I haven’t been able to read much long-form lately for a variety of reasons. As you’d expect, Brian Clopper’s 101 First Chapters is the perfect book in that regard.
I’ve known Brian casually for over 30 years as, to invoke Chris Staros’ phrase, a friend through comics — save the sizable gap between the days I could make it to conventions or at least hang out in various Internet forums and when I slowly reconnected with folks, if only by returning to online activity, having lost touch with so many for too great a stretch.
The Clopper oeuvre grew wildly across those decades. While he was already a disciplined, prolific author when interviewed for my All-Brian Issue of Comicology back in 2001, some time after releasing early comics work like Partners in Pandemonium, Bombastic, and Marshall: Godling of War, the sheer mass and pace of his output is staggering.
