To friends who loved him best, Zachary Horn summed up the style of a “wild soul,” a life-loving artist who drew comic-book heroes, dabbled in graffiti art and thrived on motorcycles — an edgy but big-hearted bear of a man.
For years in Raleigh, he occupied the art community’s fringier corners, selling his drawings at Comic Con booths or leading graffiti competitions in Raleigh’s SPARKCon festivals. On some memorable nights, he would lend his skills to body-painting events — sometimes at strip clubs.
He also lobbied hard for veterans’ medical care, coming from a military family, and he once ranted on his Facebook page because his apartment complex wouldn’t let him fly an American flag. At the same time, as a Native American, he publicly worried about being “snatched up” by ICE agents…