Antonio Prohías

Antonio Prohías (1921 to 1998) was a Cuban-American cartoonist, born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, and best known as the creator of the wordless satirical comic strip Spy vs. Spy, which he drew for Mad magazine from 1961 to 1987. In Cuba he was honored in 1946 with the Juan Gualberto Gómez award as the foremost cartoonist of the country, worked for the newspaper El Mundo and in 1959 served as president of the Cuban Cartoonists Association. After his anti-Castro political cartoons led to accusations that he worked for the CIA, he resigned in February 1959 and left for New York in 1960, speaking no English, and sold his first Spy vs. Spy cartoons to Mad within weeks. Besides the Spies he drew strips such as El Hombre Siniestro, La Mujer Siniestra and Tovarich, mostly published in Cuba, and he is buried in Miami, Florida.