Clyde Wells the Augusta Chronicles editorial cartoonist will be retireing January 2nd. His third book "Wells 25 years" is on sale. CINDY BLANCHARD/STAFF

Saying goodbye

Cartoonist's work brought chuckles and occasional howls - of both laughter and protest

Web posted December 28, 1997

By Alisa DeMao
Staff Writer

After 27 years on the attack, Clyde Wells is standing down.

He has spent more than a quarter-century needling and prodding presidents and county commissioners, school officials and sheriffs, sports teams and Supreme Court justices. At his hands, the Atlanta Braves have dribbled down the drain, Richmond County Commissioners have found their heads in the noose, and mayors have tilted, not at windmills, but at downtown railroad crossings.

The longtime editorial cartoonist for The Augusta Chronicle - a self-described ``attack cartoonist'' - will retire at the end of the year. His last cartoon will run Jan. 2, a frame of caricatured politicians who will be glad to see him go.

``I don't really set out to anger people, as a rule, but it comes out that way a lot of times,'' Mr. Wells said from behind the slanted green desk where he draws and inks his pointed creations. ``If you see somebody that's done something wrong, in your opinion, you go out there and try to scrape them. I go on the attack when I see something wrong. That's what our business really is in newspapers. We're watchdogs. We're in an adversarial position with people in power.''

Political humor and acerbic wit from the conservative cartoonist's pen have appeared on the editorial page of The Chronicle since 1971. His work has appeared in national magazines such as Time and the National Review, and his nationally syndicated cartoons have appeared in newspapers such as The Washington Post.

``Clyde Wells is a cartoonist of unusual perception,'' said William Morris III, publisher of The Augusta Chronicle, when Mr. Wells' retirement was announced. ``His ability to grasp events of the day and express them in pictures with delight and disdain, adulation and ridicule, reflection and humor is unique. He has enlightened the readers of The Augusta Chronicle with his perception of political activities, which are often both ridiculous and humorous at the same time.''

It was Mr. Wells' wry, pointed take on local politics that endeared him to Augusta-area readers. His first big splash, in 1975, was the infamous ``net'' cartoon, a poke at the Georgia Department of Transportation that depicted a net stretched beneath the J.C. Calhoun Expressway to catch hurtling cars when the highway ended abruptly at 15th Street.

The cartoon would provide the title of his first book - The Net Effect, or If This is the Bottom Line, What Are You Guys Doing Down There? - and earned the newspaper a visit from transportation department bigwigs. When the expressway was lengthened to 12th Street, officials draped a shrimp net over the ribbon tied for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The seemingly simple cartoon touched a nerve, allowing people to express their resentment about the expressway when many felt a Columbia County-Augusta connector - what would become Riverwatch Parkway - was a greater need. Transportation officials later admitted that the community needed Riverwatch Parkway more, Mr. Wells said.

``That was my first real experience in getting a lot of feedback from the public,'' he said. ``I was surprised at the reaction - and it never stopped, really. People still mention that cartoon.''

The most negative feedback was for a cartoon drawn in the aftermath of a shooting at Harlem High School in 1993 that killed one student and left another wounded. About 60 people called him, and some teachers assigned students to write letters complaining about the cartoon, which showed a student, labeled ``Harlem High,'' asking a classmate to ``cover'' him so he could make it to English class.

``People said it made the community look bad,'' Mr. Wells said wryly. ``When a woman called me to say her house was on the market and now she couldn't sell it, I could see which way the wind was going to blow. A kid's still lying in the morgue, and she's worried about selling her house.''

The negative feedback doesn't bother him, as long as it's valid, he said.

``I want people to say, `I don't like this cartoon, and here's why,''' he said. ``We need that in the art world. This is art, not science.''

Although he's always been interested in drawing - he remembers the first picture he drew, a ship, when he was in first grade - he didn't realize he was heading for an artistic career as he worked construction or sold real estate, insurance, tobacco or automobiles. He spent those years drawing portraits and pictures for friends, paving the way for his new career.

A Florida native, Mr. Wells attended the University of Florida and the University of South Carolina.

He started work at the Augusta paper in 1971 on a 90-day basis to draw cartoons about the consolidation issue in Richmond County. Before beginning work in Augusta, he had submitted political cartoons to a Marietta newspaper while he sold cars in Atlanta.

``I think the things I learned (in other careers) carry over into this work - I have an independent streak, and I study people and get to know them,'' he said. ``With me, it's politicians. I tend to read them to see why they do things. Are they doing them for their constituents or for themselves? And if a little red flag goes up, if I see something being done that's not right, I go on the attack.''

He's never been one to pull punches, he said, the result of a world-view that's both cynical and childlike. The cynicism comes from seeing too many self-serving politicians and the lack of leadership in Augusta. The childlike eye allows him to cut to the chase, reducing complex issues to a simple, gut-level image.

His eye for local politics attracted and held readers, said Editorial Page Editor Phil Kent, who labeled Mr. Wells ``a creative genius.''

``That's not to take away from the fine work he's done on national issues,'' Mr. Kent said. ``I think he should have won the Pulitzer for his Challenger (illustration.)''

The Challenger drawing, printed after the space shuttle exploded on liftoff in 1986, killing the crew and teacher Christa McAuliffe, depicted the shuttle flying into the open hands of God. Mr. Wells wasn't surprised when it became his most popular drawing, he said.

With retirement drawing near, he's looking forward to putting some time in on his oil painting, and he's rethinking plans to resurrect a comic strip, Go Figure, that briefly ran in The Chronicle in 1995. King Features Syndicate offered to pick up the cartoon, which Mr. Wells described as ``a horizontal Far Side,'' but would have wanted a daily version. He didn't have that kind of time to put into it then and isn't sure he wants to now, he said.

``I used to think that I would die at this drawing board,'' he said. ``But I'm burnt out. The job's no longer fun the way it used to be.''