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{{quote|'''Ted (upon seeing Hell)''': "This is not what I expected."
'''Bill''': "Yeah, we were totally ''lied to'' by our album covers."
|''[[Bill and Ted (film)|Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey]]''}}
Don't judge a book by its
Popular characters who appear in little more than a [[The Cameo|cameo]] on the inside can be larger than the main character on the cover. A quiet, contemplative issue can be made to seem like an action-packed frag-fest, and vice-versa. The cover can push for an entirely different [[Demographics|demographic]] than the rest of the work.
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In non-graphic literature, it is not uncommon for a female character to be portrayed in a [[Stripperiffic]] outfit when they would wear nothing of the sort in the story. Also, virtually any Speculative Fiction book will have either a rocket or an alien of some sort on the cover, and dragons are commonly used on Fantasy, [[High Fantasy]] and [[Sword and Sorcery]] books, even if there is no dragon in the story at all. (Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo are particularly noteworthy as artists whose paintings make great book covers, but only occasionally actually relate to the contents of the books.)
This trope also applies to [[Music|album covers]], especially singles, which often get their own album art, for one or two songs. [[Video Game]]s, especially if they were created in [[The Eighties]] or earlier, were the worst for this; before the VGA and SuperVGA display standards of 1987-88, a desktop PC couldn't display more than sixteen colours at once, so that fanciful hand-painted colour fantasy artwork depicted in the advert or on the cover simply couldn't be replicated in the actual game.<ref>IBM's 1987 Video Graphics Array (VGA) supported 640×480 in 16 colours or 320×200 in 256 colours, which was largely inadequate for displaying even a true-colour still photo on-screen. Go back further and video graphics only gets worse. Even screens intended for live over-the-air TV reception would appear in the catalogue with, invariably, "simulated picture" as the merchant replaced the actual displayed image with a stock photo in every ad. By the [[The Nineties|mid-nineties]] a display might've been able to show an actual photograph, as this was needed to run a web browser... but before then? Sixteen posterised colours was typical, at best.</ref>
A related subtrope is the practice of creating the cover ''first'', and writing the story based on that. This was common practice for comic books, especially at DC, during [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]] under editor Julius Schwartz, and was responsible for some of the weirdest stories of the time. However, it would sometimes result in a story that went off in a totally different direction and disposed of the cover situation in a panel or two. The website [[Superdickery.com]] features many strange, silly and inane covers [[Super Dickery|of this kind]].
This has occasionally gotten [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade hung]] on it, as evidenced [[media:Robin64.jpg|here]] and [http://www.thewotch.com/index.php?arcid=31 here].
Many of these overlap with [[Sexy Packaging]] and [[Contemptible Cover]], and often feature [[Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game]]. Compare with [[Never Trust a Trailer]], [[Wolverine Publicity]], and [[Super Dickery]
For cover illustrations that whiten dark-skinned characters, see [[Race Lift]]. For in-book illustrations, see [[Unreliable Illustrator]]. For magazines that sometimes put a bit of skin on their cover even though the interior is about gaming, sports, or whatever, see [[Fanservice Cover]].
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== Straight Examples ==
=== Media in General ===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100317135702/http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/artwork/guess-the-film-plus-tips-on-using-film-posters-in-your-home-094768 Polish and Czech film posters of well known Hollywood films] tend to be so infamously abstract that they often bear no clear connection at all to the themes and content of the film in question. As such these posters are highly collectible, mostly because they [[Tropes Are Not Bad|tend to be pretty awesome looking]]. [http://wellmedicated.com/inspiration/50-incredible-film-posters-from-poland/ A few more Polish posters can be seen here]
** This is because the designers of the posters often don't see the movie to accurately portray it, so they just improvise.
** See also About.com's [https://web.archive.org/web/20120115234257/http://horror.about.com/od/horrorthemelists/ig/Foreign-Horror-Movie-Posters/Alien_polish.htm 60 Awesome Foreign Horror Movie Posters].
* Certain Chinese animated films (around 20 minutes long), usually from the past, had some video releases under different covers. One artist didn't do all the covers faithful to their corresponding works. Compare an example by seeing [http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/jbJfk5c2a2g/ this 1980 feature] if you can and [http://a0.att.hudong.com/45/26/01300000951033129346262734064.jpg one of its covers]. In actuality, the characters are just the same, but appeared differently.
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'' has a list of [http://www.cracked.com/article_18542_15-grossly-misleading-movie-posters.html 15 Grossly Misleading Movie Posters].
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=== Anime and Manga ===
* The far-out extreme would be the cover of ''Warriors of the Wind'', the original dub of the classic [[Anime]] film ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' done in the mid-'80s. The artist just [[wikipedia:Image:Wotwuscover.jpg|made things up and added characters and elements]] that weren't in the movie at all.<ref>There were no flying horses, guns, robots, swords made of light, or shadow-men, the monsters in the movie the one on the cover vaguely resembled were not ever ridden, and of those five characters only the one on the right looks anything like a character in the actual movie (Nausicaa, who even then wasn't blonde).</ref>
* On the very last English dub DVD of ''[[Sailor Moon]] R'', "Love Conquers All", Sailor Chibi Moon is pictured alongside Neo-Queen Serenity. However, Chibiusa doesn't actually show up as a Sailor Senshi until halfway through the next season. Apart from being spoilerific, entirely different companies did those seasons.
* ''[[Delinquent in Drag]]''
* The cover of one of the ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' DVDs depicts [[Creepy Twins|Hansel and Gretel]] as a pair of cheerful smiling gothic lolis. Anyone who's actually ''seen'' the episodes concerning them will know they are probably the most horrific examples of fearsomeness that exist in any anime that doesn't involve the supernatural. And probably some that ''do''.
* Possibly the example with the biggest chance of emotional scarring: ''[[Narutaru]]''. The back cover of the first English volume describes it as "A rare mix of breathtaking fantasy and gripping action/adventure, filled with imagination, excitement, and delight." Paired with the way everything on the cover depicts the main character happily flying around against a pink background, and you've got a good cover to [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|attract little girls looking for a magical girl series]]. Except
* ''[[Franken Fran]]''. Dear God, Franken Fran. The author uses [[Hentai]]-like covers like [https://web.archive.org/web/20131026073209/http://img35.yfrog.com/img35/3964/frankenfranv2cover.jpg this] for a horror manga that has images like [https://web.archive.org/web/20131026061130/http://img197.yfrog.com/img197/6137/78309735.jpg THIS].
** Lampshaded, as the tankouban covers are usually followed immediately by a version of the picture that's actually accurate to the manga's contents.
* ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is chock full of gore, dismemberment, nudity and psychological horror, and yet the cover to the manga usually looks something like [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/elfen-lied/images/9/9b/230px-Elfen_Lied_manga_volume_1.jpg this.]
** The ADV releases had 'blood-stained' covers which were more straight-forward.
* The cover of ''[[This Ugly Yet Beautiful World]]''{{'}}s manga has lots of fanservicey, yuri undertoned pictures... all of which never come close to happening in the book itself.
* The covers of the ''[[Amanchu!]]'' mangas show the girls in [[media:amanchu!
* The box sets and covers of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' feature characters wearing skimpy clothing they don't wear in the series (and an odd emphasis on implied [[Twincest]], which, while refuted by canon on both sides, is often used for [[Fan Service]] in promo pictures) for the first season. The second season's box art is still full of cuteness, often with Rika and Satoko. This, too, is only an accurate representation of about 40% of the series's content. The other 60% is murder.
** The [[OVAs]] are even worse; they're full of the girls wearing very little clothing. Even Hanyuu and Rika, two girls who appear to be about nine years old.
** The English DVD covers are in negative, giving them a creepy look,
** The manga, at least, averts the trope - the covers are the characters in their normal attire, surrounded by blood splatters.
* The American manga ''Return to [[Labyrinth]]''. The [http://artseblis.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/return-to-labyrinth-cover.jpeg cover] of the first volume, a lovely illustration by Kouyu Shurei, suggests "pretty boy romance"; the story is an adventure full of [[Toilet Humor]] in [http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/multimoog/labyrinth/2.gif a completely different "amercanime" art style] by one Chris [[Meaningful Name|Lie]].
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* The covers of the ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' manga, due to the system used to decide who's on the cover (more or less appearance order at least at the start), the character on the cover often doesn't appear much or even at all inside the book. The final two books feature Tohru's father and mother, both of whom are deceased.
** This is lampshaded in several cases, when filler pictures of the characters complain about how little they are in the story.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115091806/http://ancientearthentertainment.com/store/images/dvd/Simoun-Box.jpg The front cover] of the North American DVD release for ''[[Simoun]]'' featured Neveril and Aeru sort of...hugging? Dancing? Playing patty-cake? Whatever they are doing they are close together and naked, but somehow their embrace has no sexual overtones at all, so the whole thing just looks weird. Also, there is not a single Simoun visible on the front cover, back cover, or spine. The series is '''named''' ''Simoun'' and the machines are nowhere to be found. Without already knowing the background to the series there is no way to determine even what genre the show is, first guess would probably go to [[Magical Girl]] or an [[Ecchi]] series.
* The Animate cover for Vol. 1 of ''[[
* This trope could be applied to the ''[[Dragon Ball GT]]'' season sets. The first set, containing the first '''34''' episodes, features Super Saiyan 4 Goku on the cover, Super Saiyan 4 being a form Goku first achieves in '''episode 35'''. And the second set features Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta, a '''''[[One-Scene Wonder|One Episode Wonder]]''''' from late in the series.
** When the Saban-dubbed episodes of [[Dragonball Z]] were released on DVD by Pioneer, there were three covers for the Namek arc that shown concept art of the characters ''past'' the Saban run. The concept art in question? Vegeta in the outfit he wore during the Freeza fight, Goku preparing the Spirit Bomb to use against Freeza and Goku as a Super Saiyan with the last one being on two of the three covers. Kid Goku is on the last cover, but he's not shown in any flashbacks in the episodes on that set.
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* Purposely done with the Japanese version of the [[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]] manga as the bookflap blurb describes nonsensical stories that had nothing to do with the actual contents.
* The cover art of one American [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] DVD release shows Haruhi standing alone with her shadow being that of her [[Bunny Girl]] outfit, implying that a bunny girl plays a much larger role in the plot than it actually does.
* One of two different DVD covers used by [[Central Park Media]] for the OVA ''[[Hen|Strange Love]]'' depicted two characters kissing, in front of an abstract red/pink background. One of them is the main character (Chizuru), but the black-haired girl is a very minor character with little screentime and is not Chizuru's love
* ''[[Slayers|Slayers TRY]]'' actually lampshades it by having a flashing sign which reads "sorry, opening only" pointing at a dragon-riding character (Lina's sister) in the title animation.
