Spy Vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook

by Antonio Prohías

In the grand tradition of Krazy Kat & Ignatz Mouse and the Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote, the Spies (one dressed in black, the other in white) are an endless variation on a Cold War theme—forever one-upping the other, til death do they part. This diabolical duo of double-cross and deceit are, as Art Spiegelman described them in The New York Times Magazine , “the comic strip equivalent of the yin-and-yang symbol, good and evil, interdependent and interchangeable,...forever chasing each other’s tails.”

2001 marks the 40th anniversary of Spy vs. Spy, which made its first appearance in MAD #60, January 1961. The feature has run in virtually every issue since with nearly 1000 installments. Spy vs. The Complete Casebook chronicles the creation and history of the Spies and features all 247 of the strips written and illustrated by its illustrious creator, Antonio Prohias.

Delighted fans will discover a virtual treasure trove of fun-loving Spy vs. Spy material. Here for the first time are unpublished and never-before-seen preliminary sketches and artist roughs, photographs from his family scrapbooks, and rare political cartoons. Also included are eight biographical and historical essays, each detailing a different aspect and perspective on the Spies and their creator. A special color section reproduces dozens of Spy collectibles from over the years, including paperbacks, Super Specials, computer games, trading cards, and much more.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comic Strips, Art, Graphic Novels Comics

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Mouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest f**king books and compendiums ever written!!! This book ranks up there with the Zombie Survival Guide and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It deserves a spot of honor on your coffee table, den, bathroom, or stolen by your kid and hid under his bed like a dirty magazine!
I can't praise it enough, this is stuff I grew up with and even though it's 2 dudes continually blowing each other up... it's really just good clean fun.
This was the main reason why I used to buy Mad Magazine (this and the fold-ins).

I cautiously introduced my kid to Spy Vs Spy and we would read a few each night. Next thing I know he finished the whole book on his own! So I picked up the second Spy vs Spy compendium book and he read through that too!
I've read through this book a few times over the years and it's the type of book that you can dust off once a year or every so often and just have a few quick laughs!
Long live Prohias!

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, how I want to give this book 4 stars. It ain't WAR AND PEACE, so 5 is out of the question, but so much of Prohias work is clever, endearing, and beautifully realized that the material deserves 4, so why 3? The bone headed editor decided to reduce about 50 of Prohias strips to a size so small that one needs a magnifying glass to see them clearly.

This was unnecessary. Most of the Spy vs Spy pages are rendered one per page, so why, oh, why have about a dozen pages with four squeezed onto a page? Madness, especially since the book could have done with a couple of fewer tributes and the pages of Peter Kuper's Spy vs Spy follow-ups could have been cut. Then the book would have the same page count.

This pretends to be the definitive Spy vs Spy collection. Alas, that book has yet to be published.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing in "MAD Magazine" that seriously approached genius. You didn't need to speak any language to enjoy it, and it was the coolest Cold War comic strip ever. Includes sketches for the strip and other non-Spy Vs. Spy material. $25 and worth every penny.

[Juan Fuentes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiras cómicas con el enfrentamiento entre un espía vestido de blanco y otro vestido de negro, indistinguibles por lo demás. Con la ocasional aparición de una mujer espía que va contra ambos. Humor del estilo coyote vs correcaminos.

[Leslie Carnahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful deep dive and look into the creator of Spy Vs Spy and all of his original runs of this comic. A wonderful book for any fan of comics.

[Jack]

I absolutely loved this book. There is no dialogue so you are completely free to interpret and imagine what is going on. It’s a very funny book of comics that used to be in mad magazine that my dad loved and I really like this boom too.

[James Piss · Rating 5 out of 5]

monve ovvre james bond, these spyes are going to bexplode you into pieces!! no amount of damageboosted granade throwing will save you nwow

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book and a blast from the past! Like for many, the spies were my favourite part of MAD magazine, but I hadn't thought about them for years before I stumbled across this collection. I knew nothing about Prohias or his career, so the background information was very interesting, as were the pre-Spies cartoons. Great to be reminded of the simplicity of good visual gags. The Spies now have a new convert in my 12 yo too!

