Nels Johnson of the Marin IJ newspaper reports that Kep Brown, whose family dominated publishing in Marin County for nearly half a century, has died from bone cancer at age 57. The veteran advertising executive held a variety of North Bay media sales and management posts over three decades. Brown’s grandfather, Roy A. Brown, was a newspaper visionary who acquired the San Rafael Independent in 1937, then bought the Marin County Journal in 1948 to create the Independent-Journal.