Maurice Horn is a French-American comics historian, author, and editor, considered to be one of the first serious academics to study comics. He is the editor of The World Encyclopedia of Comics, The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, and 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics. Born in France, he is based in New York City.
Career
Horn grew up in France particularly fascinated by American comics. In the late 1950s, collaborating with countryman under the jointpen namesKarl von Kraft and Franck Sauvage, Horn co-wrote a number of French-language pulp mystery and spy novels. From 1956 to 1960, Horn and Moliterni wrote the radio mystery show Allô... Police! for Radio Luxemburg. Looking for more lucrative writing work, Horn emigrated to the United States in 1959. Returning frequently to France, he was a member of the 1960s groups Club Bande Dessinée and SOCERLID, which championed the idea of comics as "the ninth art" and worthy of academic study. Horn was instrumental in organizing three important exhibitions of comics art in the late 1960s and early 1970s:
Horn's two-volume The World Encyclopedia of Comics, first published in 1976, focused on American and European comics, with extensive biographical notes and publication histories. It was one of the first and most comprehensive resources of its kind, and spawned seven volumes. A complete edition was published in 1997, and included the work of fifteen contributors. His Comics of the American West traced the history of Western comics, dissecting how they contributed to the mythology of the American West. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons profiles the lives and work of more than 1,5000 cartoonists and animators from the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan, and South America. Horn was lead editor, Rick Marschall was assistant editor, and there were more than twenty other contributors. A second volume was published in 1980; the fifth volume was published in 1983. Horn's publications in the 1980s included his book Sex in the Comics, which dealt with such topics as sex and violence, and the sex lives of superheroes. His dictionary-style reference book Contemporary Graphic Artists included designers as well as illustrators, animators, and cartoonists, and highlighted each entrant's most famous works. Horn's 1996 tome 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics is considered the definitive history of American comic strips. At more than 400 pages, it is an encyclopedia-style rundown of every significant American comic strip from the late 1890s to the current day. Horne was given the Special John BuscemaHaxtur Award at the 2007 Salón Internacional del Cómic del Principado de Asturias.
In popular culture
styled the Steve Canyon character M’sieu Toute after Horn.
75 Years of the Comics — catalogue of the exhibition curated by Horn
The World Encyclopedia of Comics
* Enciclopedia Mondiale del Fumetto – translated by Luciano Secchi
Comics of the American West
Women in the Comics
Burne Hogarth's The Golden Age of Tarzan: 1939-1942
The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons — 6 volumes
Sex in the Comics
Contemporary Graphic Artists: A Biographical, Bibliographical, and Critical Guide to Current Illustrators, Animators, Cartoonists, Designers, and Other Graphic Artists
100 Years of American Newspaper Comics: An Illustrated Encyclopedia
