William Maxwell "Bill" Gaines was an American publisher and co-editor of EC Comics.
13 Facts About William Gaines
2.
William Gaines published the satirical magazine Mad for over 40 years.
3.
William Gaines was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame.
4.
William Gaines was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish household.
5.
William Gaines's father was Max Gaines, who as publisher of the All-American Comics division of DC Comics was an influential figure in the history of comics.
6.
William Gaines trained as an US Army Air Corps photographer at Lowry Field in Denver.
7.
In 1954, William Gaines testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.
8.
William Gaines converted Mad to a magazine in 1955, partly to retain the services of its talented editor Harvey Kurtzman, who had received offers from elsewhere.
9.
In 1961, William Gaines sold Mad to Premier Industries, a maker of venetian blinds, but remained publisher until the day he died, and served as a buffer between the magazine and its corporate interests.
10.
William Gaines largely stayed out of the magazine's production, often viewing content just before the issue was shipped to the printer.
11.
One of William Gaines' last televised interviews was as a guest on the December 7,1991, episode of Beyond Vaudeville.
12.
William Gaines was married to his second cousin Hazel Grieb.
13.
William 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.