GEnie = T.FOX5

T.H.E. Fox <tm> by Joe Ekaitis, misplaced cartoonist


Born in McKeesport, Pennsylvania on January 27, 1955, Joe went through
elementary school in Rialto, California collecting a string of D and F
grades in art class.  It wasn't until he was 18 that Joe threw himself into
trying to draw cartoons.


His first attempt at a strip was based on a character that he originally
created with the hopes of selling it to Knott's Berry Farm, in Buena Park,
CA.  The character was named for the park's Roaring 20's theme area and was
named Roary Raccoon.  Joe even constructed a costume of the character,
but Knott's wasn't interested, so Joe was stuck with a character that, had
he used the original name, could have had him staring at the business end
of a lawsuit.  Roary Raccoon became Rudi Racoon (one "c") and made a singing
and strutting appearance on The Gong Show, scoring 21 points and avoiding
the dreaded Gong.


The Rudi Racoon comic strip featured Rudi, his roommate Phil (a fox)
and their girlfriends, Roxi and Vikki.  After a few hastily dashed sketches,
Joe abandoned the effort.


In 1988, while a subsciber to CompuServe, Joe launched an electronic
cartoon panel (one frame per episode) called T.H.E. Fox.  When asked what the
initials T.H.E. meant, Joe hadn't really given much thought to the fox's
first three names, so he blurted out "Thaddeus Horatio Eberhard", which,
in the cartoon, becomes, simply, Thad.  Thad's roommate Bunn was introduced
a few panels down the road and was cast as Thad's roommate.


Since the cartoon was created on a Commodore 64, CompuServe expressed
absolutely no interest in making the cartoon an officially-sponsored
feature.  Joe took the cartoon to Q-Link, whose Commodore Information
Network happily supported the creation of the strip until Q-Link upper
management cut off all support for features like T.H.E. Fox.


Now T.H.E. FOX <tm> has found a home of GEnie :)


Joe is currently putting the finishing touches on a portfolio with the
hopes of syndicating T.H.E. Fox.  His illustrations have appeared in
TC-128/64 Magazine and RUN, and one of his Q-Link uploads, "The Best of
T.H.E. Fox", was mentioned in .INFO magazine.


An editorial cartoon by Joe appeared in The San Bernardino Sun, which 
welcomes reader cartoons.


T.H.E. Fox has appeared in the Pasadena Doo-Dah Parade (Joe in a
costume) with New York public-access cable TV cult figure Rapid T. Rabbit.