Comics veteran John Ostrander, who over his 27-year career has written everything from Batman to GrimJack to Suicide Squad, has been battling glaucoma for years. He's undergone a series of operations to try to save his eyesight, but unfortunately his health insurance doesn't cover the costs.

To try to help with medical expenses, Mike Gold, Adriane Nash and Mike Raub, along with Peter Katz and Wizard Entertainment, have organized a benefit auction to be held Aug. 8 during Chicago Comic-Con.

Original art, signed books and scripts and other merchandise already have been donated by such creators as Mark Badger, Norm Breyfogle, Howard Chaykin, Dick Giordano, Paul Gulacy, Joe Lansdale, David Lloyd, Dennis O'Neil and Dave Sim.

Gold and Nash have set up a website, comix4sight.com, to accept monetary contributions and to sell any items donated after the Aug. 8 event.

If the money raised should exceed Ostrander's expenses, that amount will be donated to The Hero Initiative (which was the subject a nice Los Angeles Times profile over the weekend).

Ostrander, 60, co-created GrimJack with Truman, and went on to work with him on such titles as DC's Hawkworld and Marvel's Apache Skies. With his late wife Kim Yale, Ostrander wrote DC's Manhunter in the late '80s and transformed former Batgirl Barbara Gordon into Oracle. His lengthy run on Suicide Squad -- much of it co-written with Yale -- is considered by many fans to be the definitive take on the property.