The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 80 to 71
Once known as the most amoral publisher in America, Gaines was studying to be a chemistry teacher at NYU (having transferred from Brooklyn Polytechnic, in the borough where he was raised) when his father died in an accident. Bill took over the old man’s company, Educational Comics, known for publishing Bible stories, in the late 1940s and started focusing on horror and science fiction stories instead. EC Comics, with titles like Tales from the Crypt, soon became a target in the U.S. Senate’s 1954 “comic book hearings.” “What are we afraid of?” Gaines asked during his opening statements. “Are we afraid of our own children?” The answer was yes; the company was essentially pushed out of business. Before closing shop, Gaines took his best-selling title, Mad, and turned it into a magazine, of which he served as publisher until the day he died in 1992.