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too much of a good thing in this book! When I was a kid I had very occasional access to Mad Magazine - maybe at the hairdresser's??? - and Spy vs Spy was my favourite feature. I found some comics in this compilation that I remembered. It's definitely better in small doses though. I was hoping for one or two comics to come along that would subvert the trope, like the episode of Roadrunner where Wile E Coyote actually captures him, but alas, no such relief came, and it grew monotonous.

[Kooby · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly a great book, i read it a couple years ago, but i still remeber everything and book 2. the book is good, but its not exactly a book you can read again and again because the images are burned in your head

[destroyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

funny and vilont

[John Barclay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give this a higher rating, for the first ten years of comics, but after that they go so far downhill that it's not worth it. Spy Vs Spy was a cold war classic. Simple silent crazy tales of misdirection and surprise, later they just get sillier and not nearly as much fun.

I had forgotten about the female spy that gets both black and white at the same time, and of the madness of the inventions and the joy of the twists. In the beginning.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of work by the legendary Mad magazine cartoonist, including biographical essays and a look at his other work. It falls short only in the bizarre decision to run several pages with FOUR of the "Spy vs. Spy" strips miniturized to run together, making it hard to appreciate or even understand them without a magnifying glass. But a must-read for anyone who grew up enjoying his work in Mad.

[Bob Fish]

Got it today, review will follow soon !
More Mad Magazine reprints please !
https://youtu.be/E8XaRfgwa9w

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection of a favourite comic strip from Mad magazine. I loved the biography of Antonio Prohias included. This is rereading but I can't recall when I last did.

[Javan Edwards]

ITS AMAZIN'

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great historical artifact with tons of clever humor and detailed drawings. Fun to read, if repetitive at times

[Devin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this. The intelligence with most of these strips is off the charts. I couldn’t help but smile while reading this fabulous book.

The book quality is also spectacular

[picasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

the artwork reminds me of excalibur from soul eater or big nose from the pink panther

and i love it (aka need more beaklike heads like now)

[Bikerider99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

classic Mad Magazine !

[Estherbox · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s fun and clever, but I docked it at page 118. It’s much better in bite sizes.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spy vs. Spy Omnibus isn't the complete Spy vs. Spy - Mad Magazine's Coyote/Roadrunner answer to the Cold War has been going on since 1961 and would make for a book twice as thick - but it does feature the complete works of Antonio Prohias, their creature, for Mad. In addition to each of his Spy vs. Spy strips, there's a selection of his cartoons for Cuban newspapers, sketches, his non-Spy Mad features, book covers and other merchandise, selected Spy vs. Spy strips by other artists who took on the feature after Prohias' retirement, and essays by friends, family and colleagues. The only thing missing, from my point of view, is material for the C64 game, which I enjoyed as a kid, properly more out of loyalty for the strip than for its gameplay. I was a Mad enthusiast in the early 80s and I swear I remembered the relevant strips when I got to them. I didn't know at the time Prohias' powers were on the wane, but reading them all in sequence, you can see his line grow sketchier in the 80s, just as the strips had become more intricate as they transitioned from the 60s to the 70s. Some ideas do recur, but the book gives you the sense of an artist who needed and wanted to keep things fresh, not an easy thing when one delivers several strips featuring the same characters and conceit every month for close to 25 years!

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be more Spy vs Spy than you really want to go through. While in the intros to the earliest strips in Mad magazine, they billed it as a "friendly rivalry", it was anything but - these guys were out to kill or maim each other, and one of them always succeeded. Granted, it's a cartoon, but still the violence level might be a bit much. In the early strips that's lightened by the ingenuity of both the attacks and counters as the two spies go at each other. By the end of the end of its run, though, it wasn't nearly as ingenious, and as a result not nearly as funny.

