Noted Historian of Comics was a U.S. State Department Interpreter

A noted comic historian who died in December was a U.S. State Department interpreter in the 1960s and 1970s.

French-born Maurice Horn was the author of The World Encyclopedia of Comics, 75 Years of the Comics, and other books.

Born and raised in Paris, Horn was a voracious reader and a dedicated fan of cartoons. He developed his lifelong interest in American comic strips at a young age thanks to French reprints of Disney comics and American comic books brought to Europe by the United States military. … Horn studied at the Faculté de droit de Paris and earned his law degree in 1952. After graduation, he worked as a clerk for a Parisian law firm. Unfulfilled by legal work, he collaborated with writer Claude Moliterni under the joint pen names Karl von Kraft and Franck Sauvage, writing genre novels and scripts for radio plays. In the late 1950s, on advice from a literary agent, Horn emigrated to the United States. Although his English language skills were not sufficient to earn him gainful employment as a television writer, he was offered a job as an escort interpreter with the Department of State. He continued to work for the US government in this capacity until 1974, and served the United Nations as a freelance interpreter through the 1990s.