French artist Jean-Jacques Simbi has died at the age of 89, his biographer told AFP. Sempé is considered one of France’s greatest painters. He is famous for being the illustrator of the story series If Betty NicholasAbout a high school student in the 1960s.

Simbe was born in 1932 in a suburb of Bordeaux, where he had a difficult childhood due to alcohol and money problems in his family and left school at an early age. In the early 1950s, he moved to Paris, where he befriended series writer René Goscinny Asterix And the good luck.

The character saw Nicholas Daylight in 1954, first as a tape for which Goscinny wrote a screenplay. In 1959, the two of If Betty Nicholas Create a story series. Books about the mischievous French schoolboy have sold more than 15 million copies in 45 countries. A movie of the same name was also released in 2009.

Simbe himself said in 2018 of the hit series that the stories about Nicholas were a way for him to relive the misery he had to endure during his childhood. “And make sure that everything is fine.”

The Frenchman has also done illustrations for well-known French magazines such as L’Express, Marie Claire and Paris Match. He also wrote about a hundred front pages for the prestigious American magazine The New Yorker.

A French journalist, also calling Simbe one of Le Petit Nicolas’s parents, shares some covers on Twitter:

Many French politicians and celebrities are reflecting on the death of Simbe, who would have turned 90 next week. Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne praises her work on Twitter. It also expresses its condolences to the artist’s family.

The French fire brigade tweeted an illustration of Simbe, with the text: “Rest in peace, bring us a little rain from there,” referring to the current wildfires in France: