Meet Daniel Horia

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Daniel Horia. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Daniel, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

I find my purpose through art, and in particular through creating comics.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As a child and teenager, one of my favorite ways to express myself artistically was through creating comics. They were my playground — a place where imagination had no limits. But once I entered the working world (video games industry) , time grew scarce, and the hobby I loved most slowly slipped away. Ten years passed almost unnoticed. At first, I was too absorbed in my job to realize how much I missed it. But with each passing year, the urge to draw stories again returned, stronger and more insistent.

In 2014, I lost both of my grandmothers. They had been at the very heart of my childhood — loving me unconditionally, shaping my values, and filling my life with warmth and guidance. Their absence left an immense void inside me.

And in that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do.

My longing for them merged with my longing for home — by then, I had been living abroad for several years — and with my yearning to return to the art of comics. Out of these intertwined emotions, a graphic novel began to take shape: a story about childhood, about loved ones who have passed away, about family, and about my native city, Bucharest. An autobiographical work. A family chronicle.

Being born in the early 1980s, I took the opportunity to depict what life was like during that period, when Romania was under one of the harshest communist dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc.

I spent three and half years bringing the story to life — writing and illustrating it in the quiet hours after work.

Thus was born my first graphic novel, entitled Epoca mea de aur (My Golden Age), published in Romania by Art Publishing House in 2021. In 2023, the French edition was released by Paquet Publishing and launched at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

I am now working on the second volume, which is scheduled to be released at the end of the year.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Key Strengths for any comic artist: unwavering perseverance, a strong sense for visual storytelling, and a keen eye for sourcing and using reference material effectively.

Perseverance: Creating comics is not easy. It requires a lot of dedication, patience, and perseverance. Don’t get discouraged, especially if you’re just starting out. As you gain experience, it will become easier and easier to express your ideas in comic form. The important thing is not to give up 🙂

Visual storytelling in comics: is the art of conveying a narrative primarily through images—using composition, framing, pacing, and visual cues to guide the reader’s emotions and understanding, often with minimal reliance on text. The more clearly you convey the idea you want to express, the better it shows that you’ve mastered storytelling. In the beginning, don’t jump into topics that are too complex—start gradually, with simple things, and as you gain experience, it will become easier to tackle more complex subjects and techniques.

Using references goes without saying. In addition, it’s very important to read as many comics as possible and to pay attention to how different authors solve different situations.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

The first two comics that left a mark on me were a Pif and a Tintin.

The Pif belonged to my father. He had owned it since his youth and kept it in a cupboard I couldn’t reach as a child. The first time I managed to hold it in my hands and flip through it was both a revelation and a cultural shock. Until then, I had only seen Romanian magazines from the communist era in which I lived—poorly printed, on cheap paper, most of the time in black and white. Pif was in color, on glossy paper, filled with illustrations and comic strips, each more beautiful than the last.

The second comic that had a major impact on me was a Tintin—specifically Les Bijoux de la Castafiore. I received it from some French people shortly after the Romanian Revolution and the fall of communism. Although it was in French and I couldn’t understand it at the time, I was captivated by the art, by the simplicity and precision of the drawings.

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