William Maxwell "Bill" Gaines (/ɡeɪnz/; 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.

[4][5][6] However, when he was assigned to an Oklahoma City field without a photographic facility, he wound up on permanent KP duty.

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.

[4][6] With the publication of Dr. Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, comic books like those that Gaines published attracted the attention of the U.S. Congress.

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.

Feldstein oversaw Mad from 1955 through 1986, as Gaines went on to a long and profitable career as a publisher of satire and enemy of bombast.

Longtime Mad editor Nick Meglin called Gaines a "living contradiction" in 2011, saying, "He was singularly the cheapest man in the world, and the most generous."

'"[11] (According to veteran Golden Age comics artist Sheldon Moldoff, Gaines was not too fond of paying percentages, either.)

[12][pages needed] In 1961, Gaines sold Mad to Premier Industries, a maker of venetian blinds,[13] but remained publisher until the day he died, and served as a buffer between the magazine and its corporate interests.

"[14] Around 1964, Premier sold Mad to Independent News, a division of National Periodical Publications, the publisher of DC Comics.

Circa 2008, director John Landis and screenwriter Joel Eisenberg planned a biopic called Ghoulishly Yours, William M. Gaines, with Al Feldstein serving as a creative consultant.

[19] According to Completely Mad: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine by Maria Reidelbach, Gaines married Nancy Siegel in 1955.

[10] 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.