Mothspy
Mothspy, a winged secret agent, takes on lizard aliens bent on harvesting her moth wings in this early spy comic from Kraig Rasmussen — the self-published book that launched the Monkeygong imprint in 2004.
📖 Monkeygong • Started 2004
Mothspy is where it all began. Long before the Sojourners cats and the gleaming towers of Technopolis, Kraig Rasmussen launched the Monkeygong imprint in 2004 with this scrappy self-published spy comic — and as he puts it on his about.me page, he’s been self-publishing comics ever since, “learning on-the-go.”
The story follows Mothspy, a secret agent with a decidedly un-spy-like secret: moth wings that make her a target for a race of lizard aliens who want to harvest her wings for their own sinister purposes. The issue Mothspy: Reptiles in Heat made the rounds at WonderCon 2004, where Rasmussen famously pitched copies out of his backpack — an origin story preserved for posterity in a legendary 2006 takedown by the blog 2 Guys Buying Comics, which remains one of the few third-party accounts of the book’s existence and is still a hilarious read.
The comic is raw early work — ambitious, weird, and proudly DIY — and it’s an essential artifact for anyone tracing the through-line of Rasmussen’s career from scrappy 2004 self-publisher to the pen-and-ink professional behind Boris Karloff’s Gold Key Mysteries and covers for Critical Entertainment and BOOM! Studios. Mothspy herself, a winged heroine who fights alien forces with grit and attitude, previews the strong female presence that runs through his later work.
Copies of Mothspy are long out of print and hard to find, but readers can explore the evolution of Rasmussen’s craft through his current catalog at the Monkeygong shop and the Monkeygong Comics Club.
