Camp II, Block 211: Daily Life in an Internment Camp
Tokyo and San Francisco: Japan Publications, Inc., 1974.
First edition, first printing of Japanese American cartoonist Jack Matsuoka's graphic memoir of his childhood internment in Arizona. Signed by the author on the first leaf, inscribed to a previous owner with date 7/25/74, accompanied by a sketched profile. xiv, 191 pp. Bound in publisher's printed yellow wraps. Near Fine with light soiling to covers and textblock edges and minimal creasing to spine. Light foxing to front wrap verso and facing page. As a teenager Jack Matsuoka was incarcerated with his family in the Poston, Arizona detention camp, where he began drawing cartoons for the camp newsletter. After he was released he was drafted into the army and served in the Military Intelligence Corps in postwar Japan. Matsuoka eventually became a cartoonist for the bilingual newspaper Hokubei Mainichi in San Francisco, contributing to numerous other publications as well. This book was based on sketches Matsuoka made during his time in Camp II. As Senator Daniel Inouye notes in his introduction: "it takes an extraordinarily talented person with a keen understanding of human nature to capture what little humor one might have witnessed at these tragic camps."
Price: $350