Pepe explored the medium of comics early in his career, but did not pursue it long enough to receive the ‘lifetime-achievement’ awards many of his colleagues earned. Not to say that the body and veriety of work was not sustantial, but quite the opposite.

His early comics appeared in his native Spain in horror magazine S.O.S in the 1970s. He also drew for the children's magazines Pumby and Pulgarcito and in Star and Italian Bliz. In late 1977, he moved to the USA although he couldn't speak English at the time. Opon his first vist to DC comics he was inmediatelly offerend to draw superman and various other characters at Marvel.

He illustrated verious stories by other writers while his reputation grew from his short stories published in comic book magazines such as Metal Hurlant and l'Echo des Savanes in Europe and Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Heavy Metal, and Epic magazine in the States. He published in Epic, National Lampoon and Heavy Metal.

I walked in the publishers' offices after having someone call for me the day before (I wrote the phone numbers from magazines right at the comic book store in the east village). I had the best American experience anyone could dream of (Insistence and persistence works. Never leave your portfolio behind!) I came into DC and showed my portfolio to some junior editor... people were going out of the room and other people (up the latter) were coming back into the room, all the way to the top (I don't remember the name of DC's top dog at the time, its been a while). I was not exactly sure what was happening, but I knew that it was good. Before long, they were talking about getting me a visa. Funny, at the time I couldn't tell whether they were talking about a work visa or a visa credit card. Something similar happened at Marvel (Jim Shooter was the top dog there), but I was not fond of superheroes and I felt somehow that my career would take the wrong path if I started to get a name and be associated with superheroes. So I opted for Warren. I had some references with respect to them, as they were publishing some of my colleagues work in Europe. I was well received and handed over a few scripts to illustrate right away.
 
Warren provided the freedom to work remotely and they were the perfect aesthetic match. Warren was breaking new ground and paralleling to some extent the tendencies in Europe.