Sempe has created a world above and beyond specific cultural and political references, a world all of his own, one populated by long-faced, aquiline-nosed depressives - psychoanalysts, housewives, and concert pianists.
In Sunny Spells , Jean-Jacques Sempé explores a wide range of topics, from troubled relationships and existential crises to office politics and doping scandals in the literary world. His cast of characters includes pious churchgoers, amateur painters and lovelorn palaeontologists, as well as psychiatrists, actors and football supporters. Sempé’s inimitable drawings and watercolours, accompanied by perfectly judged deadpan captions, are fresh, engaging and funny, and will be appreciated by cartoon connoisseurs and Francophiles as well as the general public.