Nisei cartoonist Jack Matsuoka

Nov. 17, 2007 • Ken Kaji

Most Nisei will remember Jack Matsuoka’s drawings from the seventies published in Hokubei Mainichi, along with his series, Sensei, and his book about relocation camp life entitled Camp II, Block 211 (Japan Publications, Inc., 1974). Matsuoka was born in Watsonville in 1925 and later attended a single semester at Cleveland School of Fine Arts in Ohio before being drafted into the army. He was just a teen when he drew the cartoons of Camp II, Block 211, a humorous and …