My Friend Doherty

The story of my friendship with the late great polymath Brian Doherty

My dear friend Brian Doherty, long time journalist for Reason, tragically died in a hiking accident on Friday. I initially assumed it was a stroke, because the last time I saw him in December 2024, one of his legs had already been partially paralyzed by a blood clot. Even though his impairment probably contributed to his fatal accident, it’s somehow sadder to realize that he could have lived, albeit with reduced mobility, for decades longer.

Brian the way I remember him.

I met Brian when we were both interns at the Cato Institute in 1991. We spent the whole summer arguing, primarily about moral realism. Despite his strong libertarian views, Brian at that time was a vocal if reluctant nihilist. He even told me that he wanted to attend an anti-Gulf war rally with a placard reading, “Money for subjective preferences, not war.” (To which I replied, “Preference for war is a subjective preference”). The affable Sheldon Richman ran Cato’s intern program in those days, and he spent many a lunch talking ideas with the two Brian/Bryans.

After I returned to UC Berkeley in the fall, Brian and I kept in touch via snail-mail; I even looped him into a three-way conversation with young Michael Huemer on the intuitionist response to nihilism. If I recall correctly, Brian was pondering a Ph.D. in history during our shared internship. By the time I started at Princeton in 1993, though, Brian decided to start doing history instead of getting a graduate degree of his own.

A history for the ages.

After turning his internship at Cato into a full-time position, Brian Doherty left for Reason in 1994. Deeply agentic, Doherty balanced a full-time journalism career with a series of labor-intensive book projects. I still remember getting polished drafts of the early chapters of his Radicals for Capitalism, again via snail-mail in 1994. By the time the book was published, it had evolved into by far the best history of the modern American libertarian movement. It still is. His other works included a history of the Burning Man festival (Brian was a devoted musician and fanboy) and another on Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy.

Brian’s switch to Reason fortuitously led him to relocate to Los Angeles, just 30 minutes from my childhood home. As a result, I saw Brian almost every time I visited L.A., often roping in the nearby and awesomely erudite David Gordon as well. Our preferred restaurant was just down the street from legendary comic book shop Meltdown Comics.

That’s the Meltdown Comics Martian mascot.

At the time, I was starting to explore the world of graphic novels, and Brian was my top mentor. Critically for me, we met up at San Diego’s 2007 Comic-Con, where he was moderating a panel on autobiographical comics. Panelists included Alison Bechdel (of the famous and unintentionally hilarious Bechdel test) and Brian’s longtime friend, Joe Matt. Thanks to Brian, I was able to join him and Joe for lunch. It was the first time I’d ever consorted with a working graphic novelist. While I can’t be sure, I think it was this Doherty-led meal that put me on course to become, by the grace of the noble Zach Weinersmith, a best-selling graphic novelist myself.

When Brian Doherty, feeling priced out of L.A., moved to Palm Springs circa 2015, I felt like an era was ending. But instead of moping, I simply started visiting Palm Springs more. Brian was always happy to make time for me, talking ideas with my twins and (I believe) my niece as well. I’m pretty sure we went hiking in the Indian Canyons once, but for reasons I couldn’t fathom, Brian stubbornly refused to try ascending Mount San Jacinto via its marvelous cable car.

Joe Matt draws Brian Doherty. Via Jeet Heer.

Brian Doherty was a full-fledged polymath. Before I met him, he was already an accomplished bass player on the punk rock scene. While he made his living as a journalist and lacked a Ph.D. in history, his publication record fully warranted a prestigious history professorship. Brian knew his economics (mainstream as well as Austrian), his philosophy, and his pop culture. He knew comics far more deeply than I, introducing me to Seth’s sublime Wimbledon Green. Despite his overall great taste, he had a strange soft spot for Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. Though he ultimately seemed quite bourgeois, Brian had an array of eccentric friends. He was a better practitioner of libertarian friendliness than I’ve ever been. Besides being a punker and a Burning Man regular, he was apparently even friendly with The Nation’s cantankerous Jeet Heer.

Brian and I were probably the world’s two biggest fans of this obscure yet utterly immersive work.

In hindsight, my saddest memory of Brian goes back to the early 2000s, when he excitedly told me he was going to be a father. But the pregnancy ended in miscarriage, so to the best of my knowledge, Brian died childless. Alas, he would have been a pitch-perfect patriarch as well as a fantastic friend.

On some level, death is not real for me. For as long as I live, the same thought will come to mind every time I revisit L.A. or Palm Springs: Great, I hope Brian is around! My only consolation is the adage, “Don’t be sad it’s over. Be happy it happened.” Brian, I am so happy I knew you!