One of the most beautiful things the pharmaceutical industry has ever produced must be a series of illustrations about how to catch a cold. From 1952 to 1973, the Laboratoires Le Brun, Paris, published such a collection of caricatures every year as an advertisement. Each envelope contained twelve drawings, one for each calendar month, and eucalyptus sweets and urinary tract antiseptics were advertised on the back. Twice, in 1957 and 1961, Sempé, the great melancholic master of philanthropy, which he was already in his mid to late twenties, was engaged for this.
At that time he drew even more extensively, the pictures, which one can say with certainty that he colored them by hand, are formulated down to the smallest detail.
How do you catch a cold in Paris in summer?
On his first cover picture, a married couple is standing in the rain. She holds the umbrella while he puts eye drops in his eyes. There are drips everywhere in the picture except under the umbrella, it is a composition of the red and green of their cloaks and the drops falling from the sky, mixed with the eye drops, below their reflection blurs into a red and green puddle. One cannot look at this picture without longing for a heater. Yes, these two will catch a cold. On the other title page, five people, who may already have had a cold, are sitting on a bench in a very grumpy mood in winter. Traffic is lined up on the road ahead of them. Out of reach for them, the already overcrowded bus drives past them. In February, mannequins caught cold at the photo shoot in the strapless cocktail dress in the Tuileries. In November it hits the people queuing in front of the cinema. But how do you catch a cold in Paris in summer?
According to Sempé, when a couple are kissing, you accidentally fall into the Seine while kissing. Jumps happily drunk into a well at night. Sunbathing on a roof, and the drain pipe through which the drain water of the neighbor who is doing the dishes on the top floor will rush in a few seconds ends right above one.
Unfortunately only available second-hand, but medicines have never been advertised more beautifully.
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