Le petit Nicolas

The French Post Office announced a new set of stamps yesterday featuring illustrations from the well-loved Petit Nicolas books by author and comic writer René Goscinny and cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé.

The stamps were launched to coincide with the premiere of the Petit Nicolas film, later this week.

Le Petit Nicolas was first published in 1959. In that same year Goscinny, who had already gained notoriety thanks to the Lucky Luke stories he wrote for Morris, would become editor of Pilote Magazine, and would create the famous Astérix Le Gaule series with Albert Uderzo. Jean-Jacques Sempé, who had already started publishing in Paris-Match, would later become quite famous in the US as well for his cartoons and covers for the New Yorker magazine.