Horn grew up in France particularly fascinated by American comics. In the late 1950s, collaborating with countryman (later the editorial director of the French publisher
Dargaud) under the joint
pen names Karl von Kraft and
Franck Sauvage (after
Doc Savage), From 1956 to 1960, Horn and Moliterni (as Franck Sauvage) wrote the radio mystery show
Allô... Police! for
Radio Luxemburg. 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 (although not exclusively), 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 updated again in 1999), and included the work of fifteen contributors. Both editions have been criticised as containing numerous historical innaccuracies. His
Comics of the American West (1977) traced the history of
Western comics, dissecting how they contributed to the mythology of the American West.
The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons (first published in 1979) profiles the lives and work of more than 1,500 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 (1985), which dealt with such topics as sex and violence, and the sex lives of superheroes. His dictionary-style reference book
Contemporary Graphic Artists (1986) 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 a 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 Buscema
Haxtur Award at the 2007 Salón Internacional del Cómic del Principado de Asturias (International Comics Convention of the Principality of Asturias). == In popular culture ==