New York Comic Con is coming up this weekend. One of the panels at NYCC will give a look at what is coming when the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens in Los Angeles. This panel will be a conversation that includes insights on the impact of visual storytelling. It will also give a sneak peek at the Lucas Museum ahead of its opening in 2026. The discussion will be led by famed filmmaker Martin Scorsese and include artists JR, Boris Vallejo, and Julie Bell.

The panel will take place at the following location on Sunday, October 12, 2025, at 11:00 AM:

Room 406.3 (fourth level of the North Building)
Javits Center
429 11th Ave
New York, NY 10001

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is set to open in 2026 in Los Angeles. It is a first-of-its-kind institution that will be dedicated to illustrated storytelling across time, cultures, and media. The museum was co-founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson. It features incredible works from artists who include Norman Rockwell, Kadir Nelson, Jessie Willcox Smith, N. C. Wyeth, Beatrix Potter, Judy Baca, Frida Kahlo, and Maxfield Parrish; as well as comic art legends such as Winsor McCay, Jack Kirby, Frank Frazetta, Alison Bechdel, Chris Ware, and R. Crumb; and photographers Gordon Parks, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Dorothea Lange. The museum will also be the home of the Lucas Archive and contain models, props, concept art, and costumes from Lucas’s filmmaking career.

More information about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art can be found at lucasmuseum.org. The museum can also be found on social media at Instagram, Facebook, and X. 

Panel Description

The Lucas Museum of Art, founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, is organizing an expansive conversation titled Sneak Peek: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Room 406.3 at New York Comic Con on Sunday, October 12 at 11:00 am. Moderated by filmmaking legend Martin Scorsese, the panel will feature photographer and street artist JR, fantasy artist Boris Vallejo, and fantasy artist and wildlife painter Julie Bell. They group will come together to share perspectives on the power of illustrated storytelling and the importance of celebrating popular art forms. The panel will also feature a sneak peek of the museum including renderings, artworks and a pre-recorded interview with the founders.

Panelists:

JR

French artist JR creates monumental public art projects that inspire passersby to ask questions and confront their own perceptions. After his first major project Portrait of a Generation (2004-06), which challenged stereotypes of Parisian suburban youth, he began working internationally. Whether it be pasting the faces of Israeli and Palestinian people on both sides of the Separation Wall (2007), the eyes of women on train cars in Kibera, Kenya (2009), or a giant toddler peeking over the US-Mexico border fence (2017), JR’s larger-than-life installations amplify the stories of everyday people and foster dialogue.

From creating a trompe-l’oeil at the Louvre with 400 volunteers (2019) to pasting alongside incarcerated men in a California maximum-security prison (2019-22), he seeks to involve everyone in the act of artistic creation, hoping to create conversations and drive social change. As of September 2025, his global participatory art project Inside Out has empowered more than half a million people to stand up for what they believe in through large-scale black-and-white portraits.

JR also has a rigorous studio art practice, creating gallery artworks that are exhibited i

nternationally. He has had major retrospectives at the Brooklyn Museum (2019) and Maison Européenne de la Photographie (2018) as well as shown artworks and installations at the Venice Biennale (2022), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019), and the NGV Triennial (2020).

Boris Vallejo

Boris Vallejo is an American-Peruvian artist who moved to New York City from Lima, Peru in 1964. In the 1970’s, his work appeared on countless paperback fantasy and science fiction novels, setting a new bar in dazzling realism.  In the years since he has become a legend in the fantasy and science fiction art world. His paintings have been seen on hundreds of book covers, calendars, album covers, magazines, and movie posters. Many of his paintings have been collected in a number of art books including: Boris, The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Enchantment, Ladies, Fantasy Art Techniques, The Boris Vallejo Portfolio, Mirage, Diva, Fantasy Art Techniques, Dreams, Superheroes, and Sketchbook. He has also published two collections of his photographic work, Bodies and Hindsight. Most recently published are collections of his works with his wife Julie Bell: The Ultimate Collection, Fabulous Women, Imaginistix, and Dreamland.  Each year, Boris and Julie also create a highly anticipated Fantasy calendar together, published by Workman Publishing. His work has inspired multiple generations of artists in the fields of illustration, cinema, and comic books.

Julie Bell

Julie Bell’s work in the fantasy and science fiction field has appeared on hundreds of book covers, comic books, trading cards, illustrated fantasy magazines, and various collectibles. She has earned her status as an icon in the field.  She painted covers for many video games in the 1990’s such as Wolfenstein 3d and Eternal Champions.  She has been highly praised for her work with Marvel Comics on several trading card sets, especially the extremely collectible 96 Marvel Masterpiece set, which she did in collaboration with her husband, Boris Vallejo.  Her work can be seen worldwide in major advertising campaigns, album covers, posters, and collectibles of all kinds.  There are four volumes of her work available, Soft as Steel, Hard Curves, The Julie Bell Portfolio, and many books with her husband, Boris Vallejo, such as Fantasy Workshop, Twin Visions, Superheroes, Sketchbook, The Ultimate Collection, Fabulous Women, Imaginistix, and, most recently, Dreamland. In the past 10 years, Julie has been exploring the merging of the worlds in her fantasy art with her other love, wildlife art.  She has won numerous awards for her paintings of wolves and horses and was named a living master by the Art Renewal Center. Every year, she and Boris produce 13 paintings for the highly anticipated Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell Fantasy Calendar published by Workman, now in its 45th consecutive year.  

Moderator

MARTIN SCORSESE is an Academy Award-winning Director and one of the most influential filmmakers working today. He has directed critically acclaimed, award-winning films including Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Hugo and Silence. In 2007, his film The Departed won an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture. Scorsese also directed The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman, which both received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. His latest feature, Killers of The Flower Moon, which received 10 Oscar nominations including Best Director and Best Picture, made its World Premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and was released exclusively in theaters worldwide in October 2023 and on Apple TV+ in January 2024. Scorsese has also produced several projects, including the eight-part docudrama series Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints, which premiered on Fox Nation.

Scorsese has directed numerous documentaries including the Peabody Award winning No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, Elia Kazan: A Letter to Elia, Italianamerican, The Last Waltz, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies, Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, Public Speaking, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, and the Emmy nominated docu-series Pretend It’s a City. He received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and Outstanding Nonfiction Special for his documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World. Additionally, Scorsese co-directed The 50 Year Argument in 2014 with his longtime documentary editor David Tedeschi and executive produced the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, winning an Emmy and DGA Award for directing the pilot episode. Scorsese and Tedeschi also co-directed Personality Crisis: One Night Only, which premiered at the 2022 New York Film Festival and was released on Showtime in April 2023. Scorsese and Tedeschi’s latest collaboration, Beatles 64, which Scorsese produced, premiered on Disney+ on November 29.

Scorsese is the founder and chair of The Film Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of motion picture history.