Comisario Loperena

Comisario Loperena is a Spanish-language comics character created by Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte, appearing in the underground anthology El Víbora. As the title suggests, Loperena is a police commissioner inhabiting the irreverent, edgy world Swarte rendered in his distinctive clean-line style.

Comisario Loperena made their entrance in the pages of El Víbora — the legendary Spanish underground anthology that defined edgy European comics in the early '80s — debuting in 1982 courtesy of the distinctively stylish Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte. A Bronze Age creation published by Ediciones La Cúpula, this character inhabits the gloriously irreverent world that El Víbora was famous for, sharing those ink-stained pages with a cast of vivid figures like Taxista Cuatroplazas, Lilian, and El Niñato. With only eight catalog appearances across a tight 1982–83 window, Comisario Loperena is a rare find — a small but intriguing piece of Swarte's contribution to one of the most culturally significant alternative comics magazines of the era, well worth seeking out by any serious collector of European underground work.