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* The ''Emma Frost'' series was a cute teen drama about a younger version of the title character pitched at a mostly female demographic. This was undermined because the covers were pieces of absurd [[Fan Service]] featuring the adult Emma in [https://web.archive.org/web/20130307024842/http://www.freewebs.com/emma_frost/Emma-Frost-5-new-background.jpeg the skimpier] costume she wore in ''New X-Men'' - and if you're familiar with her time as White Queen, you know that's not an easy bar to reach. (Warning, '''[[NSFW]]'''.)
* Check out [[Superdickery.com]].com for dozens of examples of dishonest ''Superman'' (and other) covers. For that matter, check out the entire site, as it rocks. (Though it will suck out hours of your life you'll never have back... [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|just like
** A late 80s issue of ''Superman'' lampshaded this with Mr. Mxyzptlk indicating that the cover, a giant sized Superman destroying skyscrapers, probably wouldn't actually happen.
** [[Completely Missing the Point|Number 75 of that list failed to mention that Jimmy Olsen was asked to turn into kryptonite, and yet... he was turning Superman into kryptonite.]]
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** That may have been directly inspired by the [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] Superman cover that had Superman stand around mocking Clark Kent as Kent got beaten up. As it turned out, this was just a metaphor for the fact that Kent had given up being Superman.
* In the issue of the original [[Justice League of America]] where the first Mr. Terrific dies, [[Batman]] is pointing at Mr. Terrific's killer, with [[Red Tornado]], [[Power Girl]], [[Wonder Woman]], and Jay Garrick (Flash I) behind him. The murderer is, of course, {{spoiler|Jay Garrick, though [[Not Himself|he was possessed at the time and it wasn't really his fault.]]}}
* [[Avengers]]:
** The cover of New Avengers #35 got readers up in arms when [https://web.archive.org/web/20150104064937/http://www.thecomicfanatic.com/new%20images/nwavng35.jpg such a cool cover] ironically featuring [[Wolverine Publicity]] when the story inside (which dealt with the villain known as "[[The Hood]]") wasn't even remotely related to the cover.
** They did it again in issue #50. Dammit, Bendis.
** ''Avengers Assemble #7'' has a cover with a ''very'' evil-looking [[Thanos]] branishing the Infinity Gauntlet with all the Infinity Gems. He did not have the Gauntlet or any of the Gems in this story, and plot didn't even involve him or anyone else trying to get them. He was after the Cosmic Cube.
* The cover of ''Amazing [[Spider-Man]] #75'' is "Death Without Warning" and shows Spider-Man mourning over a dead body. Nothing like that happens in the comic. What's more ''nobody in the story dies at all''.▼
* [[Spider-Man]]:
▲** The cover of ''Amazing [[Spider-Man]] #75'' is "Death Without Warning" and shows Spider-Man mourning over a dead body. Nothing like that happens in the comic. What's more ''nobody in the story dies at all''. Although to be fair, one villain does get de-aged seemingly into nothingness, so it did appear that he was dead.
* From an issue of ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]: First Class'': Human Torch, Iceman, and Spider-Man appear on the cover. Fine, except Spider-Man appears for only 2 panels, pretty much to tell the Torch and Iceman to do whatever they want.▼
** Sal Buscema was fond of this when he was the artist for ''Spectacular Spider-Man''. One issue had the Rhino squeezing the life out of Spider-Man on the cover with a blurb indicating that Peter was going receive a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] . In the issue, Spider-Man is infuriated due to the machinations of Harry Osborn, the second Green Goblin and ends up giving Rhino a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] that leaves the villain badly injured and crying for mercy. Another issue a couple years later shows the Green Goblin gloating over the bodies of Spider-Man and the X-Men. While the X-Men did appear in that issue (it was the final chapter of a three-part storyarc about something different), they never fight the Green Goblin. Instead, Harry Osborn simply returns toward the end of the issue, setting the stage for the next arc.
* An old issue of ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'' promises that [http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/16291-2400-18158-1-captain-america_super.jpg Cap's partner the Falcon, all of S.H.I.E.L.D., and some random newbie heroes turn on him, all at once.] He does fight S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and later the random newbie heroes, but it is neither all at once nor does [[the Falcon]] join in.▼
** One Spider-Man cover seemed to pull a subversion on itself. The cover had Hydro-Man declaring victory over Spider-Man, but with [[Venom (Comic Book)|Venom]]'s face in the corner, grinning, and saying, "Yeah, right!" making it look like the cover was a joke (and that Venom was actually the focus of the story). The truth is, there was a fight with Hydro-Man in the story, Venom did escape from the Vault, but both had little to do with the actual plot of this issue, which was a poignant story of character development for Aunt May's beau Nathan Lubensky, who's gambling addiction had gotten him in trouble with some loan sharks. This addiction turned out to be a [[Foreshadowing]] of what would eventually lead to his death at the hands of the Vulture, sadly.
** One infamous example, in the six-part Spider-Man story "The Assassin Nation Plot", one issue had a cover showing Spidey confronting Sabretooth. While Sabretooth did appear in the story, he and Spidey never met; Captain America and Silver Sable fought the villain, while Spidey was hundreds of miles away fighting terrorists. [[Word of God]] claims that artist [[Todd McFarlane]] penciled the cover before the script was finalized, and while he knew Sabretooth would appear, he didn't know in what regard. The cover was kept because the editors liked it so much.
** Similar to the above example with Sabretooth: ''Web of Spider-Man Annual #4'' showed Spidey about to throw down with the huge, looming, menacing form of the Miami drug czar called the Slug. First of all, the Slug was at most a background figure in the story, appearing in only two brief scenes; Spidey never crossed paths with him, and while he did tangle with a few Mooks who worked for him, the true threat in the story were the minions of the High Evolutionary (the story being a tie-in to The Evolutionary War crossover). And the Slug could hardly have been a threat to any superhero in a physical confrontation anyway; he’s so obese, he can’t even move, needing a mechanical wheelchair to do so.
** The last chapter of ''[[Spider-Man: Quality of Life]]'', featured the snake-like assassin Yith grinning evilly as she strangled Spidey with her tail. This was almost contradictory to the actual story, as Yith had never expressed a desire or need to kill or even oppose the hero during the entire storyline (she wasn't the main antagonist at all, having been hired by a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] to kill Curt Connors) and had been a reluctant ally for the most part. In this specific issue, she turned against her employer, killing him and sparing Connors after falling in love with him. (Probably.)
* ''[[X-Men]]'' examples:
▲** From an issue of ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]: First Class'': Human Torch, Iceman, and Spider-Man appear on the cover. Fine, except Spider-Man appears for only 2 panels, pretty much to tell the Torch and Iceman to do whatever they want.
** The cover of ''Uncanny X-Men #244'' showed [[Dazzler]], [[Psylocke]], [[Rogue]] and [[Storm]] cowering in terror from a foe they called "the M-Squad". In the actual story, the M-Squad was [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain| a bunch of losers]] who fancied themselves mutant hunters, who the X-Ladies came across trying to apprehend a young mutant while they were shopping at a mall; the heroines pretty much trounced them good. (The cover was [[Implied Trope| likely a joke]].) Still, the issue was rather significant due to who the "young mutant" in question was; {{spoiler|Jubilee , making her debut in this issue.}}
▲* An old issue of ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'' promises that [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115091959/http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/4/16291-2400-18158-1-captain-america_super.jpg Cap's partner the Falcon, all of S.H.I.E.L.D., and some random newbie heroes turn on him, all at once.] He does fight S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and later the random newbie heroes, but it is neither all at once nor does [[the Falcon]] join in.
** The very first issue of ''Captain America Comics'' shows CA punching out [[Adolf Hitler]]. Hitler doesn't appear in the comic (although various other Nazis do, including the Red Skull).
* [[Archie Comics]] usually just display a single gag panel which has nothing to do with any of the stories within.
** A glaring example of this trope, however, is one for the Betty and Veronica Double Digest issue 128. On the cover, there is a picture of a phone being held by one of the girls, and you can see an image of Archie and Cheryl Blossom in the same image. There's a subtext on the side of this cover that says "Cheryl's back... look out 4 Trbl!" implying that this is the opening story. ''Not one single story in that book contains anything regarding Cheryl.''
* [[She Hulk]] covers look [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092029/http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/787/99828-18293-107082-2-she-hulk_super.jpg like this] and the interior art is [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_f3SZ5Tu916o/R3J-apa55cI/AAAAAAAADbw/sbjasHIPgRc/s1600-h/SHEHULK024_int-8.jpg like this]
* In general this frequently is the case when the cover is drawn by a different artist than the one who does the interior art. In most cases, the cover artist is better or at least has a bigger fan base than the interior artists. One of the rare inversions is ''Avengers Annual'' #10 (featuring the first appearance of Rogue), which features brilliant interior art by Mike Golden beneath an uninspired, humdrum cover by Al Milgrom. Talk about hiding your light beneath a bushel!
* The Marvel issue of ''"What If..."'' that dealt with the Fallen Son storyline had a cover of [[Captain America (comics)]] carrying an apparently dead [[Iron Man]] in a dramatically mourning way. The contents of the comic... weren't nearly so touching.
* The cover of one old ''[[Star Trek: The
* Most [[World War II]] era [[Marvel Comics]] have Captain America, Human Torch, and [[Sub-Mariner]] having epic battles against the Axis on the cover. The stories themselves though have none of those and are usually about evil Nazi's having their plans for world domination foiled by the heroes.
* Malibu Comics used to have a major villain named Rafferty, whose gimmick was that he came with an editorial promise: [[Tonight Someone Dies|every time he appeared, a superhero would die]]! This led to a slew of issues featuring him, many of which showed him threatening a major character on the cover. Too bad those were hardly ever the characters he actually killed. In fact, in most cases he just killed a random walk-on character who had been created just so Rafferty could off him.
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* Done so blatantly that it almost looks like a parody in ''Marville'' miniseries. Since the 2nd issue every cover featured an all-but-naked [[Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game|girl who never appeared in story itself]].
* Silver Age comic "Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane" #92 features Lois Lane transformed into a centaur on the cover, with Superman lamenting that she's stuck that way. In actuality, she's only a centaur for about two strips in the comic and actually spends a good chunk of the story as a superpowered horse. The title of the story is also called "The Unbreakable Spell". Three guesses how accurate THAT is...
