Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known as Sempé (born August 17, 1932 in Bordeaux), is a French cartoonist.
Some of his cartoons are quite striking, but most are sweet and sentimental and somehow manage to be gentle even when the topic is difficult. He once drew a series called Le petit Nicolas, starting it in the 1950s, but he is best known for his posterlike illustrations.
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 (but somehow manage to convey a rich story) slowly gained international attention. His work has appeared as the cover of The New Yorker magazine many times.
