Never even heard of Okajima. Or Okijima, for that matter.
"Okajima" refers to the family name of the young Japanese girl from California (who apparently spent time in an internment camp) who put together the collection. They were read carefully, wrapped in newspaper, piled in short stacks and stored in a shed until the 90s when they were discovered.
From what I've seen, they're nice books
Rob, have you ever heard/read who it was that wrote the family name on the books? Was it the little girl, or is this another case like the Larsons where a drugstore was pulling the books for a customer and writing the customer's name on each book? The handwriting is consistent on all the examples I've seen.
I've often wondered if they were collected WHILE she was at an internment camp. Seems to me that a Japanese family in California would have been interred when this book was released, or were exceptions made for some families?
Internment camps must have had a PX of some kind where items like comics could have been purchased.
I've also often wondered what a little Japanese girl living in California thought of Schomburg's depiction of the Japanese on his covers.
Okajima certificate of authenticity