'Winston' (29 December 1985).
Johnny Sajem is an American comic writer, artist and children's book illustrator. He gained his earliest notability with the gag-a-day comic 'Seaweed' (1977-1981), featuring ocean animals. Together with scriptwriter Mort Walker, Sajem made the humorous family comic 'The Evermores' (1982-1986), which started out covering various historical eras, but was eventually set permanently in Ancient Rome. Sajem also collaborated with scriptwriter Jim Burnett on the gag-a-day comic 'Winston' (1985-1987), about an anthropomorphic bulldog. In the 2000s, Sajem drew a comic celebrating the baseball team the Atlanta Braves, which appeared in their club magazine Choptalk. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he additionally penned gags for other newspaper comics, like 'Mudpie', 'The Muppets', 'Nancy' and 'Donald Duck'.
Early life and career
Johnny Sajem was born in 1937 in Barnesville, Georgia, and grew up in Atlanta. His father worked as an interpreter for the U.S. government, while several of his uncles and cousins served in the U.S. Army. Sajem graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Industrial Engineering. In 1963, Sajem sold his first cartoon to the Saturday Evening Post. Between 1968 and 1993, Sajem worked as cartoonist under the banner of "Resources for Education & Management", making cartoons for publications of the Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., among other clients.
'Seaweed'.
Early comic features
Between 1977 and 1981, Sajem created the newspaper gag-a-day comic 'Seaweed', syndicated by the Trans World News and Allied Press. The series is set at the bottom of the ocean and features jokes about fish, octopuses, oysters, crabs, shrimps, lobsters and other maritime creatures. In the 1980s, Sajem and his friend Lou Magila developed the two-panel gag-a-day comic 'Two Heads Are Better Than One', for which he and Magila drew either the first or the second panel. Their idea was that one would try to build on a comical situation suggested by the other artist. While certainly an original concept, at the time no paper or syndicate was interested in it.
Unpublished comic strip created during the 1980s by Johnny Sajem (bottom panel) and Lou Magila (top panel).
The Evermores
In 1982, Sajem began his collaboration with the legendary comic creator Mort Walker. Together, they launched the newspaper gag-a-day comic 'The Evermores' (1982-1986), of which the first episode appeared in print on 29 March 1982. Walker provided gags, while Sajem concentrated on the artwork. 'The Evermores' is a family comic, but in each gag the father, mother and their children find themselves in a different historical era. Walker's initial idea was to prove that family struggles are timeless. His characters therefore appear as cavemen, knights, pirates, cowboys, musketeers, ancient Egyptians, etc. Naturally, anachronisms were included for extra laughs. Still, Walker quickly noticed readers didn't really like these constant changes. Some even had difficulty recognizing the cast in their different costumes. Having learned from past experiences, Walker let his newspaper organize a reader's poll to find out which historical era pleased his general audience the most. The end result was Ancient Rome, and from that point on, all episodes took place in the age of togas, legionaries and gladiators.
'The Evermores' (27 May 1985).
Winston
Sajem also collaborated with gag writer James S. Burnett, also known as Jim Burnett (29 September 1921- 5 January 1995), who was the gag writer for George Crenshaw and Henry Boltinoff's newspaper comic 'Nubbin' (1958-1987). Sajem and Burnett co-created the gag comic 'Winston' (1985-1987). The title character is a white bulldog, who wears a bowler hat, presumably as a nod to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Winston is the pet of a married couple, while their black cat Garbonzo is his rival. Stylistically and thematically, the series was comparable to Jim Davis' 'Garfield'. 'Winston' was distributed by News America Syndicate, before it eventually ended after two years.
'Choptalk', featuring a cameo of Atlanta Braves baseball player Andruw Jones.
Choptalk
In the early 2000s, Sajem also spent seven years providing cartoons and a comic strip to Choptalk, the house magazine of the baseball team the Atlanta Braves. The gag-a-day comic featured jokes that referenced the team's players and recent games, which understandably made them difficult to comprehend for people who weren't supporters, or devoted baseball fans.
Gag writing
In the 1980s and 1990s, Sajem was a contributing gag writer for Guy Gilchrist's newspaper comics 'Mudpie', 'The Muppets' (based on Jim Henson's TV puppet series) and 'Nancy'. Between 1990 and 1995, Sajem also penned gags for Walt Disney's 'Donald Duck' newspaper strip when it was drawn by Larry Knighton.
Graphic contributions
Johnny Sajem has illustrated several children's books and management training books. Some of these children's books are straightforward stories, such as Rebecca D. Arnoff's 'The Trouble with Tooth Fairies' (Abbott Press, 2013). Others aim at Christian audiences, among them 'Awesome! Becoming Aware of God' (Barnes & Noble, Lulu.com, 2023) and 'Who?: Becoming Aware of God's Creations' (Barnes & Noble, Lulu.com, 2023).
Between May 1983 and June 1993, Sajem was also the president and owner of Prints Charming, Inc., a company specializing in the creation and printing of custom T-shirt and sportswear designs.
'The Evermores' (16 June 1982).