Antonio Prohias - Cuban Cartoonist (1921-1998)

Antonio Prohias
Photo by: Watson-Guptil Publications.

Antonio Prohías (January 17, 1921 – February 24, 1998), born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, was a cartoonist most famous for creating the comic strip Spy vs. Spy for MAD (Magazine). Although he is most famous for Spy vs. Spy, the majority of his comic strips, such as El Hombre Siniestro, La Mujer Siniestra, and Tovarich, were published mostly or only in Cuba. Altogether, only about 20 of his roughly 270 contributions to Mad were of anything other than the spy series. As a result, most of the available information on this other work comes from the Spy vs. Spy Complete Casebook (Watson-Guptill, 2001). He died of cancer at age of 77 and is buried in Woodlawn Park Cemetery and Mausoleum (now Caballero Rivero Woodlawn North Park Cemetery and Mausoleum) in Miami, Florida.

In 1946, Prohias was given the Juan Gualberto Gómez award, recognizing him as the foremost cartoonist in Cuba. By the late 1940s, Prohías had begun working at El Mundo, the most important newspaper in Cuba. In January 1959, Prohias was the president of the Cuban Cartoonists Association; after Fidel Castro seized power, he personally honored the cartoonist for his anti-Batista political cartoons. But Prohias soon soured on Castro's policies. When he drew cartoons to this effect, he was dismissed by his newspapers, which had been taken over by Fidel Castro's government. With his professional career in limbo, Prohías left Cuba for New York on May 1, 1960. Ten weeks later, he had sold his first work to Mad.