So I’m going to be speaking at the Washington School for the Deaf next Friday about comics & storytelling! I’m also going to be running an online auction for them in April to help raise some money for the school to buy some graphic novels.

If you’re wondering why this school, and why graphic novels in particular, here’s a quick answer: Between TV, the internet &  million other distractions, it is hard to get kids interested in reading. Turns out because of the language barrier, it’s even harder to get deaf children interested in reading.  As someone working at the school pointed out, comics really help create that interest for them because there is a visual element alongside the text.

If you’re an artist, designer, photographer or other creative type and would like to donate some artwork, it would be really appreciated. I won’t be having the auction until April, but I figured that I should get a head start on the soliciting artwork. You can donate original art, prints, posters – anything really. Even if you had old graphic novels that you wanted to donate to their library that would be great.

Even if you can’t donate art, it would really go a long way if you helped me spread the word. If you could pass the link to this post or the image that I’ve created above to all the artist friends you have, that would be awesome.

If you have an questions, please e-mail me at: jonathan [at] oneofthejohns.com

You can mail donations to me at:

1717 Southwest Market St.
Portland, OR 97201-6013

Donations need to be received by March 28, 2011.  I’ll have more information about the auction as it gets closer to the date.