A year ago I wrote about the experience of attending New York Comic Con for the first time. This type of entertainment convention, which has its equivalents in cities all over the world, brings together fans of superheroes, science fiction, fantasy and beyond. Along with the elaborate cosplay beloved of attendees, Comic Cons also feature a great variety of visual artists. This year, it happened that the Con fell in the same week the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its first-ever exhibition of Quattrocento Sienese painting, placing a particular emphasis on storytelling. What if there were a connection between the highbrow exhibition uptown and the popular convention downtown? 

Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 is at the Met through late January 2025, after which it will move to London’s National Gallery. It contains several extraordinary works by artists such as Duccio, the Lorenzetti brothers and Simone Martini, from the first flowering of the Italian Renaissance, and examines the development of narrative imagery in the altarpieces and devotional works created during this visually rich period. 

I was curious about the potential resonance, so I went to the Met show before attending a preview panel at the Con, for the new feature-length animated film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which opens in theaters on December 13. Moderator Stephen Colbert was joined by its director, anime veteran Kenji Kamiyama, as well as Rohirrim producer and co-writer Philippa Boyens. Fans were treated to a video message from beloved hobbit-y director Peter Jackson —he’s the executive producer of the forthcoming movie, which is based on stories from Tolkien’s appendices to LOTR. 

Colbert asked Kamiyama what it is about Tolkien and his world that resonated with him, and what felt familiar for someone more accustomed to Japanese legends and storytelling.