Jean-Jacques Sempé


Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé, is a French cartoonist. He is known for the series of children's books he created with René Goscinny, Le petit Nicolas, and also for his poster-like illustrations, usually drawn from a distant or high viewpoint depicting detailed countrysides or cities.

Biography

Early life

Sempé was expelled from school as a young man, and then failed to pass exams for the post office, a bank and the railroad. He then found work selling tooth powder as a door-to-door salesman and also worked delivering wine by bicycle in the Gironde. After lying about his age, he joined the army in 1950, since it was "the only place that would give me a job and a bed," he subsequently explained, and would occasionally get into trouble for drawing while he was supposed to be keeping watch during guard duty.
After being discharged from the army, he moved to Paris and began working with René Goscinny. Sempé has spent most of his life in Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.

Artistic career

His career started in France within the context of the Franco-Belgian comics industry. His "mute" watercolors or single image sketches, where the characters speak in pictures or not at all slowly gained international attention. He won his first award in 1952 which is given to encourage young amateur artists to turn professional.
His work has appeared as the cover of The New Yorker magazine many times. Sempé's full page cartoons appeared in Paris Match for many years. In the 1950s, Sempé became renowned for his creation of a character named Nicolas in his cartoons for Le Moustique, a comic book proposed by René Goscinny to Sempé. Le Petit Nicolas appeared from 1954 in Le Moustique and Sempé drew upon childhood influences and memories to illustrate the comic. In 1960, the comic Le Petit Nicolas was published in Pilote magazine. It was at the time unusual modern children's literature given that it is centered around the experience of the child, rather than an adult interpretation of the world.
In general though, Sempé rarely draws from life, and draws something every day, putting sketches aside when he gets bored with them.

Collections published Éditions Denoël