Creator of “Little Nick”
Illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé is dead
The French illustrator and caricaturist Jean-Jacques Sempé (archive image) died a few days before his 90th birthday
© Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/DPA
The “little Nick” made him famous. Now draftsman Jean-Jacques Sempé has died. In a few days he would have been 90 years old.
The French artist Jean-Jacques Sempé is dead. Sempé died “peacefully” on Thursday evening at the age of 89 in his holiday resort, “surrounded by his wife and close friends,” Sempé’s biographer and friend Marc Lecarpentier told the AFP news agency. His wife, Martine Gossieaux Sempé, also confirmed the death of her husband, who would have been 90 on August 17.
Sempé became known through the “little Nick”.
Sempé became internationally known in particular for his illustrations in the “Little Nick” series, about a childhood in France in the 1950s. The character of the little boy was invented by Sempé and “Asterix” author René Goscinny. The first story appeared on March 29, 1959 in the regional newspaper “Sud-Ouest Dimanche”. Within six years, more than 200 episodes were published about Nick, his always hungry friend Otto, the bespectacled nerd Adalbert and Franz who was ready to be beaten. They later appeared as books and were translated into 30 languages.
Sempé also illustrated more covers than any other artist for the US magazine “New Yorker”, known for its artistically high-quality covers.