French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, who won international acclaim with a series of more than 100 drawings for the covers of The New Yorker magazine, has died at the age of 89, reports US News & World Report.
His cartoons often showed small figures set in large urban landscapes, drawn in delicate lines and offering gentle social commentary on modern life.
"Tender irony, the delicatesse of intelligence, the jazz: we will not be able to forget Sempé. We will sorely miss his view of the world and his pencil," French president Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter.
One of France's most famous visual artists, Sempé drew scenes of daily life in elaborate detail, usually from an overhead or faraway perspective and in pastel colours.
Born August 17, 1932 in a village near Bordeaux, Sempé did not complete high school, drifted from job to job and briefly joined the army before moving to Paris in the 1950s and starting to earn a living with his drawings.
He had his first success in the late 1950s with the "Le Petit Nicolas" series of children's books about a schoolboy, with Asterix writer René Goscinny.