* "The Miracle of Thirsty Thursday", a [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]] story from Superman #293, was about the people of Metropolis suddenly gaining severe hydrophobia and Superman having to put them into deep sleep in order to cure them and have them drink water again. [https://web.archive.org/web/20140409120206/http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=130:the-miracle-of-thirsty-thursday&catid=28:superdickery&Itemid=54 The cover touting the story], on the other hand, had [[Super Dickery|almost the exact opposite premise]]
* The last issue of the old ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (Comic Book)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' comic book has a cover depicting Chip, Dale, and Monterey Jack fencing with a one-eyed mouse who has apparently taken Gadget hostage, and it is given the caption "His name is Ransom - and he means trouble!" Not only does this scene never happen in the issue itself, but Ransom isn't even a bad guy.
* ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'s Finest Hour''. {{spoiler|Scott never uses his Power of Love sword. ''Others'' do, but not Scott.}}
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* The cover of one of the ''[[Blackest Night]]'' issues of ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]'' features an army of zombified Titans rushing toards the reader. The hands of [[Blue Beetle]] and [[Static (comics)|Static]] can also clearly be seen, preparing to fight said undead heroes. None of the characters on the cover appear, and the entire issue is instead about Deathstroke's relationship with his children.
* Sal Buscema was fond of this when he was the artist for [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spectacular Spider-Man]]. Once issue had the Rhino squeezing the life out of Spider-Man on the cover with a blurb indicating that Peter was gonna receive [[A Fate Worse Than Death]]. In the issue, Spider-Man is infuriated due to the machinations of [[Magnificent Bastard|Harry Osborn]], the second Green Goblin and ends up giving Rhino a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] that leaves the villain crying for mercy. Another issue a couple years later show the Green Goblin gloating over the bodies of Spider-Man and the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]. While the X-Men did appear in that issue (it was the final chapter of a three-part storyarc about something totally different), they never fight the Green Goblin. Instead, Harry Osborn simply returns toward the end of the issue, setting the stage for the next arc.
* One ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' comic cover depicted [https://web.archive.org/web/20120711005228/http://toolooney.goldenagecartoons.com/index_files/lt103.jpg Bugs Bunny being beaten up by a kangaroo in a boxing match.] Nothing like that happens in the book itself.
* One ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'' cover prominently featured Sonic's long-lost brother Tonic standing alongside Amy Rose. In the comic, Amy and Tonic barely interact, and "Tonic" is exposed as [[Shapeshifting|Metamorphia]] (''again'') within a few pages.
** Another cover shows Knuckles and Shortfuse charging into battle with each other. The actual "fight" consists of two blows and the misunderstanding that led to it is quickly cleared up. (As this was a one-shot, there wasn't much time for anything else.)
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* Dave Dorman's cover for the comic adaptation of [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Batman Returns]]'' shows Batman running toward the viewer as the Batmobile explodes in flames behind him; the Batmobile does not explode in either this adaptation or the movie itself. (Then again, Dorman is fond of painting fire and explosions and always tries to work them into all of his comic-book covers.) Also, the Batman on the cover looks about ten years younger than [[Michael Keaton]].
* A terrible habit Marvel is getting into these days is releasing variant covers for their comics to promote films. For example, around the time of the [[Thor (film)|movie]], many comics started getting variant covers with [[The Mighty Thor]] or his supporting cast doing something completely unrelated to the issue.
** Made funnier (and more obvious) with any covers involving Loki, since he's about
* Lampshaded with the cover to Star Brand #12. The cover has the X-Men, but the bottom left-hand corner has a caption saying ''The X-Men in the New Universe? Not bloody likely!''
* The covers to Batman and Robin 23-25 all show Jason Todd in the Red Hood costume he wore during [[Grant Morrison]]'s run. The problem however is that Jason never wears it, in fact he dons a new costume at the end of the second issue. Which makes the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120111144545/http://www.dccomics.com/media/product/1/8/18973_400x600.jpg third cover] seem like a [[Take That]] in hindsight.
* Splash panels (at least one panel that serves as the introduction to the story) also somewhat fall into this trope. Let's treat the first ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' story like the ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]'' example below. The premise is Superboy going into a contest with the charter members of the club, losing to them as part of an initiation. Anyway, he does go up against Saturn Girl, and he surely competed with Cosmic Boy, and he absolutely faces off against Lightning Lad. However, ''[http://superman.nu/tales2/lsh/?page=1 they do not all happen at the same time.]''
* The [http://www.comicsbulletin.com/news/images/0806/invincible50.jpg cover]{{Dead link}} of ''[[Invincible]]'' #50 is very dramatic: looks like Invincible has gone berserk and is about to kill his boss Cecil. While there is a scene inside the comic that ''somewhat'' resembles the cover picture, the context is something quite different than what the cover implies. (For starters, {{spoiler|the blood on Invincible's body isn't Cecil's, it's his own.}})
** Seems to be done intentional throughout the run. Two covers in a row feature {{spoiler|Atom Eve's arm, limp and bloody, followed by a cover showing a funeral with Atom Eve conspicuously absent.}} Guess who doesn't die. Also, the penultimate issue of the Viltrumite War features the Viltrumites approaching Earth, getting the reader ready for a big, final battle. {{spoiler|There's no battle at all in the issue.}} Robert Kirkman even notes in the sketchbook section that he likes building reader expectations up only to defy them.
* One of the tie-in comics to ''[[The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes|Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes]]'' has a cover with [[Iron Man]], [[Captain America (comics)]], [[The Mighty Thor]], [[Ant-Man|Giant-Man]], and [[The Wasp]] lying unconscious at the feet of the Masters of Evil. The actual plot of that comic involves the Avengers fighting a giant robot, resorting at one point to {{spoiler|''teaming up'' with the Masters of Evil}}.
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* The bookend issues of IDW's ''Infestation'' and ''Infestation 2'' [[Cross Through|crossthroughs]] involve solely the cast of ''Covert Vampiric Operations'' making first contact with and finishing off the multiversal threats at hand. The covers for those (such as the one for ''Infestation'' #1, pictured on the page for [[Mega Crossover]]<ref>despite ''Infestation'' being an ''officially'' licensed product, which goes counter to Mega Crossover's definition as ''unofficial'' crossovers</ref>) depict the licensed series involved in the events as primary and the ''CVO'' characters as secondary at best. The catch is, the former's presence in the bookend issues can be summed up to "foreshadowing/flashback cameos". They don't even interact.
** Bonus lying point: ''Infestation'' #1 shows [[G.I. Joe|Snake-Eyes]]... ''who is completely absent from the G.I. Joe portions of Infestation.'' (it's a Cobra [[Villain Episode]], if you're wondering. Oh, and he does appear in ''Infestation 2''.)
* ''[[Deadpool]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20120202084708/http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2011/05/deadpools-10-best-fourth-wall-breaks#page/5 vol. 1, #26]
* [[Batman]]: The Dark Knight #9's cover shows Red Robin facing off against a Talon. He appears in one panel.
* The cover of ''Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Zombies'' depicts Holmes as a zombie smoking his pipe. He is never turned into a zombie at any point in the comic. Also he is shown in his stereotypical deerstalker hat, which he never wears in the story at any point.
* ''[[The Fantastic Four|The Fantastic Four #1]]''. Yes, you heard that right, one of the most iconic comic book covers in the history of the genre which has been referenced and parodied ''dozens'' of times, has a deceptive cover. As an fan of Marvel knowsm the cover depicts the heroes fighting a big green monster, a minion of the Mole Man. However, this monster only appears in two panels in the actual story, and the heroes don't fight it in any way other than the Torch trying to distract it while the others deal with his master.
=== Films -- Animated ===
* The [http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m128/redXpiXieXblack/Watership%20Down/CopyofWatership_Down_Dutch.jpg child-friendly cover] of the animated ''[[Watership Down]]''. (The original cover showed a silhouetted rabbit [[media:
* ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'' two-disc DVD set, aka the "Fox Family Fun Edition". Nobody, not even [[Don Bluth]] himself, has the slightest idea why [[Metro Goldwyn Mayer|MGM]] decided not to use either a variation of the many and very awesome [http://www.thornvalley.com/gallery/fan/v/studio/merch/prerelease_poster_full.jpg.html posters]{{Dead link}} or at least the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092228/http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i15/Nimhster/Thearical%20for%20NIMH/1990video.jpg original VHS art] in favor of [http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4122841856/tt0084649 something that will make your eyes bleed] and practically screams [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?]]. (Bonus [[They Just Didn't Care]] points for the hilariously inaccurate plot summary. Thankfully, the 2-disc DVD itself rocks, with an amazing commentary from Don Bluth and an excellent remastering of the film.) A few side notes on this cover:
** The original single-disc DVD of the film, released back in 1998, used the VHS art for the cover. The rerelease of the single-disc DVD used the horribly drawn cover art linked above, which gives you the real problem a lot of people had with the two-disc set's packaging: it used '''that exact same cover art''' with just a couple of cosmetic changes to indicate it was a different release.
** Given the art style of the sequel film's [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092029/http://img3.nnm.ru/3/6/9/e/d/369ed770c6dbb3ea786e2375fc28596f_full.jpg DVD and VHS cover], it's a safe bet that the redesigned ''NIMH'' cover's art was done in an attempt to match the art used for the ''NIMH II'' cover.
** Don Bluth was reportedly not happy with the studio's decision to label the two-disc set the "Fox Family Fun Edition" instead of giving it a more appropriate title...like, say, "''25th Anniversary Edition''".
* Another [[Don Bluth]] example would be the cover of the DVD release for ''[[An American Tail]]'', as it features the ''Fievel Goes West'' version of Tanya. This may also be a borderline [[Fanservice Cover]] because, well...Tanya gets a lot hotter in the sequel.
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* The cover of the American DVD of ''[[Help! I'm a Fish]]'' not only calls it A Fish Tale, it also shows [http://www.theneitherworld.com/hiaf/images/aftcover.jpg really bad 3D renderings] of a few of the characters, ('''WARNING!''' The linked image may cause your eyes to bleed!) making it look like a crappy ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' or ''[[Shark Tale]]'' rip-off when it's actually a decent, [[Don Bluth]]-esque, [[Conspicuous CG|mostly 2D]] film.
** Even weirder, the American cover flatly says "[[Alan Rickman]]" above the title (the original cover said "Featuring the voices of Alan Rickman and Terry Jones"), making Rickman seem like the lead role. To make matters worse, Rickman's character isn't even ''shown'' on the U.S. cover!
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131021232849/http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/0de99592 This poster] for ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]''. Belle's blouse is colored pink for no reason, the castle in the background looks absolutely nothing like the one in the film, and [[Evil Overlooker|the Beast's placement]] on the cover makes him look like the villain (he's actually the ''hero'').
* The [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116583/ cover] for Disney's ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' makes what is widely considered one of the darkest films in the [[Disney Animated Canon]] seem like a light-hearted, family-freindly romp. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSvdDe-bpuU It's] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyS3weMlxLA not].
