by Julia Griffin

“Le Petit Nicolas illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé dies aged 89”
—The Guardian

“Snowman author Raymond Briggs dies aged 88”
—The Guardian

Art lovers took this week a double hit:
The charming Frenchman and the grumpy Brit.
From melancholy Fungus it’s a way
To all those rodent-nosed écoliers;
Sempé’s big trees with little types below
Seem far from Briggs’s melting man of snow;
But as, at nearly four-score years and ten,
Each master-draftsman has put down his pen,
Let us be grateful for them both, and say:
Thanks, Mr. Briggs! Merci, M. Sempé!