Jean-Jacques Sempé obituary

French cartoonist who depicted the adventures of Le Petit Nicolas and produced more than 100 covers for the New YorkerFor most of his life, the French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, who has died aged 89, would draw a line at talking publicly about his chaotic and unhappy childhood. He was well into his 80s when he finally admitted that the cheerful schoolboy character who would become his most famous creation – Le Petit Nicolas – was a way of dealing with a period in his life