RINGGENBERG: Do you find that a lot of the people who criticize Mad and maybe criticized the E.C.s back in the fifties lacked a certain sense of humor?

GAINES: Oh, sure, absolutely. All our horror stuff was written tongue in cheek, and as horrible as it gets, it was all done tongue in cheek, in the spirit of black humor. And of course, most people that didn't like it didn't understand that, and wouldn't understand any black humor, when you get right down to it.