. . . . "However brutal the passage of Steve Perry in the spring of 2010, the far more direct, intimate process of being with another close friend Mark ???Sparky??? Whitcomb (again, since the Johnson State College days, and, like Steve Perry, one of the four people who convinced me to seriously pursue a path in comics instead of minding the family store in Colbyville back in 1976) every week through a long" .