Ceylan Yayınları

Ceylan Yayınları
Biographical information
Founded:
Country:	Turkey
Website:

Ceylan Yayınları (Ceylan Publications) is widely given the credit for the start of the comics magazines boom in Turkey in the mid-1950s.

History

The roots of Ceylan Yayınları lie at "Ceylan", a children's magazine with extensive comics, started initially by a partnership between Tekdal Brothers and Erdoğan Egeli (1925-83) in 1955, but soon taken over solely by Egeli himself. Egeli, who established "Ceylan Yayınları", also began publishing another magazine titled "Bill Kid" in which the post-war Italian western comics "Capitan Miki" by the "EsseGesse" team was used as filler space. When readers demanded more space to be devoted to this comics, Egeli bought its rights from the French subcontractor "Opera Mundi" and began issuing it as a separate comics magazine titled "Tommiks". All of this took place within the span of a single year in 1955.

"Tommiks" was a big hit and was joined the next year by "Teksas" (Il Grande Blek', another EsseGesse effort). The influence of these magazines was to such an extent that the phrase "Teksas-Tommiks" became synonymous with comics for years (those whose teenage years were in 1950s still refer to comics as "Teksas-Tommiks").

"Ceylan Yayınları" was a major force in the Turkish comics market throughout the 1960s as well. While its most successful titles were western comics of Italian origin, it also experimented with American material such as "Superman" and "Mandrake", but they proved short-lived. Ceylan survived on the market untill late 1980s with mostly reprint series.

The covers of Ceylan's magazines feature art by Samim Utkun, who also drew some "Kinowa" stories when the original Italian stock of this comics was depleted.

Mandrake publications published by Ceylan Yayınları

Title	Year(s)	Issues
Mandrake	1962	2

Sources

• "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" by Kaya Özkaracalar