It would be very hard to put together a list of the best covers of the year without at least a cursory consideration of Jonathan Hickman's East of West, a classic-in-the-making sci-fi Western series that has adhered to a strict cover format. Nick Dragotta only ever has, discounting the space occupied by the large block written 'East', about the top third of the page to work with. And by God, if he hasn't made that limited space work wonders.
In 2018, only five issues of East Of West were published, and of those five, it is issue 38 that gave one of the series' boldest covers. Sandy, grimy, furious and fluid; this cover is a glowing example of how a cover doesn't need to be spilling out of the edges of its own frame to paint a vivid, energetic image.