* The second [[The Beano|Beano]] video, ''Beano Videostars'', included Roger the Dodger on the original VHS cover, even though he's not on the actual video. Possibly because his checkered jersey made him too hard to animate.
* ''[[Turtles Forever]]'': [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Turtles_Forever_Poster.PNG the original poster] has Tokka and Rahzar, who turn out to be [[Advertised Extra
* ''[[The Brave Little Toaster]]'' was marketed as much less scary than it actually was. This goes so far that the screencaps on the back of the VHS/DVD are ''not even from the film''. One of them even showed Toaster ''high-fiving'' the Master! (In the film, the fact that they were alive was always kept a secret). The artwork on the back depicts the oh-so-serious waterfall scene, except that the title character has a goofy smile on his face! Oddly enough, the original poster showed three screencaps from the film, two from the [[Nightmare Sequence]] and one from the dark forest scene.
* Most of the promotional media for ''[[Toy Story (franchise)||Toy Story 3]]'' portray Lotso Bear as at worst a [[Jerkass]], while in the actual film, he's actually {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster|one of Disney's most evil villains, and without a doubt the second worst Pixar villain ever]].}}
** This is legitimate though, as that is something of a late revelation. It's the same principle as not putting the twist on the front of the ''[[Fight Club]]'' DVD.
* Another Pixar example would be the poster for ''[[Cars 2]]'', which had Lightning McQueen in the center. In the actual film, the real hero is Mater.
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** This is quite common with any film that Marilyn Monroe has any amount of screentime in.
* The video for ''[[The Third Man]]'' has Orson Welles alone on the cover, even though he doesn't appear until the last act. Joseph Cotten is the actual star.
** In fact, this is rather a spoiler, since for the first hour of the film, Welles's character is supposedly dead, and his initial appearance is treated as a splendid revelation.
* The DVD cover of ''[[Mousehunt (film)|Mousehunt]]'' is far more cutesy and colorful than the movie itself, which is more of a dark comedy for all ages.
* The poster for ''[[Reign of Fire]]'' has dragon's fighting Apache Gunship's over a London set ablaze! The actual film sums up the war is a newspaper cutting montage. Oops.
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* The drama ''[[Lawn Dogs]]'' has a misleading cover in the US release. The movie is about the pathos-laden friendship between a 10-year-old girl and a 21-year-old lower-class man. Not that the cover would tell you that, as it shows that same man, shirtless, with a woman looking at him and smiling. The woman plays a very minor role in the actual story, as a love interest for the man. The blurb on the back is misleading as well.
* Some proposed film posters for the first ''[[Star Wars]]'' film and ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' would have done this. [[Executive Meddling|Studio Executives]] toyed with presenting ''[[Star Wars]]'' as a wacky comedy or for sombre [[Science Fiction]] in the same vein of ''2001''. For ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', many of the posters presented the film as a bittersweet nostalgic comedy drama. In the end, the studios promoted the movie as more or less a horror film.
* In a famous [[Star Wars]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20130927223746/http://www.japanesemoviepostercompany.com/jpegs/StarWarsB2Seito.jpg poster], [[Mark Hamill]]/Luke shows muscles he hasn't got, and Carrie Fisher/Leia is clothed in a sexy dress she never wears in the film.
** Anyone else getting major He-Man vibes from Luke?
** Not to mention the positioning of the characters heavily implies that [[Twincest|the two are lovers....]]
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*** For example, a DVD collection of the 1940s Batman serial (which at least is not nearly as silly or campy as the 60s version) has [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081021152461/marvel_dc/images/thumb/8/8a/Batman_1943_Serial_DVD.jpg/250px-Batman_1943_Serial_DVD.jpg a cover] that makes it look much more like something from the modern day Nolan films.
* Original promotional posters for ''[[Night of the Lepus]]'' featured disembodied eyes menacing the main characters and the tag-line "How may eyes does terror have? How many times will terror strike?". Neither of which would indicate that it's actually a movie about giant [[Killer Rabbit|killer rabbits]], which the studio was understandably reluctant to advertise. The DVD still uses the original poster and tag-line for the front cover, although the blurb on the back plays up the premise up for camp value.
* The cover art for the film ''Man's Best Friend'' features a Terminator-like dog with glowing red eyes while the actual dog in the film is not robotic in any way. He is, however, spliced with the genes of several different
* The cover art for the 1980 made-for-TV special ''[[The Return of the King (animation)|The Return of the King]]'' depicts that version of Frodo and Sam with dwarves surrounding them, an evil wizard in a tower, supposedly Saruman, and a dragon in the background. In actuality, none of those characters are in it.
* The first Western live action ''[[Guyver]]'' movie, inexplicably renamed "Mutronics" in the UK, featured Mark Hamill in a small, but important, role at the beginning of the movie. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120714102832/http://www.scifi-universe.com/upload/medias/mutronics.jpg Looking at the poster], you'd think he was the lead.
* It seems that Warner Home Video is trying to pull this type of trick with the [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9d2U1aoLo7U/SUXIkEaYrQI/AAAAAAAAClU/me1DsV2FvnM/s1600-h/Untitled.jpg cover of the 25th anniversary deluxe edition DVD] for the ''[[Sesame Street]]'' [[The Movie|movie]] ''Follow That Bird'' by putting in Elmo among the other characters on the side of the cover, implying that he is a major character in the film, while Elmo's actual role in the movie is merely a silent cameo in the ending sequence (although he was intended to get a featurette for himself on the DVD, making this somewhat [[Justified Trope]]).
* The DVD of ''[[The Island]]'' features Ewan McGregor and [[Scarlett Johansson]] running from a mongumbo fireball, yet, much to the film's credit, not a single pyrotechnic is featured in the film, despite the many vehicle chases that [[Every Car Is a Pinto|end in collision]].
* The DVD cover for the UK release of the Jackie Chan movie ''The Accidental Spy'' features Jackie with three other people, none of whom are in the film. Of the three scenes depicted on the back, one doesn't appear in the film. Also, the credits on the DVD cover are different to the opening credits of the movie.
* The cover for the DVD and the VHS for the 1993 vampire movie ''Cronos'' (directed by [[Guillermo del Toro]]) features the Cronos device - a kind of mechanical beetle - on the breast of an apparently nude blonde woman. The device appears in the movie. The woman does not. Interestingly, the VHS cover was made considerably before the DVD cover, but although they are two different covers they depict the precise same irrelevant subject - only the posture is slightly different. Given that the movie probably won't be enjoyable to people sucked in by the 'sexay' cover, it's an odd creative decision.
* ''[[Sky High]]'''s main [http://z.about.com/d/movies/1/0/s/c/6/skyhighposter.jpg poster]{{Dead link}} makes it seem like Will's father is the main character, Gwen is Will's kickass girlfriend, Layla is that random chick in the background, and Warren is the bad guy. Every single part of that is wrong.
** Granted, everything except Will's dad being the main character ''starts out'' being true.
* The poster for ''[[The Final Sacrifice]]'' (spoofed on [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]) features a mean looking kid holding a giant sword. Neither the kid nor the sword appears in the film.
* ''The Plague Dogs''. The poster says "Escape to a different world and share the adventure of a lifetime." They honestly make it look like a happy children's movie. Movie Magic indeed.
* [[media:ForbiddenPlanet2.jpg|The poster]] of ''[[Forbidden Planet]]'' shows Robby carrying an unconscious Alta. This never happens in the film.
* [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] posters in general feature a plethora of stuff from the film assembled into one poster. But just for fun, let's look at the poster for ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]''. Bond wears a tux at some point. Bond and Tracy ski at some point. Piz Gloria explodes at the end when it's attacked by helicopters, and Blofeld does bobsleigh, and yes, his men do ski after Bond and Tracy. However, ''[http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/bond-posters/ohmss-posters?id=001 they do not all happen at the same time.]''{{Dead link}} [[Rule of Cool]] does enter into it, though.
* At least one North American DVD cover for ''Brassed Off'' presents it as a fluffy romantic comedy between Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald's characters, omitting both the rather bleak plot about the economic collapse of a mining community and the main character played by Pete Postlethwaite.
** And the VHS cover's synopsis claims that the film is about ex-lovers who turn a town upside down when get back together, which is not at all what the film is about. Miramax just didn't care.
* The DVD cover for ''[[Looney Tunes: Back in Action]]'' is odd for a number of reasons. First of all, Tweety appears on it, although (unless you count the scene where Tweety is actually Taz in disguise), Tweety only appears in one scene and has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. (This might be justified in that, originally, he ''was'' supposed to take part in the story.) Even worse, the Road Runner also appears on it, although he barely appears in the film for more than a cameo that consists of running past the screen (twice). Yosemite Sam appears on the cover wearing his traditional cowboy outfit, whereas in the film he wears a black tuxedo. On the theatrical poster, Taz is biting the Chairman's leg, while in the film, Taz is working for the Chairman and never comes close to turning on him. Also note that Elmer Fudd doesn't appear on the DVD cover [[Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Trailer|or in any of the films promotional images, for that matter]], even though his chase scene through the Louvre with Bugs and Daffy is probably the best scene in the movie.
* ''[[9 Dead Gay Guys]]'' features nine photos on its back cover. Judging by the title, you would assume that these nine people are the people who are going to die. In reality, several of the people listed on the back cover survive the entire film.
* Pick a cover, any cover, of the DVD for ''[[Chocolat]]'' and you'll see [[Johnny Depp]] sharing the same amount of space with the lead character,
* The Italian DVD cover of the first ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]'' film says that [[Wolverine]] has "capacità taumaturgiche" ("thaumaturgic powers"): someone may think he can do miracles or, at least, heal other people - but he can only heal ''himself''!<ref>Well he can heal Rogue, but she has to absorb his abilities first.</ref>
* The movie ''[[District 9]]'', in which aliens come to Earth and are soon living listlessly, harmlessly in slums, features an alien battle suit which the aliens sold to humans for cat food, and is worn by the human protagonist during the climax. Two separate Thai posters for the film feature the battle suit prominently - one showing [http://www.impawards.com/2009/district_nine_ver19.html an invading army] wearing the suits, another showing what appears to be [http://www.impawards.com/2009/district_nine_ver20.html a building-sized version] of the suit. Clearly the film is being marketed in Thailand as an alien invasion flick.
** The US releases aren't as bad, though still really cliche, [http://www.scificool.com/images/2009/12/district-9-dvd-2.jpg with the disabled alien ship floating over a barbed wire fence with a "No Humans Allowed" sign]. Which is...the complete opposite of the entire ad campaign ([
* The DVD cover for the [[Mike Judge]] movie ''[[Office Space]]'' features [[Jennifer Aniston]] on all 3 pictures on the back and even the spine, despite the fact she's only on screen for barely 1/4 of the movie.
