Tayyar Özkan was born in Turkey in 1962 and graduated from Ankara Gazi University’s Faculty of Fine Arts in 1983. He began publishing his early works between 1976 and 1989. In 1989, Özkan moved to the United States, where he embarked on a successful career in graphic and textile design, working with high-profile brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, Joe Boxer, Tiffany, and Mavi Jeans, among others, from 1989 to 2018.

Simultaneously, Özkan pursued his passion for comics. His long-running comic strip Caveman debuted in Heavy Metal magazine in 1993 and continues to be published to this day. His first Caveman book was released by NBM in 1997. In 1994, Özkan collaborated with writer Joel Rose and filmmaker Amos Poe to create the mystery graphic novel La Pacifica (282 pages) for Paradox/DC Comics. He also inked four issues of The Dreaming for Vertigo/DC and contributed to Paradox's The Big Book Of... collections.

Özkan self-published four Caveman comic books and released a hardcover graphic novel through French publisher 2L Productions, which was recognized as "Book of the Month" by FNAC in France. Caveman was later published in several countries, including Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK. A full-color Caveman novel was released in Turkey in 2011.

Beyond his comic work, Özkan has directed animation films, created characters, and designed storyboards for TV commercials, films, and animated movies. He also taught a course on Sequential Art, How Comics Rule, at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His Caveman strips were featured in Guangzhou Daily newspaper in China between 2005 and 2006, and his comic strip The Age appeared in Heavy Metal in the USA in 2012-2013. Özkan continues to work as a freelancer in the same fields and, more recently, has started creating acrylic paintings on canvas,