand it more than Americans do, and it is the same with the Japanese. I own a comic gallery, an art gallery in New York that sells comic art and stuff; the guy that runs the art gallery also runs a comic store and we do a lot of business in France. They understand Alex Raymond, they understand that he was a great artist, they understand Hal Foster and they understand comic art as real art and as a sort of interesting, goofy thing. And I am very much into comic art, and its place in society as a real art, because it is something that expresses the culture as strongly as any other art. What Uncle Scrooge McDuck says about America, about me when I was a kid, is phenomenal. It is one of the greatest explorations of capitalism in the American mystique that has ever been written or done anywhere. Uncle Scrooge swimming around in that money bin is a key to our culture. [Laughs] Hal Foster was a huge influence in comic art and, I think, art in general. Some of the Prince Valiants are as beautiful and expressive as anything you are going to find anywhere. It is a form of narrative art but because it is in comic it has never been looked at as art. I look at art, all of art, as graffiti. That’s how the Italians describe the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian tombs, they were just pictures of a past culture. That is all art is, a way of expressing emotions that come out of a certain culture at a certain time. That’s what cartoons are, and that’s what comics are. They are expressing a certain cultural manifestation on a vaguely adolescent level but because of it, it is much more pure because it is dealing with real basic human drives that more sophisticated art sometimes obscures.”
I 2008 blev George Lucas, som den første udenfor tegneserie branchen, hædret med en Comic-Con Icon Award fra Comic Con International, for alt hvad han havde gjort for tegneserie mediet i USA. Her er pressemeddelelsen fra dengang, men jeg ANER IKKE, hvad “viral marketing” er for noget – mon det er noget med noget virus??
fra http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18527
Official Press Release
George Lucas, the mastermind responsible for such classic films as Star Wars and the Indiana Jones films made a surprise appearance to accept an award from the San Diego Comic-Con on a televised program to air tonight (Tuesday, October 20, 2008 at 9:00pm) on the Spike TV network.
“While the general public is aware of George Lucas’ brilliance when it comes to filmmaking, I’m not sure many people realize how forward thinking he was, and is, in relation to the fan community,” said David Glanzer, spokesperson for Comic-Con, the largest convention of comic books, and popular arts in the United States. “His was the first “Hollywood” company to embrace the fan audience over 30 years ago when they took part in Comic-Con in the mid-seventies. He pretty much invented Viral Marketing some three decades before it became a industry standard in marketing.”
Lucas made the rare appearance to accept the Comic-Con Icon Award which is given to an individual or organization that has been instrumental in bringing comics and/or popular arts to a wider audience. George Lucas is the first non-comics creator to be awarded this honor.
Lucasfilm Ltd., continues its long association with Comic-Con in presenting programs and occupying a massive exhibit booth at the event which occurs each summer in San Diego.
Og her overrækker skuespilleren Samuel L. Jackson “Comic-Con Icon Award” til George Lucas på Scream 2008. Lucas er flankeret af Imperial Stormtroopers, og udbryder, da han har statuetten i hånden: “At last! The universe is mine!”