New Character: Michel Souris

[Rich]

> From: "Olivier" <mouse-ducks at wanadoo.fr>
> Date:   Wed, 18 Apr 2001 20:44:18 +0200
> 
> The character's name is Michel Souris (Mickey used to be called that way at some
> point; it's the French version of  the name). He looks like a very distorted Mickey,
> a sort of  cross-over with a rat. Like those faces you can tweak and pinch and
> skew using specific (so called "morphing") distorsion softwares. In a word: UGLY.
> Not because he is not handsoem, like Quasimodo. The ART itself  is ugly. It is
> way too caricatural and distorted and rubbery. He is dressed like the early Mickey
> (short pants & shoes).

For those of you interested in knowing more about Michel Souris, I have
been in
some discussion with our friend and fellow List Member, Gilles Maurice
from France.
I may get some of the facts wrong, so maybe one of our Gilles or
Francois or someone
who is familiar with the character can help me out.

Basically, as I understand the comics in which he has appeared, he is
probably best
described as Mickey's worst nightmare and stalker!  We don't know if
Michel Souris is
the character's real name, or if it is just a name he uses as a result
of his unnatural
obsession.  Michel Souris, as was said before, is a literal translation
of the name
"Mickey (Michael) Mouse," but just taking on Mickey's name was not
enough for Michel.
Michel is so obsessed with Mickey that he has a love-hate thing for him.
 Michel both
idolizes everything about Mickey, while at the same time wants to
litterally become
Mickey.  To that end he dresses like Mickey, even wears fake round ears
to increase
the resemblance.  His house and car are literally shrines to Mickey and
he treasures
a glass which Mickey once touched.  In the first story Michel actually
tried to kill
Mickey, but in time, in subsequent stories we see that Michel has become satisfied
just to "hang out" with Mickey.  Perhaps in the tradition of Goofy,
Butch and Eega
Beeva, Michel sees himself as Mickey's companion and has even been
involved in a few
of Mickey's adventures and helped him solve mysteries/crimes.  Mickey is
quite rightly
disturbed by Michel's obsessiveness, but at the same time he has grown
to actually
like him.  I beleive that is all I can share without seeing more of
Michel than the
few comics Gilles has shared with me. Please feel free to validate or
correct the
information that I may have gotten wrong, but this is my understanding
from my chats
with Gilles and from viewing several scanned comics.

I have attached a link to an image Gilles sent me which I have uploaded
for you to see.
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/SCANS/Souris.gif

I hope that helps some.