** Likewise, [[Liv Tyler]] in the DVD of ''[[That Thing You Do]]!''
* The back of the DVD cover for ''[[Tootsie]]'' features an image of [[Dustin Hoffman]]'s character, Michael, kissing his coworker Julie while in full [[Wholesome Crossdresser|Dorothy Michaels]] regalia,
* The ''[[Wishmaster]]'' DVD cover suggests the villain is a vampire; he's actually a genie.
* ''[[Klay World|Klay World: Off The Table]]''. The DVD cover makes it look like one of those cheap, direct-to-video family movies. Although it IS cheap and direct-to-video, the language and violent (albeit cartoony) on-screen deaths proves that this ain't a kids flick. The writer/director lampshades this in one of the DVD commentaries.
* The American ''[[
** A second edition DVD released in the States is only a marginal improvement; the new cover art focuses on Susan Sto Helit, who is more central to the plotline than Albert, with the two kids. But there's no images of Death on either the front or back of the cover.
* The cover of a live-action adaptation of ''[[Animal Farm]]'' made the movie seem like any other nice, [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|kid-friendly]] movie about [[Talking Animal|talking animals]]. The plot summary on the back even used words like "delightful" and "charming" in its description...
* Releases of ''[[The Lavender Hill Mob]]'' make much of the fact that [[Audrey Hepburn]] has a role in it - the blurb spends more time talking about that than it does about the plot of the film, in fact. In reality, the film was made long before Hepburn was famous, and she's in it for maybe ten seconds.
* The poster and DVD cover of ''[[Apocalypto]]'' makes it look like Middle-Eye is the main character. He's actually [[The Dragon]].
* Look at [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092029/http://www.ameibo.com/productimage/2487_153/the-little-shop-of-horrors.jpg this] video cover for the original ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]''. What's wrong with this picture? [[Jack Nicholson]]'s part is only about two minutes long, and the plant isn't even in that scene.
* The posters and most promotional material for ''Air America'' depict it as a light-hearted buddy romp. The poster is basically [[Mel Gibson]] and [[Robert Downey, Jr.]] smiling at the audience. However, this is a film set during [[The Vietnam War]], about opium trading and corrupt generals, and it's also based on a non-fiction book.
* The [[Hammer Horror]] version of ''The Mummy'' had a stunning [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RKWtpew6Y9Q/SQyWc6ixsbI/AAAAAAAAB8o/dMlWDaNwEkA/s1600-h/new+mummy.jpg poster] showing a beam of light dramatically shining through a hole in the eponymous monster. No such scene is in the film (Hammer Studios probably couldn't've pulled off the effects work in 1959).
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* Look at the 2006 [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000HT3PFG/sr=1-1/qid=1267382437/ref=dp_image_text_0?ie=UTF8&n=130&s=dvd&qid=1267382437&sr=1-1 DVD cover] of [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]]'s ''[[Carousel]]'', and you'll see Gordon Mcrae whisper sweet nothings into Shirley Jones's ear, as they stand near a carousel while green grass grows and colorful balloons float into the sky. Watch the actual movie, and you'll be treated to a musical about a ''[[Domestic Abuser]]'' who [[Disappeared Dad|dies during his wife's pregnancy]]. Also, when they meet at that carousel, no grass is growing, no balloons float into the sky, and [[They Just Didn't Care|the sun doesn't even shine, since it's nighttime]].
* The blurb for the ''[[Farscape]]'' miniseries claims that the Peacekeepers {{spoiler|resurrect and}} recruit John Crichton in order to have him use his wormhole knowledge to "get the entire Peacekeeper race to safety" from the encroaching war with the Scarrans. The first half of that sentence is disproved within the first ten minutes of the film. The second half of the sentence... well, one would be forgiven from spending the whole miniseries waiting for the war to go badly so they could get to the "real" plot, and then realizing that the climactic battle scene is just that. It sort of ruins things when you spend three-quarters of it thinking you're still in the prologue.
* The movie about Norwegian War Hero Max Manus, a muted, tense story about the Norwegian Resistance during [[WW 2]] and the eponymous character, had a fairly indicative poster and cover in the original release. The international cover has [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092144/http://www.improveyourfuture.co.uk/blog/content/binary/maxmanus.jpg this picture] instead, from a very brief backstory action scene. Not quite lying as much as stretching the truth a lot, though.
* Judging by the poster for ''[http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2922094336/tt0052188 She Gods Of Shark Reef]'' you'd think the movie was all kinds of awesome. In reality it's an hour long slog, badly shot and horribly dubbed, with nothing happening.
* The cover for ''[[Mazes and Monsters]]'' makes it appear to be a dark fantasy story, with a picture of a labyrinth, a dark tower, and a night sky filled with bats. Turns out it's just an [[Anvilicious]] story based on the D&D scare of the early '80s. Also, the picture of Tom Hanks on the cover was taken years after the movie was made.
* The [http://content6.flixster.com/movie/10/98/65/10986520_det.jpg cover] of the film ''Slaughter in the Ring'' declares the star of the film to be a muscular fellow named Lee Van Dorn....except no one named Lee Van Dorn is in the movie. The cover also features a blonde woman holding a shotgun who doesn't appear in the movie, and the back cover has a picture of a funeral scene that is nowhere to be found in the film.
* The cover of the godawful sex comedy ''The First Turn-On!'' boasts that co-star [[Hey, It's That Guy!|Vincent D'Onofrio]] (in his [[Old Shame|rather embarrassing film debut]]) is an Academy Award nominee. Vincent D'Onofrio has never been nominated for an Academy Award.
* Just take a look at this [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092014/http://chud.com/articles/content_images/5/10turkeystroll2.jpg hilariously misleading cover art] for ''[[Troll 2]]''. Three guesses as to whether the big beastie on the cover actually appears in the film or not and the first two don't count.
* Feast your eyes on this DVD cover for ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131218222111/http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/future-war03.jpg Future War]''. No one resembling the African American man on the left appears at any time in the film.
* The film poster and DVD cover for 2007's ''[[Atonement]]'' show [[Keira Knightley]] and [[James McAvoy]], making it seem as if the film is about star-crossed lovers. The ''main character'', however, is not featured on the cover.
* The British DVD cover for ''[[Valhalla Rising]]'', showing a charging [[The Horde|viking horde]], suggests a violent, ''[[300|Three Hundred]]''-style action film. In reality, the film is a harrowing suspense thriller. The French version is guilty of the same thing; besides, the film was titled ''Le Guerrier silencieux'' (''"The Silent Warrior"'') in the cinemas, on the DVD it's called ''Valhalla Rising: Le guerrier des ténèbres'' (''"The Dark Warrior"'')--the title, of course, is written in big yellow/gold letters. Oh, and it's sold in 2-DVD boxset alongside ''[[Outlander (film)|Outlander]]''. Some people are in for a [[Le Film Artistique|nice, slow-paced, hypnotic, non action-packed]] surprise. The more loyal covers show the title character against a desolate wilderness, which is more fitting to the actual movie.
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* The cover for the teen comedy ''[[Saved]]!'' makes it look like that Mandy Moore is the star of the movie while Jena Malone is a lowly supporting character designed for background space. In actuality, Malone is the star of the movie while Moore is the film's antagonist.
** YMMV - Moore's character's hypocrisy is central to the film, and the school sees ''her'' as the hero. This is hammered home by the drawn-in halo over Moore and horns over Malone
* The DVD cover (and some posters) for ''[[Evita]]'' show Che and Eva singing together during their dance. However, Che and Eva's dance is only an imaginary sequence, and being the [[All
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20110115092017/http://d.imagehost.org/0344/new-international-poster-for-the-green-hornet-470-75.jpg international poster] for ''[[The Green Hornet (film)|The Green Hornet]]'' makes it look as though Kato is Green Hornet. The actual hero of the film is a [[Floating Head Syndrome]] off to the side.
** [[Justified Trope|This was intentional]]. Kato is more popular than The Green Hornet in Asia.
*** [[Bruce Lee|Just in Asia?]]
* On the ''[[Air Bud
* ''[[Seltzer and Friedberg|Disaster Movie]]'''s DVD case claims the protagonists are three half-dressed women, who in the film, are a one-off joke character, a flat character who dies quickly, and a character dressed as she only appears once in the movie. The actual protagonist isn't pictured, although his actor plays many of the characters on the cover.
* One slightly infamous poster from an overseas release of ''[[Return of the Jedi]]'' depicts Darth Vader's [[Your Head Asplode|head exploding]] in a shower of machinery. Apparently, all he knew about the film was that Darth Vader was going to die, and naturally he assumed that it would be "spectacular", and the best way to appropriately convey how spectacular it would be was, obviously, [http://christophercummings.com/images/movies/sw/vaderBoom-sm.jpg to make his head explode].
* ''[[The Village]]'', in keeping with its general marketing as a horror film, got slapped with a DVD cover that [http://www.coverdude.com/covers/the-village-2004-r2-front-cover-14651.jpg made it look like something R-rated,]{{Dead link}} even going so far as a blurb that calls it "the scariest movie of the year." In reality, though there are some slightly frightening moments, it's an introspective drama about the nature of evil and the problems inherent in an attempted utopia.
* ''[[The Forbidden Kingdom]]'' features a poster and dvd cover with the names and images of the two biggest stars and no one else, not even the protagonist's.
* The promotional poster for the [[Adam Sandler]] film, ''Mr. Deeds'', shows an elderly butler in the background. He never appears in the film, as the butler is portrayed by John Turturro. (Later versions of the poster Photoshopped in Turturro's head.)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111107224027/http://images.moviepostershop.com/camp-nowhere-movie-poster-1020368216.jpg This poster] for the 1994 film ''[[Camp Nowhere]]'' seems to make the movie out to be the second coming of ''[[Animal House]]''. In fact, the movie was a kids' movie and NOTHING like ''Animal House'', but [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|you wouldn't know it]] by looking at that poster. (Try to imagine what a wacky tween version of ''[[Accepted]]'' would be like and you pretty much have ''Camp Nowhere''.)
* The cover of ''[[Pan's Labyrinth]]'' makes sure that whoever is buying it will think that the movie is an epic fantasy that's just like ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Nowhere is it mentioned that the movie is in Spanish and you'll be reading subtitles for the whole movie, nor the little fact that it's extremely gruesome, depressing, and ''not for kids''. It's like the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] applied to Fantasy movies.
