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The album brings together a series of sketches Sempé made during his time in New York; they were published in Télérama during the summer of 1989, just after the album appeared. Sempé also enjoyed a cult following in the United States, where he held the record, for a working artist, for the greatest number of covers — more than a hundred — drawn for The New Yorker.

In 1978, Jean-Jacques Sempé joined the magazine, having been discovered thanks to his friends Chaval and René Goscinny. “I was almost 50 and for the first time in my life, I existed! I had finally found my family!” he said at the time. His first cover showed an office employee about to fly off from the window of his tower. “Sempé is one of the artists who [made] my job at The New Yorker the best job in the world,” said Françoise Mouly, art director of The New Yorker: “He was both a wonderful artist and a friend.” “Every time, he found new ways to make us appreciate the beauty of a simple moment. It was always a treat to get a new Sempé cover. Although he said he was passionately attached to New York, Sempé never settled there for long, held back by the language barrier.”

It was during a long stay, in the fall and spring of 1989, that these drawings were made, on the spot, from life. They trace the wanderings of Jean-Claude Martineau, his French alter ego arriving in New York. Each drawing is accompanied by a caption or text, dealing with the American city and its inhabitants, their oddities and eccentricities as seen through the visitor’s eyes.