Of course there were the occasional appearances of the grey-clad female spy, who would do in both of the love-struck male spies - she definitely played no favorites. As you'll learn from this book, Prohias stopped using her after a while, because it was a little too formulaic - he was right, but the entire strip was formulaic.

There's a lot of other material here that's not strictly Prohias' stuff - strips that other artists did toward the end of its run and such. While it might not be of interest to those strictly interested in Prohias, its quality level is no worse than his material was by that time.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tricky one to rate. The historic context on creator Antonio Prohias was excellent. I didn't know his background as a Cuban political refugee (a cartoonist there too, his drawings drew some potentially deadly attention from Castro). It was fun to read different perspectives on his journey--landing in the United States, not speaking English, showing up at the MAD offices and launching one of their best-known features.

On the other hand, while I always read Spy Vs. Spy as a kid, it was never my favorite. The proceedings could be inventive, but the plotting and outcome were always just a little too mechanistic for me. I enjoy the creativity of the best strips, but in the weaker ones, particularly toward the end, Prohias really seems to be reaching for the switcheroo.

There's a lot of Spy Vs. Spy in this volume. It's enjoyable enough, but it's strange and even a little wearying to read all the originals back to back. The book is good, especially for fans, but it's probably best experienced by putting it down periodically and coming back to it at leisure.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dad had some old MAD Magazines he let me read when I was younger, and my favorite part was always Spy vs. Spy. When I found out about this book (I don't remember how) I asked for it for Christmas. When my brother gave it to me, I was happy, but then I actually read it. I was just expecting a book full of all the Spy vs. Spy comics, but instead I got a book full of interesting background, and comics from before Spy vs. Spy and MAD Magazine in addition to all the comic strips I was expecting. I love the book.

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love about Spy vs. Spy is how the full narrative and humor can be understood without words. Even though I have "read" every single stip in this book, I still chuckle when I pick up the book. Prohias was a genius and conveying humor without words is a huge task, and he pulls it off flawlessly. Most of the stips are just downright clever. This book also has some of his earlier work as well as some stips produced by writers who took over after Prohias's death. Others complain about it not being complete, but there are plenty of stips in this book to keep you laughing for years.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wondered if the Spy vs. Spy comics would be simple rose colored favorites from my youth but they are surprisingly timeless. The author, Antonio Prohias, an exile from Castro's Cuba has much still to teach us about the futility of subterfuge. His creation was almost entirely pantomime, which is a difficult task in itself but despite its simple approach these characters are show complex creative and fun. I still enjoy reading these comics for their own artistic merit and not just as a memorial to my misspent youth.

[Afa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku yang tak perlu banyak perkataan, ini sebuah novel grafik yang genius. Saya sambil baca sambil mengira berapa kes spy putih menang, berapa kes spy hitam menang (spy kelabu tak kira, sebab semua kes dia menang!) dan ia tidak mudah untuk menghasilkan sebuah cerita kerana memerlukan idea idea absurd dan baru barangkali, setiap kali. Malahan warna juga sangat minimum : hitam putih, kelabu. Kemunculan watak-watak yang tiba-tiba muncul tanpa banyak back story juga meringkaskan setting cerita yang kita hanya perlu tahu setiap kali bahawa, spy mesti versus spy.

[Arnela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these 2 jerks so much. Being able to read over 300 pages of them made my day. I was also happily surprised to find several written portions talking about MAD magazine and the creator of the spies, Prohias. It made me feel like I was a kid again procrastinating from my homework on Sunday night by reading comics. If you want to take a long bath in nostalgia and watch how the spies changed [and yet stayed so much the same] through the decades, read this.

[captain america · Rating 3 out of 5]

good collection but an insult to add all that non-prohias crap, especially since they made room for it by reproducing some of prohias' strips at 1/4 size.
plus they left out material from the prohias paperbacks that never made it into mad magazine itself. far from "complete".