* A lot of the posters and covers for ''[[Memento]]'' make it look as though Leonard and Natalie are a couple. Actually, {{spoiler|he kills her boyfriend}}.
* The cover of the ''[[Tremors]]'' "Attack Pack" (all four films plus extras) depicts a gigantic monster's mouth rising from under the ground, with facial tendrils and [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family]]. Only the Graboids' tongue-pincers (which are about the size of human hands) have tendrils like that, and ''none'' of their life-cycle stages have teeth, just sharp-edged mandibular beaks.
* The [http://www.dvd-covers.org/art/DVD_Covers/Movie_DVD_Scanned_Covers/1322Dracula_3000.jpg.html box cover] of ''Dracula 3000'', coupled with the [[Recycled in Space]]-premise, leads you to believe that the movie's vampires are some sort of ancient alien evil; it's a guy in [https://web.archive.org/web/20120222225206/http://www.foywonder.com/current_columns/gfx/foy_1204_08.jpg what looks to be] a ''very'' cheap halloween costume.
* The cover of ''[[12 Monkeys]]'' (You can see it on the movie page), gives one of the characters a glowing red eye, making him look like a cyborg at first glance. It's actually the symbol of the 12 monkeys; said symbol never glows nor is in an eye, and there are no cyborgs in the movie.
* A fairly minor example, but still valid: several [http://www.impawards.com/2000/pitch_black_ver4.html posters] and [http://cine.coveralia.com/caratulas/Pitch-Black-(Edicion-Especial)-Caratula.php DVD covers] of ''[[Pitch Black]]'' have [[Vin Diesel]] [[Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You|About To Shoot You]]. Not only does he not wield a handgun at ''any'' point in the film, Riddick isn't even a gun enthusiast, but a [[Knife Nut]].
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* The poster and video cover for ''[[All I Want for Christmas]]'' depict the brother and sister leads with a tied up Santa and a really long Christmas list, giving the impression that the story is about them kidnapping Santa and demanding lots of stuff. Santa only has a few minutes of screentime, at no point do the kids kidnap him, and the kids' only Christmas wish is for their parents to get back together.
* Video/DVD covers of the Italian James Bond ripoff ''Espionage In Tangiers'' claim that George Lazenby is in the film, sometimes even giving him top billing. This film was released four years before Lazenby made his acting debut in ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service,'' and never actually appears. (One possible explanation for this goof is that one of the actors in the film does indeed look like a young Lazenby - but it's not him.)
* The DVD cover of some editions of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' feature Kristy Swanson and Luke Perry at the ready for battle in an ominously dark, foggy cemetery - coupled with a logo that's somewhat similar to that of the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' TV series, it makes it appear much less campy and comedic than it really is, and also makes it look like some sort of offshoot of the show. At least the cover doesn't obscure
* All of the marketing for ''[[Scary Movie]] 3'' makes it look like Denise Richards has a prominent role in the film as a love interest to [[Charlie Sheen]] (they were married at the time) or playing a role similar to Carmen Electra's. She has a grand total of one scene in the movie (in a flashback parodying a scene from ''[[Signs]]'') and adds no importance to the film.
* The cover to ''[[Red Riding Hood (film)|Red Riding Hood]]'' mentions [[Gary Oldman]] on top billing next to [[Amanda Seyfried]] (who's on the cover), and next to the two hearthrobs of the movie, with no figure of Oldman at all on the cover.
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** One example that sticks out is the illustration for ''The Caravan from Troon'' in the August 2001 issue of ''Asimov's'' magazine, which depicts a scene from the middle of the high-fantasy story involving a wagon train being attacked by blowgun-wielding hang gliders in a mountain pass with perfect accuracy... except that the illustration shows it as a string of humvee-looking things being attacked by rocket powered hang gliders using mounted lasers in a lunar-looking lifeless landscape!
** This became a sort of tradition for the [[Ender's Game|Ender Wiggin series]].
** The movie-tie-in edition of ''[[I, Robot (literature)|I, Robot]]'' even includes [[I, Robot (film)|the film]]'s tagline, "One man saw it coming", even though it had nothing to do with any of the book's stories' plots, and Will Smith's character isn't in the book at all.
** This phenomenon is touched on in "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials", a book that very faithfully illustrates numerous aliens from science fiction novels. In one of the introductions, [[Robert Silverberg]] tells how sci-fi magazine illustrations very rarely synched with the contents of the stories they accompanied. He found out why after he became published: illustrators are often given extremely brief descriptions, like "Humanoid alien is being threatened by robot", with no indication of how the story describes the robot or the alien or even if there actually is an alien being menaced by a robot.
** This was done in the past for realistic fiction as well - old Fifties Faulkner paperbacks make them seem like cheap porn novels.
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* The ''Three Investigators'' series of children's mystery novels does this from time to time. One example is "The Case of the Invisible Dog", the cover of which shows the investigators cornered by a large transparent feral dog. The invisible dog in the story? A small ''glass statue'', which they are hired to find.
** Similar things can happen in the cover art of another kid-lit mystery series, the ''Cam Jason Mysteries''. On the cover of ''The Mystery of the Dinosaur Bones'', we see the skeleton of a menacing giant Tyrannosaurus-like dinosaur turning its head at Cam and her best friend/assistant, who are naturally terrified that this fierce dead animal is staring right at them. The actual mystery in the book has less to do with malevolent undead dinosaurs and more to do with some thieves stealing a few of the vertebrae from a near-complete fossil of a Ceolophysis (Cam gets involved when her class goes to view this fossil on a field trip), hoping to sell them back to the museum curators. Woop-dee-do.
* Earlier editions of ''[[
** As well as this, the cover art depicted Harry as someone who looked a lot older than the eleven year old he was during the events of ''Philosopher's Stone''. The illustrator Thomas Taylor originally intended Harry to be fully facing the train, hiding his face from view so as to let the reader imagine what he looks like. The publishers insisted on a portrait, and so Taylor only had a limited amount of time to change his design. Since then he's somewhat wryly regretted
** We don't know ''what'' wack-ass version of ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' the illustrator for the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120622083113/http://gallery.the-leaky-cauldron.org/picture/1207 cover of the Italian edition] read (it shows Harry playing chess with a human-sized mouse, while wearing a mouse-shaped hat), but we'd like to know [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|what they were on and if they're willing to share]].
** The ''Chamber of Secrets'' one, from the same person, shows Harry flying on a giant book and wearing a ''crocodile''-shaped hat.
* The French edition of [[Terry Pratchett]] and [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Good Omens]]'' ("De bons presages") used to feature [https://web.archive.org/web/20111109081108/http://www.progx.org/deliciouslibrary/images/771857AA-AC17-11D9-84A4-000D933B18F6-140.png a small blond child looking nervously over his shoulder at a giant crocodile-dragon-thing]. Which is in the book precisely nowhere. (The current cover is much more accurate.)
** On the cover of the German edition, Crowley is depicted as some kind of ugly, green monster. Whatever happened to "Tall, Dark and Handsome" personified?
* When the Ender books were first translated into Hebrew, the covers featured... [[Star Trek|U.S.S ''Enterprise'']].
* The books in Steven Brust's [[Dragaera|Vlad Taltos]] series all have a picture of a jhereg (presumably Loiosh) on the cover, and all of them have four legs and wings
** Not to mention the occasions when Vlad shows up with Loiosh, always totally clean-shaven instead of sporting his signature mustache.
* [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[The Ship Who...|PartnerShip]]'' features an astronaut walking next to a female humanoid hologram being projected from a device that floats next to him as he walks away from a spaceship, giving the impression that the Brain Ship of the novel gains the ability to project an image of herself. This never happens. The blurb on the back cover also misidentifies the main character and misses the plot entirely.
* One copy of ''[[Casino Royale]]'' (the book) has a picture of a lady in a string dress. As in, a dress made like a [[String Vest]].
** Given that the current covers of Fleming's Bond books are homages to the pulp covers of old, this is hardly a surprise.
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*** The full title of the book is ''Octopussy and The Living Daylights'', which reflects that it contains both of those short stories. The character depicted on the cover is clearly the beautiful female assassin known as Trigger, whom Bond defeats in ''The Living Daylights''.
* One edition of [[Philip K. Dick]]'s ''The Eye in the Sky'' has the best, most pulpy cover ever, featuring a man in futuristic space-clothes getting zapped by a laser. That any laser zapping happens in [[Now]] (the 50s) is neither here nor there. The blurb on the back suggests that the writer read only three pages of the book; the first, the last and a random page in the middle. It claims {{spoiler|the Eye in the Sky will never let them go, as if the whole book is about escaping the Eye. In fact, the Eye is escaped relatively near the beginning and the whole book is an exploration of prejudice and the views people hold deep down.}}
* ''[[Lord Darcy|Too Many Magicians]]'' by Randall Garrett is a clever whodunnit set an alternate Earth where low level magic exists and the technology is of approximately Victorian-era level. So why did [http://artmight.com/albums/2011-02-07/art-upload-2/w/White-Tim/bs-fsf-Tim-White-Too-Many-Magicians.jpg one paperback edition]{{Dead link}} feel it necessary to have a naked woman unleashing a lightning bolt from her hand on the cover?
** Possibly for the same reason it was necessary for the omnibus edition to be illustrated with [http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0743435486/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link a woman with three knees being eaten by a giant blue cabbage].
* The covers of [[Trudi Canavan]]'s ''[[Black Magician Trilogy]]'' are pretty awful as well. The UK versions feature the main character posing with a staff in a martial-arts esque stance, while the US versions are even worse; one of them has a ''flaming pegasus'' on the cover, for no reason whatsoever!
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* [[Frank Frazetta]] made his fame by painting covers that were much better than the books that they.... well, covered. And often completely unrelated to the story.
* John DeChancie's 1989 ''Castle Kidnapped'' featured on its paperback cover the primary characters, tied up and being borne away on the back of a huge blue turtle-like creature which ''nowhere'' appeared in the book. On Fidonet's old SF_LIT echo this spawned the acronym FBT, for "Friggin' Blue Turtloid".
* The covers of [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''[[Bolo]]'' series are legendary amongst its fans for never getting the image of the eponymous tanks right. In one particular book, it showed a tank being faced by what appears to be a typical Taliban or Al-Qaeda insurgent...
* Darryl Sweet's interpretations of ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series are known for two things: being completely inaccurate and/or completely inconsistent. The best covers never seem to portray the same people. In particular, Rand rarely ever looks the same, and you would only know it's Rand
** ''The World of...'' manages to have its own (interior) artwork issues, hence the [[Fan Nickname]] "Big Book of Bad Art".
