MAD Spy vs Spy
Spy vs Spy is a classic black and white comic strip created for MAD Magazine by Cuban Antonio Prohías.
The wordless "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon was meant to be symbolic of the Cold War and the creators thoughts on the futility of
the arms race. Each strip would include the following morse code "_... _.__ .__. ._. ___ .... .. ._ ..." meaning
"BY PROHIAS" under the title. After Prohías's retirement, several artists worked on the strip with Peter Kuper as the latest artist and has
been doing it since 1997.
The concept of the comic has been the same since it originated in 1961; it features two spies, one Black and one White, that are constantly
battling one other, and coming up with increasingly sophisticated
methods to defeat the other. A plot in a typical strip would have one spy setting up a treacherous booby-trap for the other to fall into.
Sometimes the trap would work successfully, but the other spy would sometimes come up with a brilliant counter plan of his own and
then defeat the first spies plan.
The Black and White Spies are employed by the embassies of two nations (witch ones is irrelevant) and look identical except for the color of
their uniforms, the Spies battle against one other using a variety of complicated creative techniques involving weapons, machines and
props. The victor alternates roughly every other comic, and neither spy is portrayed as good or evil since both of them are equally ruthless
towards one other.
Some of the early cartoons, had both spies coming up with the same plan to trap the other, and the result would be a draw, so neither side would
win, but this was the exception rather than the rule and most of the time one protagonist would beat the other. Some of the comics
would have the title panel of the comic would feature a brilliant one-panel gag presenting one spy besting the other; and the remainder of the
comic panels would then show a different short story with the other spy actually winning.
Spy vs Spy comics also appeared in some Sunday Newspaper Strips for a short period of time and still appear in
Mad Classics done by Dave and Don called the "The Lost Sunday Comic Strips" which was an obvious reference to the "short-lived" Sunday comics.
Spy vs Spy has become
part of our so called Pop Culture and can often mean anything where two opponents are constantly trying to one-up each other. The popular strip
has also had some animated short cartoon versions on MADtv and some computer games have also been made and featured on some popular video game consoles
such as Nintendo and XBox.
Pepsi used the characters in a series of Mountain Dew television commercials, taking the basic format of the strip, but with all of the
action centered around Mountain Dew soft drinks. the Spy vs. Spy COMIC continues to run in MAD Magazine, drawn by Peter Kuper who still includes
Prohías's name but in Morse Code at the top of the feature.
Check out the Spy vs Spy Gallery,
see the first published cartoon,
watch a
MADTV animated SPY vs SPY cartoon,
download Spy software or
check out some of the many resources on the site.
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