Article By John Sanders. Professional Journalist.
The humanitarian project Focus Comic hosted a graduation ceremony for autistic and special needs youth on November 22 at Samurai Comics in Glendale. The ceremony began after the organization hosted a “Legends Event,” honoring those who keep communities safe.
Focus Comic teaches autistic and special needs children how to tell powerful stories through sequential art and partnered with the city of Glendale under the “Focus Comic Loves Glendale” free art program. The city-grant-funded program lasted four weeks and featured seven Focus Comic special education teachers who taught hundreds of children with additional support needs. The program featured three education levels based on age, spanning from 4-years-old to 13 and up. In total, students had to attend four classes in order to graduate, with graduation day counted as the final class.
Students could attend the first three classes either in-person or online and could participate in all three in one day. Throughout the experience, participants learned about comic strip creation, penciling, inking and erasing basics, and storytelling structure. Additional tutoring was provided by Yvonne Wan, of Focus Comic, and Patrick Goddard, an artist for the “2000AD” comic book series featuring the character “Judge Dredd.”
The November 22 graduation day saw students present the art they created. They had one minute to communicate their name, age, what they drew and the medium they utilized. Every graduate also received a custom certificate of achievement and gifts to celebrate their accomplishment.
Focus Comic would like to thank Samurai Comics for providing the graduation venue and hospitality. They would like to thank Brighton Charter School, Glendale Library, It’s Sugar Westgate, Samurai comics for providing teaching venues. They would also like to thank the multiple agencies that provided gifts to the children and sent marked vehicles and representatives to uplift the children. Special Thanks to Adam Holliday who presented the certificates and gifts to the children with Yvonne Wan.
Above: Yvonne Wan, with Austin Frew, young autistic talent, and special guest Adam Holliday of Sun City Fire.
Thank you ABC15 news for attending the event on November 22 2025. Thank you for honoring our heroes by covering the story.
For more pictures please visit https://www.instagram.com/focuscomic/
To download images please visit our facebok page:
Graduation event: https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=focuscomics&set=a.1292312839598046
Program art work and photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1267133435449320&type=3
(Film by Yvonne Wan and photos by @elseworld_photography)
Community photo of our students at Graduation.
