Phaidon Press is preparing to release five hardcover collections of cartoons by the French artist Jean-Jacques Sempe, who is perhaps known best in the U.S. for his delightful covers for The New Yorker magazine. In addition to the five books Phaidon is also releasing five 'stationary' items, two cloth covered clamshell collections of 24 postcards (Musicians and Cylists, MSRP $14.95 each), a deluxe 144-page Sempe Travel Journal ($29.95), Notes From the Couch, a hardback notebook with a psychoanalytic theme ($14.95), and a Ballet Dancers Writing Pad ($12.95). For retailers interested in carrying all the various Sempe releases and merchandising them together Phaidon is offering a spinner rack to hold all ten items.
The five hardcover volumes due out in September include Nothing is Simple ($24.95), the first collection of Sempe drawings originally published in France in 1962. Everything is Complicated ($24.95), Sempe's second sampler, is a 144-page collection featuring some of the artist's favorite subjects such as hapless tourists, pipe-smoking novelists, and unruly schoolchildren. Sunny Spells ($24.95), a 104-page hardcover first published in France in 1999, includes more classic Sempe characters -- amateur painters, lovelorn paleontologists, psychiatrists, actors, and soccer fans. Mixed Messages ($24.95), the most recent Sempe collection, was originally published in France in 2003 and delves into the trappings of modern life such as cell phones and designer water, while revisiting some of the artist's favorite subjects -- aloof psychiatrists, struggling artists, and unhappy couples.
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Phaidon is also publishing Monsieur Lambert ($14.95), a 64-page hardcover graphic novel, which provides a searching look at the everyday lives and secret passions of the regulars in a small Parisian bistro. In May Phaidon is launching Martin Pebble ($19.95), a children's book about a boy who can't stop blushing that was written and illustrated by Sempe. Phaidon has just released Nicholas Again ($19.95), the second volume in series of children's books written by Rene Goscinny (Asterix) and illustrated by Sempe. The third volume in the series, Nicholas on Vacation ($19.95), will be released in November (Phaidon published Nicholas, the first book in the series a year ago).
