William Gaines

At 70 years old, William Gaines physical status not available right now. We will update William Gaines's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

William Maxwell Gaines (March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992), was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics.

Following a shift in EC's direction in 1950, Gaines presided over what became an artistically influential and historically important line of mature-audience comics.

He published the satirical magazine Mad for over 40 years. He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame (1993) and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame (1997).

In 2012, he was inducted into the Ghastly Awards' Hall of Fame.

Early life

Gaines was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish household. His father was Max Gaines, who as publisher of the All-American Comics division of DC Comics was also an influential figure in the history of comics. The elder Gaines tested the idea of packaging and selling comics on newsstands in 1933, and Gaines accepted William Moulton Marston's proposal in 1941 for the first successful female superhero, Wonder Woman.

As World War II began, Gaines was rejected by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy, so he went to his local draft board and requested to be drafted. He trained as an U.S. Army Air Corps photographer at Lowry Field in Denver. However, when he was assigned to an Oklahoma City field without a photographic facility, he wound up on permanent KP duty. As he explained in 1976 to Bill Craig of Stars and Stripes, "Being an eater, this assignment was a real pleasure for me. There were four of us, and we always found all the choice bits the cooks had hidden away. We'd be frying up filet mignon and ham steaks every night. The hours were great, too. I think it was eight hours on and 40 off." Stationed at DeRidder Army Airfield in Louisiana, he was reassigned to Marshall Airfield in Kansas and then to Governors Island, New York. Leaving the service in 1946, he returned home to complete his chemistry studies at Brooklyn Polytechnic, but soon transferred to New York University, intent on obtaining a teaching certificate. In 1947, he was in his senior year at NYU when his father was killed in a motorboat accident on Lake Placid. Instead of becoming a chemistry teacher, he took over the family business, EC Comics.

Personal life

Gaines's first marriage was arranged by his mother. He was married to his second cousin Hazel Grieb. They announced their plans to divorce in August 1947. According to Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine by Maria Reidelbach, Gaines married Nancy Siegel in 1955. They had three children, Cathy (1958), Wendy (1959), and Christopher (1961). They divorced in 1971. In 1987 he married Anne Griffiths. They remained married until his death in 1992.

Gaines was an atheist since the age of 12; he once told a reporter that his was probably the only home in America in which the children were brought up to believe in Santa Claus, but not in God.

Source

Career

The United States Congress was attracted by Dr. Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, comic books like those that Gaines published. Gaines testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954. He is first introduced by Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser, followed by Senator Estes Kefauver in the following exchanges:

Beaser: If it sells, is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine? Is there a limit you can think of when you say a child should not see or read about it?Gaines: No, I wouldn't say that there is any limit for the reason you gave. Your only limits are good taste, which I consider excellent taste.Beaser: I'm sure a child would not be affected by anything that a child reads or sees.

Kefauver: Here is your May 22 issue [Crime Suspension Suspension No. 21] The article is published on May 22, the front page. This appears to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head, which has been severed from her body. Is that in good taste? Yes sir, I do, for the front of a horror movie. A cover in bad taste, for example, could be described as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it, and carrying the body a little bit more so that the neck could be seen as bloody. Most adults are shocked by this, according to me.

In 1955, Gaines converted Mad to a magazine, partly to keep the services of its talented editor Harvey Kurtzman, who had received calls from elsewhere. Mad was able to escape the Comics Code Authority's strictures because of the reform. Kurtzman retired from Gaines' service a year later, but Al Feldstein, Gaines' most prolific editor during the EC Comics run, took over Kurtzman's position. (See Harvey Kurtzman's editorship of Mad for more information about this event and subsequent debates about it.) Feldstein ruled Mad from 1955 to 1986, as Gaines continued to a long and profitable career as a writer of satire and critic of bombast.

Gaines brought his staff to Haiti to celebrate a one-million magazines. In Haiti, the magazine had just one subscriber. Gaines personally delivered his subscription renewal card.

Gaines had a penny-pinching side despite his heights. He would often stop meetings to find out who had called a particular long-distance phone number. In 2011, Mad editor Nick Meglin called Gaines a "living contradiction," claiming, "He was unquestionably the cheapest man in the world and the most generous." Meglin recalled his appeal to Gaines for a raise of $33 a week; after turning down the request, the publisher treated Meglin to a lavish dinner at one of New York's finest restaurants. "The check came, and I said, 'That's the whole amount!' recalled Meglin: "I like good conversation and good food,' Bill said.' "I don't like giving raises."

(Growes was not too keen on paying percentages, either as a veteran Golden Age comics artist Sheldon Moldoff). Dick DeBartolo's book Good Days and Mad (1994) recalls several anecdotes that portray Gaines as a generous gourmand who enjoyed practical jokes and who adored verbal abuse from his employees.

Gaines sold Mad to Premier Industries, a manufacturer of venetian blinds, in 1961, but remained publisher until his death and served as a buffer between the magazine and its corporate interests. He largely stayed out of the magazine's manufacture, often viewing content right before the issue was delivered to the printer. Gaines wrote, "My employees and contributors contribute to the magazine." "I create the atmosphere." Mad to Independent News, a division of National Periodical Publications, the publisher of DC Comics, sold Mad to Independent News in 1964. Kinney National Company acquired National Periodical in 1967, and later, they acquired Warner Brothers. Kinney became Warner Communications in 1972.

On the December 7, 1991, episode of Beyond Vaindeville, one of Gaines' last televised interviews was as a guest.

Director John Landis and screenwriter Joel Eisenberg planned a biopic starring William M. Gaines, with Al Feldstein as a creative consultant. However, the film did not get to the stage until post-production.

Source