He'll promote, and be honored.

SAN DIEGO - Cue the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme - Steven Spielberg is coming to Comic-Con.

The Oscar-winning director who ushered in the blockbuster-film era with Jaws and brought sci-fi to the masses with movies such as E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Minority Report, will make his first appearance at Comic-Con International when he takes the stage on Friday.

The filmmaker will receive an Inkpot Award, presented since 1974 to signature figures in comics and genre entertainment, among them Ray Bradbury, Jack Kirby, Hayao Miyazaki, and R. Crumb.

And, in keeping with the convention's drumbeat of Hollywood promotion, Spielberg, 64, will be bringing footage from The Adventures of Tintin, the Paramount Pictures movie that reaches theaters in December and marks his first work as a feature director since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.

To give life to the boy-journalist character from the vintage Belgian adventure tales, Tintin uses state-of-the-art motion-capture technology, which Spielberg described as "a whole new muscle set - the technology and the approach and the thinking of it. It was a muscle set I didn't even know I had and the tools were entirely new. I did feel like a painter in a way and that was exciting for me."

Spielberg will get his award and discuss Tintin in a 6,000-seat room where Hollywood stars and filmmakers present previews for fans.

Spielberg seems to be in an intense mode of creative reconnection with his audience both as a producer and director. He's behind two shows being touted at Comic-Con - Fox's Terra Nova and TNT's Falling Skies - in addition to producing a run of current features including Super 8; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; and Cowboys & Aliens. He'll occupy the director's chair for the drama War Horse, the biopic Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and, perhaps most intriguing, Robopocalypse, based on the Daniel H. Wilson novel.

"You get the feeling he's on a roll," said Guy Hendrix Dyas, the Oscar-nominated production designer for Inception who is at work on Robopocalypse.

One reason is, after so many years in the business, Spielberg's tendrils run far and deep. But there's also his desire to work with younger talent on the rise.

"I feel I have a duty to help people succeed, the people I truly believe in," Spielberg said.

He added: "I want to see these projects realized for a selfish reason too: I'm a fan who can't wait to watch them."

Comic-Con runs Thursday through Sunday.