SIMON.  A large terrier + star of what may be the greatest comic strip that never was.  In 1998, Purina began running some cute TV spots for ONE of their dog foods.  They featured a youthful cartoonist who claims to draw the syndicated 'Simon'.  Examples of his work appear, as well as his flesh-and-blood dog.  Not able to find a table scrappe of info on any of this, we contacted Purina directly.  They told us the whole scenario was only cooked up for the commercials.  Therefore, Simon joins a growing pantheon of such esteemed non-characters as MAD DOG, Dimitri the Sheep, Cosmic Cow + Caroline in the City