Spy vs. Spy

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For the Australian rock band Spy vs Spy, see Spy Vs Spy; for the John Zorn album see Spy vs Spy (album).

Image:Spy5.gif Spy vs. Spy is a wordless black and white comic strip that has been published in Mad magazine since 1961. It was created by Cuban Antonio Prohías, who fled to the United States in 1960, just days before Fidel Castro took over the Cuban free press.

The "Spy vs. Spy" cartoon was symbolic of the Cold War, and was Prohías's comment on the futility of armed escalation and détente. Under the Spy vs. Spy title panel, the words "BY PROHIAS" are spelled out in Morse code.

Prohías's strip represents a unique achievement for MAD as an institution to take on a life of its own and continue after the death of its original artist.

The comic features two spies, Black and White, who are constantly warring against each other. The typical plot is always the same: one spy is planning a scheme to kill the other spy, and then the other either turns the plan against him or comes up with a brilliant counterplan of his own.

The title panel of the comic almost always features a one-panel gag presenting one spy besting the other; the main comic then uses the rest of the panels to tell a different short story with the other spy winning.

During 1962-65, the comic was sometimes called Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy and featured a female spy, Lady in Grey, with whom both White and Black Spy were in love. The Lady in Grey ended up always winning against both spies.

After Prohías's Death, many artists have tried to keep the strip going. But on April 1997 Peter Kuper became the New Spy vs Spy artist and still is doing it today.

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Characters

The Black and White Spies: Employed by the embassies of two nations and identical except for the color of their uniforms, the Spies do battle against each other with a variety of complicated (sometimes ridiculously so) 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 each other.

The Grey Spy: Also known as the Lady in Grey, a female spy who appeared in MAD 21 times from 1962-65. When she appeared, the strips were retitled Spy vs Spy vs Spy, and instead of either of the Black or White Spy winning, Grey won and they both lost. The Spies were completely enamored with her, often attempting to rescue her as she pretended to be in distress. Because she always won, Prohías decided to stop using her. Later writers and artists, including Peter Kuper, brought her back for occasional appearances.

The Black and White Leaders: The Black and White Leaders are the highest ranking officers of the embassies that the Spies belong to. Much like the Grey Spy, they appeared often in the early strips, and especially in the paperbacks. They appear as huge, barrel-chested decorated officers, and give the Spies their missions to carry out. On more than one occasion they get fed up with their employees and in one particular episode, "Defection" (which was later turned into an animated cartoon for Mad TV), the Black Leader and the Diplomat fire the Black Spy from his job at the embassy. They have made no appearances in any strips drawn by subsequent artists.

Spy vs. Spy animated short cartoons on MADtv and computer games have also been made. In 2004, PepsiCo licensed the characters for use in a series of television commercials for its Mountain Dew soft drink.

Six original Spy vs. Spy strips by Prohías are collected in the Archives of American Art.

"Spy vs. Spy" has now entered the public lexicon to mean anything where two opponents are constantly trying to one-up each other.

Milton Bradley released a Spy vs. Spy board game involving digging tunnels and retrieving bombs. [1] A German game was also released, "Spion & Spion," with different game mechanics. [2]

After Prohias retired, MAD's Longtime artist Bob Clarke and Longtime writer Don "Duck" Edwing took over in 1988 through the early 90's.

After Bob Clarke was Dave Manak who took over the strip with Edwing.

A Sunday strip was released in 2002 but it was very short-lived. It was written by Don Edwing and drawn by Dave Manak.[3]

Four video games have been released using the characters. The first was released in 1988 on many platforms, including the NES and several home computers. Featuring the "trapulator," an array of booby traps with which players could trap, blow up, maim, or otherwise injure each other, the game spawned two sequels. A new Spy vs. Spy game was released for the X-Box in 2005.

Neglected Mario Characters has a parody called "Shy vs. Shy", partially based on the Mountain Dew comercial.

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