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Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Sempé Fi (On Covers): Voilà, la Mer!
Filed under: Sempé Fi Tagged: art, beach, covers, Denzel Washington, Jean-Jacques Sempé, John Travolta, Pollux, Sempé
Pollux writes:
He’s jumped in. His socks, cap, shoes, glasses, shirt, pants, backpack, and bicycle lie strewn on the beach behind him. And now what? He’s shivering in the cold water, the sun is concealed by rain-heavy clouds, and the beach is empty and forlorn.
Such is the vision presented in Jean-Jacques Sempé’s cover, called “Jumping In,” for the June 22, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. Sempé’s human figures are always minuscule, but the little boy on this cover is smaller still, composed as he is of the thinnest strikes of the pen in the face of engulfing watercolor spills of green, white, and purple that comprise clouds, sea, and sky.
And now what? It’s not the best day for going to the beach. Perhaps he would have been better off staying home and reading Tintin comic books or going to the movies to see some utterly mindless thriller starring a subway car, a subway train dispatcher played by Denzel Washington, and John Travolta in Swordfish-mode again.
But summer is about trying new things, even if it involves some discomfort in the form of a freezing Atlantic. Sempé’s cover for the April 8, 2002 issue of The New Yorker offered a similar vision of a person wading into a wide ocean, but the figure on this 2002 cover is older and much more content to simply wade in. He’s not going any farther. This was a five-minute expedition, only involving the removal of shoes and socks.
But Sempé’s younger figure on this 2009 cover is much more daring, although a little uncertain. Such is youth, a mixture of daring and uncertainty.
The sea beckons. How far will you go?
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Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker fan blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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- Carolita Johnson
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