* The ''[[Outlander (novel)|Outlander]]'' series of novels got a lot of this, apparently. Probably the reason why the author has requested people are left off her
* The [http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166254250l/10589.jpg American paperback version] of [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Bag of Bones]]'' depicts a lake, which is the extent of its accuracy. The naked woman in the badly-done CG of the lake and the little shack in the distance bear no resemblance to anything in the story, and the denuded trees seem a bit unlikely considering that the part of the story set on the lakeside takes place in ''July''.
* [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oT9HgbSGO64/ThyCehixsII/AAAAAAAAAn8/BJRzYsmgkf8/s1600/Firestarter7.jpg This] cover of [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Firestarter]]'' draws the focus to a large pair of eyes, presumably Charlie's. However, the eyes on the cover are green and it is mentioned ''many'' times throughout the book that her eyes are blue.
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* An at-least-they-tried example from a Penguin edition of Wyndham's ''The Kraken Wakes'': it shows an ocean liner being sunk/attacked by an alien bio-tank. Ships do sink in the novel, and there are bio-tanks, but they never appear in the same scene.
* The French Junior Folio editions of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' feature hobbits with beards, and in one case, what looks like a wizard riding a featherless chocobo. This is either the worst Nazgul ever or else God only knows...
** The [[media:
*** ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' suffered similarly in its first US publication. The books were rushed into US print because of competition from the unauthorized Ace editions. The artist, Barbara Remington, wasn't given time to actually ''read'' the books and based her [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XmSxWfvnwsE/SuJ9Q20H4AI/AAAAAAAAA_0/fHQRGMUNLgM/s1600-h/Barbara+Remington+lord+of+the+rings+poster.jpg art] on some vague descriptions she was able to dig up. Tolkien was ''not'' pleased, but the covers proved popular with fans. A poster of the cover art was eventually put out and can fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay. (To her credit, Remington was embarrassed by the experience. She was a conscientious artist and her usual practice was to read books first so that the covers would be ''right''.)
* One paperback version of [[Cormac McCarthy|Cormac McCarthy's]] ''[[Blood Meridian]]'' has a blurb which completely misses the point of the entire book, implying that the book is about the oppression of harmless innocent Native Americans, when actually everyone in the book is a murdering bastard, regardless of colour or creed.
* Many of the covers of Octavia Butler's science fiction novels make them look like inspirational romance stories.
* From [https://web.archive.org/web/20100520123243/http://www.david-drake.com/north.html Notes on Northworld] at [[David Drake]]'s website: "While I was writing Northworld, Beth called to ask what the book was about because they needed to put a cover on it. I sent her a scene of people dueling in powered personal armor. Beth called back in a week. "We had a cover conference on your book," she said. "We're going to put a tank on the cover. Is there a tank in the book?" I told her that there would be, now that I'd been told about the cover. And there is."
* [http://img1.gildia.pl/_n_/literatura/tworcy/david_eddings/piesn_reginy/okladka-640.jpg The Polish cover] of ''Regina's Song'' is only a minor example. The twins were blond in the book, but on the cover they're black-haired.
* The [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Shadow Command'' has a boat on fire on its British front cover. No boats appear in the entire book.
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* Penguin Publishing released ''Quantum Of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories'' around the same time that the film ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' the film was released. In the book's defense, it makes no indication that it is a movie tie in - however, it should be noted that''Quantum of Solace'' the Bond film and "Quantum of Solace" the Bond short story are only similar in their titles - the plots of each are completely different. As QOS is not a Bond story of any particular note, choosing it for the title of the book that collects all the Bond short stories in one place seems quite arbitrary, and was obviously done to tie into the movie.
** To be fair, Bond movies based on the short stories rarely have anything to do with the story beyond sharing the same title--''[[Octopussy]]'', for example (in the original story, Bond wasn't even a character, although he was referenced once in passing), ''[[The Man with the Golden Gun]]'', and others.
* Apparently done the opposite direction to normal in regard to ''The Gatherer'' by Owen Brookes. Inside the dust jacket is a description that makes it sound like the highbrow sort of horror. On the back of said dust jacket is an excerpt of a scene in which the villain [[Gorn
* [[Phil Foglio]] always did a good job with the covers for the hardback editions of Robert Asprin's ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' novels, but when Walter Velez did the covers for the Ace reprints, he tended to get a lot wrong. The cover of the first, ''Another Fine Myth'' features Aahz the demon as a towering philosopher in [[Fan Disservice|a thong]]. Three strikes, you're out. At least they got his skin color right.
* God only knows what [https://web.archive.org/web/20110818001153/http://www.dvdnet.fi/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=2317 this thing] on the cover of the Finnish paperback edition of ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' is supposed to be. Maybe Marvin?
** It says [[Gratuitous English|"don't panic"]] in it, so maybe it's supposed to be the guide?
** Due to [[Douglas Adams]]'s famous [[Writing by the Seat of Your Pants|problem with deadlines]], the original Pan covers were drawn with only a general idea what the books were about, and ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish|So Long And Thanks For All The Fish]]'' got a cover with a lenticular picture of a plesiosaur turning into a walrus on it before he'd even come up with the publicist's synopsis. He tried very hard to work a walrus into the story, but eventually gave up.
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* The Italian cover of ''Homegoing'', a science fiction novel by [[Frederik Pohl]], features an odd [http://www.tecalibri.info/P/POHL_ritornoC.htm shark-shaped starship] which does not appear in the book (compare it with the [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/frederik-pohl/homegoing.htm original cover]). Furthermore, the tagline reads: "They're the Hakh'hli. They're aliens. They feed on human flesh". Purchasers fancying a sci-fi-horror story were utterly disappointed, as the aliens in the book do NOT feed on human flesh (they breed their own alien animals).
* A recent edition of ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant]]'' features covers that together form an illustration of the title character's oh-so-plot-centric white gold wedding ring. Except that the ring in the picture is kind of a dirty bronze color.
* [[Jack Campbell]]'s ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' books feature the main character, John Geary, holding a different gun, in different armor, in a different location on each cover. This is
** This is actually [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the eighth book, ''Invincible'', when his flagship captain jokes about writing her memoirs:
{{quote|"I can just imagine the kind of book cover they'll insist on. Some really heroic pose by you doing something you never did, probably. Maybe in battle armor. With a gun."}}
* ''[[House of Leaves]]'' is an interesting example. The cover design is fine, but the choice of blurbs on the back paint a somewhat... um... ''misleading'' picture. "Funny, moving, sexy..." and "a love story..." are not the first descriptions that jump to most readers' minds when thinking of this book, and absolutely no mention is made of the novel's most memorable facet: it's [[Cosmic Horror|really]], ''[[Mind Screw|really]]'' scary.
* The official Guy Gavriel Kay fansite Bright Weavings lampshades this with a gallery of some of the interesting choices publishers made for cover art. The author praises some, politely declines to comment on most, and is openly baffled by others. Believe it or not, all of the following examples are from ''the same trilogy'' in different editions/languages (''The Fionavar Tapestry''): [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428035759/http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/danft2.htm Evil Barney], [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428043856/http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/rocfionavar2.htm Candy Land], [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428043314/http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/jailu1.htm Treant Guy], [https://web.archive.org/web/20150108084902/http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/polft1.htm Yay Boobies] ([[NSFW]]), and [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428104251/http://www.brightweavings.com/artgallery/italft2.htm Tarzan the Wizard]. Only Treant Guy has more than half an [[Ass Pull]]'s worth of resemblance.
* Behold! [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/01/dantes-inferno-reprint/ The new cover] of Dante's ''[[Divine Comedy|Inferno]]''! Yes, that's the book itself. Apparently, Dante's classic journey to the afterlife involved wielding a [[Sinister Scythe|wicked scythe]] to slay the denizens of Hell with while wearing leather pants sans shirt to show off his muscular pecs. This is a special case of a lying cover, as it's ''perfectly accurate''
** ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' not only "approves" of this tactic but offers an [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/15/ additional suggestion].
* The original paperback editions of the ''Riverworld'' novels typically depicted various historical figures (e.g. Sam Clemens)-complete with their facial hair, which did not grow on the eponymous planet.
** They were clothed on the covers too, in their period dress.
* At least in the American translation, the cover picture for ''The Battle Horse'' is stylized enough to not be a direct lie, but the back cover blurb relies rather heavily on [[From a Certain Point of View]]. The story itself is about rich kids who stage "jousting" tournaments and poor kids who're paid to be the horses. The blurb makes it sound like [[The Game Come to Life]], with the female lead ''literally'' [[Animorphism|becoming a horse]].
* The second book in the ''[[Animorphs]]'' series shows Rachel morphing into a gray cat on the cover. In the book, the cat is actually described to be black and white. Also, the kids are usually shown morphing in their clothes, despite
** The covers in general could not depict morphing more inaccurately if they tried. Rather than the weird, always different, sudden-crazy-stuff-happening-at-weird-times morphing in the actual books, the covers show a smooth, all-at-once kind of morph.
* The [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novels often have wholly-meaningless covers, but in [[media:
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140712002414/http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2010/02/dra-gon/ This cover] confused that site in that it is neither fantasy or sci-fi, but political thriller. Oh, and they review [[Contemptible Cover
* [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] covers are notorious for showing Ben Skywalker as looking like his father Luke when he in fact looks like his mother Mara.
* [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] herself complained about covers depicting the hero of ''[[Earthsea Trilogy|A Wizard of
* The paperback of ''Islands in the Net'' by Bruce Sterling features a [[The Vamp|sultry black-haired dame]] in [[Hell-Bent for Leather|a leather jacket opened to show the cleavage]]. While there are female characters in the book (including the protagonist), at no point are any of them sultry, black-haired, ''or'' wearing leather.
* The cover of Steven Harper's ''Trickster'' features a rather badly-drawn Kendi and Sci-Fi cover babe Gretchen, who, though not quite a [[Lady Not-Appearing-In-This-Game|Lady Not Appearing in this Book]], definitely doesn't play a prominent enough role to warrant cover status. Potentially misleading on two levels since, though most people would probably assume Kendi and Gretchen were a couple due to their sharing the cover (and Gretchen's rather [http://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Silent-Empire-Steven-Harper/dp/0451459415/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_6#noop revealing dress]), Kendi is actually married [[Ho Yay|TO A MAN]] and Gretchen is quite a bit older and plainer than her cover counterpart.
* One cover for Anna Sewel's ''[[Black Beauty]]'' shows the eponymous horse with a pretty pre-teen girl in suspiciously modern clothing. The story takes place in Victorian England and the only pre-teen girls who get any story-time at all don't have anything to do with
* ''Starlight and Shadows'' series has two sets of covers in different releases. Not a single one has a picture of the protagonist anywhere close to her descriptions, or indeed, of a drow at all (what with angular face and specific eye colorations) beyond a [[Darkskinned Blonde]] with sharpened ears. The second set got a round-faced lady and rumours say cover's a portrait of the illustrator himself with his girlfriend. That's the ''"good"'' variant.
