Art From Art’s Sake #203: Life’s A Riot With Peter Kuper’s Spy Vs Spy

Art For Art’s Sake, giving you a little jolt of joy, comics style, every week. And this week we’re celebrating the wonderful Spy Vs Spy by Peter Kuper in Mad Magazine, one of the absolute classics of Mad…

We open this one with a wonderful moment – Peter Kuper’s final Spy Vs Spy for Mad’s 70th Anniversary Issue. He’s been doing them for an astonishing 27 years now. Never less than brilliant and more from Kuper and the Spies later on this week…

John McCrea puts up a few of his past commissions – lucky you if they’re currently adorning your walls.

Bob Oskner –

Stephen Bissette – a little Swamp Thing

Paul Smith – pin up from Marvel Fanfare #45, 1989.

Greg Staples on the girl with the tank…

Mike Perkins – Captain Britain in his original gear…

Alison Sampson – Department of Truth #16 cover –

Patrick Goddard – Joker

Lee Garbett – Strange…

Lee Garbett again – Alien variant

Tom McWeeney – Legion of Monsters

Gahan Wilson –

Marguerite Sauvage – Wonder Woman #792 splash page, free the animals! With Diana & Cheetah and a new outfit matching Diana’s cover.

Mick McMahon Slàine – classic!

Frank Teran – John Constantine

Bo Hampton – another wonderful commission up for grabs…

Jamie Hewlett – Tank Girl classic image…

Pye Parr – a couple of Transformers prints

Jonathan Edwards – Takoyaki, Osaka. Original sketch and finished painting. Available as a print here – https://jonathanestore.bigcartel.com

 

As promised, we’ll end this week with Spy Vs Spy and Peter Kuper’s wonderful work on the strip.

Created by Cuban expat Antonio Prohias‘ in 1961 for Mad #60, Spy Vs. Spy was always a highlight of the Mad Magazines I used to read in my dad’s pile of comics (Mad, Fred Bassett, Charles Addams – that was it).

The never-ending saga of the white spy versus the balck spy, trapped in a Cold War world they just can’t escape from has had a number of artists since Prohias left the strip in 1987 after some 26 years, but it was Peter Kuper who’s become known as the modern Spy Vs Spy artist, continuing the manic insanity of Prohias’ Cold War craziness from 1997 until 2022.

 

And a fabulous SPy Vs Spy by Peter Kuper, instantly recognisable as a Will Eisner Spirit homage…