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Spy vs. Spy

Spy vs. Spy
Spy vs. Spy Logotipe.png
Author(s)
Current status / schedule Ongoing
Launch date Mad magazine #60 (Jan. 1961)
Publisher(s) DC Entertainment (Time Warner)
Genre(s) Political satire, Black comedy, Humor, Comedy

Spy vs. Spy is a wordless comic strip published in Mad magazine. It features two agents involved in espionage activities, one is dressed in white, and the other in black, but they are otherwise identical, and are particularly known for their long, birdlike beaks. The pair are constantly at war with each other, using a variety of booby-traps to inflict harm on the other. The spies usually alternate between victory and defeat with each new strip. A parody of the political ideologies of the Cold War, the strip was created by Cuban expatriate cartoonist Antonio Prohías, and debuted in Mad #60, dated January 1961.Spy vs. Spy is currently written and drawn by Peter Kuper.

The Spy vs. Spy characters have been featured in such media as video games and an animated television series, and in such merchandise as action figures and trading cards.

Prohías was a prolific cartoonist in Cuba known for political satire. He fled to the United States on May 1, 1960, three days before Fidel Castro's government nationalized the last of the Cuban free press. Prohías sought work in his profession and travelled to the offices of Mad magazine in New York City on July 12, 1960. After a successful showing of his work and a prototype cartoon for Spy vs. Spy, Prohías was hired.

Prohías cryptically "signed" each strip on its first panel with a sequence of Morse code characters that spell "BY PROHIAS". In a 1983 interview with the Miami Herald, Prohías reflected on the success of Spy vs. Spy, stating, "The sweetest revenge has been to turn Fidel's accusation of me as a spy into a moneymaking venture." Prohías, however, was censored by Mad magazine publisher William Gaines on at least one occasion: the strip that eventually appeared in Mad magazine #84 (Jan. 1964) was altered, as the spies were depicted drinking and smoking (Gaines had a strong anti-smoking stance). Prohías completed a total of 241 Spy vs. Spy strips for Mad magazine, the last one appearing in issue #269 (March 1987), when he retired due to ill health.


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