Maxwell Charles Gaines a.k.a. M.C. Gaines (born Maxwell Ginsburg^[1] or Maxwell Ginzberg^[2]; died August 20, 1947) was a pioneering figure in the creation of the modern comic book. In 1933, when Gaines devised the first four-color, saddle-stitched newsprint pamphlet, a precursor to the color-comics format that became the standard for the comic book industry. September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the state of New York and the entire United States. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... Lake Placid is a village of 2,638 in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, near the center of the Town of North Elba and named after an adjacent lake. ... August 20 is the 232nd day of the year (233rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1947 calendar). ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ...

He later became co-publisher of All-American Publications, a seminal comic-book company that introduced such enduring fictional characters as Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Hawkman. The All-American logo, used on their titles during the 1945 split with National All-American Publications is one of three American comic book companies that combined to form the modern-day DC Comics, one of the worlds two largest comics publishers. ... A fictional character is any person who appears in a work of fiction. ... For the DJ, see DJ Green Lantern. ... Wonder Woman is a fictional DC Comics superheroine co-created by William Moulton Marston and wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston. ... For other meanings of the term, see Hawkman (disambiguation) Hawkman is a fictional DC Comics superhero. ...

Biography

Early life and career

Eastern Color Press' Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics (Eastern Color Printing, 1933)

The notion came to Gaines one day when he was cleaning his mother's attic, and he started reading a stack of old newspaper comic sections. When he approached Eastern Color Printing with his idea, he learned that Eastern was already doing comic strip reprints in tabloid-sized promotional giveaways. Gaines suggested folding the tabloid yet again to increase the page count to 64 and publishing in a magazine format. The next step came when Gaines experimented by putting issues on trial newsstands with ten cents on the cover. Image File history File links FamousFunnies1933. ... Image File history File links FamousFunnies1933. ...

Gaines was the first to distribute through newsstands. His Funnies on Parade and Famous Funnies offered reprints of Sunday newspaper comics. Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics featured reprints of Reg'lar Fellers, Dixie Dugan, Joe Palooka, The Nebbs, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Somebody's Stenog and Hairbreadth Harry. Reglar Fellers was a long-run comic strip by Gene Byrnes (1889-1974) which was distributed by various syndicates from 1917 to 1949. ... The comic-strip heavyweight boxing champion Joe Palooka, drawn by Ham Fisher changed his appearance to fit the reigning real-life champ -- until the coming of African-American Joe Louis in the 1930s, after which Palooka remained a cowlicked blond. ...

All-American Publications

In 1938, Gaines and Jack Leibowitz began publishing comics with original material under the name All-American Publications. At the time, Leibowitz was the co-owner with Harry Donenfeld of National Allied Publications, the precursor company to DC Comics, and Donenfeld financed Gaines' creation of All-American. All-American published several superhero/adventure anthologies such as All-American Comics and Flash Comics, as well as other titles. For a time, All-American and National shared marketing and promotional efforts as well as characters. Several of National's characters (Starman, Doctor Fate, The Spectre) appeared alongside All-American's Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Hawkman in that company's hit title All Star Comics. The All-American logo, used on their titles during the 1945 split with National All-American Publications is one of three American comic book companies that combined to form the modern-day DC Comics, one of the worlds two largest comics publishers. ... DC Comics is one of the largest American companies in comic book and related media publishing. ... All-American Comics was the flagship title for its publisher, also called All-American Comics. ... The Golden Age Flash as created by Gardner Fox & Harry Lampert The Flash is a DC Comics superhero possessing super-speed. ... Several incarnations of Starman. ... Doctor Fate is a DC Comics superhero and wizard, best known as a member of the Justice Society of America. ... The Spectre is a fictional cosmic entity and superhero who has appeared in numerous comic books published by DC Comics. ... For the DJ, see DJ Green Lantern. ... Wonder Woman is a fictional DC Comics superheroine co-created by William Moulton Marston and wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston. ... For other meanings of the term, see Hawkman (disambiguation) Hawkman is a fictional DC Comics superhero. ... This article is about the 1940s comic book series. ...

Gaines' relationship with Donenfeld and National waxed and waned over the years. By the early 1940s, the All-American titles were branded separately and no longer featured National-owned characters. In 1944, Donenfeld bought out Gaines and merged National and All-American into a single company.

EC Comics

Gaines used the proceeds from the sale of All-American to establish another comics line, Educational Comics. EC Comics continued All-American's Picture Stories from the Bible and added new titles such as Picture Stories from American History. Gaines soon expanded the line with humor and funny animal books such as Land of the Lost, Animal Fables and Ed Wheelan's Fat and Slat. Many of these books carried a slightly revised publisher logo which changed the "Educational" in EC to "Entertaining." Entertaining Comics was headed by William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of EC Comics. ... Bugs Bunny, a typical funny animal character Funny animal is a cartooning term for the genre of comics and animated cartoons in which the main characters are humanoid or talking animals. ... Land of the Lost was a 1940s radio drama, written and narrated by Isabel Manning Hewson, about the red fish, Red Lantern, took two children underwater each week to show them where different lost objects were stored beneath the waves. ...

Death and legacy

Tragedy struck at Lake Placid, New York during the summer of 1947 when Gaines, his friend Sam Irwin and Irwin's son were struck by a speedboat. Gaines died in the accident, but saved Irwin's son by throwing him into the back of the boat at the last second. The operator of the speedboat was not prosecuted.^[3] Lake Placid is a village of 2,638 in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, near the center of the Town of North Elba and named after an adjacent lake. ...

Max Gaines' 25-year-old son, William "Bill" Gaines, inherited EC and changed the direction of the company. Although it continued to advertise and sell back issues of "Educational" titles, Bill Gaines concentrated on publishing new Entertaining Comics. He replaced the juvenile humor books with titles pitched to an older audience and strongly influenced by his own love of popular culture. These spanned several genres as he made a transition from romance (Modern Love) and Westerns (Gunslingers) to science fiction (Weird Science), horror (Tales from the Crypt) and satire (Harvey Kurtzman's Mad). William Maxwell Gaines (March 1, 1922 – June 3, 1992) (more frequently referred to as Bill Gaines), was the bearded, bespectacled, overweight publisher of Mad. ... Weird Science was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. ... The original title, Crime Patrol. ... Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924 - February 21, 1993) was a U.S. cartoonist and magazine editor. ... Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. ...

See also

• American comic book

An American comic book is a small magazine originating in the United States containing a narrative in the comics form. ...

References

• Monday Morning Memo: "Gift of a Jew" (March 1, 2004)
• Alter Ego vol. 3, #4 (Spring 2000) Sheldon Moldoff interview