William Gaines - MAD MAGAZINE interview - Later 4/1/91 FREE SPEECH

MAD MAGAZINE founder WILLIAM GAINES is interviewed on the April Fools Day in 1991 episode of LATER WITH BOB COSTAS. Gaines is not only a satirist but also an important figure in the American FREE SPEECH movement. 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. In 1954, Gaines testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. In the following exchanges, he is addressed first by Chief Counsel Herbert Beaser, and then by Senator Estes Kefauver:

Beaser: "Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?"
Gaines: "No, I wouldn't say that there is any limit for the reason you outlined. My only limits are the bounds of good taste, what I consider good taste."
Beaser: "Then you think a child cannot in any way, in any way, shape, or manner, be hurt by anything that a child reads or sees?"
Gaines: "I don't believe so."
Beaser: "There would be no limit actually to what you put in the magazines?"
Gaines: "Only within the bounds of good taste."
Beaser: "Your own good taste and sale ability?"
Gaines: "Yes."

Kefauver: "Here is your May 22 issue [Crime SuspenStories No. 22, cover date May]. This seems to be a man with a bloody axe holding a woman's head up which has been severed from her body. Do you think that is in good taste?"
Gaines: "Yes sir, I do, for the cover of a horror comic. A cover in bad taste, for example, might be defined as holding the head a little higher so that the neck could be seen dripping blood from it, and moving the body over a little further so that the neck of the body could be seen to be bloody."
Kefauver: "You have blood coming out of her mouth."
Gaines: "A little."
Kefauver: "Here is blood on the axe. I think most adults are shocked by that."

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