Born in Istanbul, Şahap Ayhan began his career in association with inker Ayhan Erer (1929-1998). They started out working for the children's weekly magazine Çocuk Haftasi (Children's Week) in 1946 with the historical epic comic 'G¸ltekin'. Under the joint pseudonym of S. Ayhan E. they also worked on other comics like 'Kralın Hilesi', 'Atilla Geliyor', Atilla'nın Ölümü', 'Arslan Yüreği', as well as Turkish stories with Lee Falk's 'Phantom' for the bi-weekly magazine 1001 Macera until they parted ways.
The Phantom, Turkish version
Ayhan completed his military service in the late 1940s, and subsequently continued his artist's career for publications slike Memleket, 101 Roman, Vatan, Yeni Sabah, Ceylan, Hür Anadolu, Sabah, Tercüman, Son Havadis, Tercüman Çocuk, Türkiye, Türkiye Çocuk and Çocuk Haftasi. In 1950, he drew comics like 'ZIU'nun Maceralari', 'Kara Kamçının Serüvenleri' and some of the first Turkish sci-fi comics. By 1953 he took on newspaper comic strips like 'Baltacı ve Katerina', 'Safiye Sultan', 'Kleopatra' and 'Çici'. In 1955 he was present in Ceylan with 'Karabulut', that was printed in color on the magazine's back page.
Don Juan
From the late 1950s throughout the 1960s, he produced a great many comics, including 'Kazanova', 'Don Juan', 'Denizaltı Korsanları', 'Arzın Merkezine Seyahat', 'Dede Korkut', 'Alpaslan', 'Şeyh Şamil', 'Rasputin', 'Kara Orkun', 'Kara Pelerin', 'Akbulut' and 'Tengiz'. His erotic rendition of 'Don Juan' was published in album in 1961. A film adaptation of 'G¸ltekin' was made in 1969 and one of 'Kara Orkun' in 1973. Ayhahn also drew covers and stories for 'Baytekin', the Turkish 'Flash Gordon' publication.