* It was common in the Sixties and Seventies for the cover blurbs of mystery novels to completely misrepresent the story within. This happened due to the popularity of thrillers and spy novels, which made plain old mysteries seem fit only for [[Crazy Cat Lady|pathetic spinsters]].
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* The heroine of ''[[Ash: A Secret History]]'' is a [[White-Haired Pretty Girl]], with her pale hair being repeatedly referred to and even turning out to be a plot point. This didn't stop one cover artist from drawing her with red hair, however.
* The cover for ''The Backward Bird Dog'' by Bill Wallace has J.C. hiding his head under his body (itself a major spoiler) and frowning, as if confused as to how he should point. A similar illustration comes up in the final chapter of the book, only he's actually smiling. This is because by that time he's found a way to keep his nose out of harm's way when pointing during a hunt.
* The first couple of books in the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' "Chronicles" series have pretty accurate covers. But Caramon and Raistlin are never in a forest together at any point during ''[http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv194/midasqq/Books/spring.jpg Dragons of Spring Dawning]''
* In his ''Artbook'', John Howe explains that he's had to draw book covers armed with only very brief summaries given to him by the publishers. In one case, he also admits that he... hasn't read the book very closely either.
* ''The Unwilling Warlord'' is an Ethshar novel about a medieval character being dragged off to fulfill his ancestral duty in a war in a distant land. The cover art depicts an angry man in a business suit on a throne. The reason for this? [http://www.ethshar.com/cover.html That image was supposed to go on a completely different book].
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* Most editions of ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' seem like they go out of their way to avoid showing an accurate picture of Dorian or the painting on their cover. Although Dorian is often described as having blond hair, blue eyes, and a feminine appearance, aside from being only around 19 years old. Covers almost always show a picture of a man in his late-20s or early-30s with black hair and dark eyes. More than a few even show him with a beard.
* The cover for [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''Joust'' shows the main character, Vetch, standing with a dragon, presumably Avatre, while in full jouster armor. Not only is Avatre a hatchling at the end of the book, but Vetch is a serf, and never wears jouster armor in the book.
* The Swedish cover of Sam J. Lundwall's novel ''No Time For Heroes'' features [http://medium.tradera.com/786/122900786_1.jpg various creepy-looking fantasy monsters bursting through a portcullis]{{Dead link}}. Nothing on it tells you that it's actually a science fiction comedy set on a planet that's a [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink]] of [[Your Mind Makes It Real]].
* Apart from being a [[Contemptible Cover]] for making the book look like it's aimed at small children, it seems that the ONLY information given to the artist in ''Make Way For Dragons'' is that the story is set in California and has dragons in it. The cover we get is a blond "Valley Girl" with shorts and a denim jacket riding a skateboard past a bunch of palm trees as a tiny green dragon-dinosaur-thing clings to her leg - none of which has a THING to do with the book. Just for starters, the actual main character is a ''male cello player'', most of the action takes place in the ''mountains'', and the dragons are ''golden''.
* The ''[[Bionicle]]'' guidebook ''Dark Hunters'' has a promo shot of Keetongu on the front cover, with a group-shot of Vahki bringing up the rear. Keetongu is a higly sentient benevolent beast, while the Vahki are robotic law enforcers in the city of Metru Nui. Neither have any connection to the eponymous evil bounty hunters.
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* One ''[[Garfield]]'' board book showed Nermal on the cover. Nermal actually didn't appear in that book at all!
* The UK cover to ''Burning Tower'' by [[Larry Niven]] and [[Jerry Pournelle]] shows, logically enough if you ''haven't actually read the book'', a medieval castle in flames. The book is set in Fantasy Mesoamerica, and Burning Tower is a character's ''name''.
* The covers of many [[J. T. Edson]] novels feature generic western scenes that bear no real connection to the contents of the book. And some are just flat out wrong. The Corgi edition of ''The Remittance Kid'' shows a gunfight on the
* The cover for the 2000 reissue of Patrick Senecal's ''Aliss,'' a [[Bloodier and Gorier]] take on ''[[Alice in Wonderland]],'' features the heroine facing off against [[Those Two Bad Guys|Bone and Chair]] ([[The Mad Hatter]] and the March Hare). Bone and Chair are painted as distorted, monstrous grotesques, whereas in the novel itself, part of what makes them so creepy is that they're nothing of the sort: Aliss repeatedly notes how elegant they look, and even finds Bone moderately attractive.
* [[Zig-Zagging Trope|Zigzagged]] by Michael Whelan's cover art for [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Paratime''. It shows hero Verkan Vall being attacked by a Venusian nighthound, and the creature's anatomy matches the description in the story where it appears. On the other hand, Verkan Vall is carrying a Steyr AUG assault rifle, whereas the story describes his weapon as a bolt-action rifle that looks unusual and pretty nifty but '''not''' outlandishly futuristic to law-enforcement officers in the USA circa 1948.
** Whelan has been praised by several authors for getting lots of things right about their works
* ''[[The House on the Borderland]]'' by [[William Hope Hodgson]] is in "the west of Ireland," a castle-like place perched on a jutting cliff over a chasm and waterfall in a spooky forest. So one edition has a cover picture of a farmhouse, with barn and silo, surrounded by parched brown soil and a single tree. Oh, and a partially shucked ear of maize in the foreground implies that the story takes place in North America.
=== Live-Action Television ===
* The British TV movie ''Blunt, The Fourth Man'' was made in 1985. The video was released much later, at least several years after ''The Silence of the Lambs'' (film) came out. Anthony Hopkins's head and upper torso were prominent on the cover, along with his name in large letters. However, the eponymous Blunt is played by Ian Richardson. Hopkins plays Guy
* The cover for the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' DVD set "The Movie Collection", containing the last three [[Made for TV Movie|Made For TV Movies]], prominently features Londo, who appears in none of them.
** The US release does have all five movies, thus Londo does make sense. When they chopped the two previously released movies from the UK (or wherever you are?) release, they obviously didn't think to change the artwork.
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* The Season 1 set of ''[[The Middle]]'' shows the aunts' dog Doris on the front cover with the main characters implying that she belongs to the Heck family.
* One version of the Season 4 set of ''[[Farscape]]'' features Rygel, Scorpius, Stark and Crais on the front. Stark is only in about five episodes in the whole season, and Crais ''died'' a season earlier and doesn't appear at all. Particularly bizarre because of the large amount of characters they had to pick from, nearly all of whom would be better.
* The Season 9 set of ''[[The X-Files]]'' prominently features David Duchovny's face,
** Speaking of ''The X-Files'', various Rolling Stones and other magazines had amusing 'shipper' covers of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in bed or otherwise in suggestive poses, which their agent counterparts were never seen in.
* ''[[Walking With Beasts]]'' was only ever released in Hungary on a pair of VHS tapes. These featured images and story descriptions for the first two episodes (one tape centered around the episode ''New Dawn'', the second was all about ''Whale Killer''<ref>
* The DVD of the [[Miniseries]] ''[[To the Ends of the Earth]]'' features Sam Neill's face largest and in the forefront, and his name and profile on the case spine,
* A UK DVD release of [[VR Troopers]] had the first season team on the first volume's cover, the second season team on the volume 2 cover, and [[Space Sheriff Gavan|the]] [[Space Sheriff Sharivan|Space]] [[Space Sheriff Shaider|Sheriffs]] on the volume 3 and box set covers. Only one of the Space Sheriffs is actually also a VR Trooper, meaning volume 3's and the box set's covers are telling a major fib, and all the episodes are from season 1, so the volume 2 cover was wrong as well.
=== Music ===
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20160214220857/http://www.perrific.com/cds/covers/beck.jpg badass mechanical thing with the horned animal skull with glowing eyes and a fiery red background] on the cover of Beck's ''Mellow Gold'' looks awesome, but is a bit misleading considering most of the music is more folksy than the cover would imply...
** On the other hand, some moments of the album are trippy (if not heavy) enough to fit the cover. listen to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lec_hUZ6dIM Sweet Sunshine] and see if you can't imagine that thing clanking around to the beat.
* Gary Numan's backing band put out one largely forgotten [[The Band Minus the Face]] album entitled ''For Future Reference'' under the name Dramatis. While the initial release had [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__ZenZ_-dWB0/SNcx0Fm0ZRI/AAAAAAAABRw/g3G6-svdUnk/s200/fro.jpeg a cover just featuring a photograph of the band], in 2000 it would be re-released with a cover with [https://web.archive.org/web/20110113170100/http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre200/e241/e24162qwjlu.jpg one ambiguously shadowy face on it that might or might not be Gary Numan], and billed as an album called ''The Dramatis Project'' by Tubeway Army Featuring Gary Numan. In fact Numan only contributed guest vocals for one song, and no members of Tubeway Army, the band that initially brought Numan fame, were involved.
* [[Jimi Hendrix]]'s ''[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/85/Axiscover.jpg/200px-Axiscover.jpg Axis: Bold as Love]'' has no traces of Indian music.
** Graphic designer's fault. Hendrix requested something that would show his Indian heritage. The British graphic designer assumed he meant ''actually'' Indian, not Native American. A different story claims that [[wikipedia:Axis: Bold as Love|Track Records' art department independently decided to cash in on a craze for Indian stuff]]. Either one is plausible, because hey, Hendrix never was really satisfied about his covers - he was point blank ignored by [[Reprise Records]] when he described what he wanted the cover of ''Electric Ladyland'' to be like, while UK distributor Track Records just went ahead and printed a cover with gobs o' nude chicks. The only ones he never really complained about were for ''Are You Experienced''.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140124000242/http://betterpropaganda.com/images/artwork/Share_The_Fantasy-godheadSilo_480.jpg This cover] for the album ''Share the Fantasy'' by Godheadsilo makes it seem like a [[Black Metal]]-esque cover, but the music is really psychedelic noise rock.
* [http://img.maniadb.com/images/album/172/172212_1_f.jpg This cover] for the album ''Visit Me'' by R&B group ''Changing Faces''. Which would suggest a lot of sex driven songs. It's not... the album has nothing to do with sexual themes or topics. The album consists of [[Lighter and Softer]] R&B songs about relationships and the inherent drama.
* The Kinks' album Face to Face features an iconic 60s cover that includes a white background, and some pretty psychedelic colors and art. The Kinks' frontman, Ray Davies, has stated that he was never happy with the cover, and that he thought a simple black cover much better suited the style of the album itself.
* [[David Bowie]]'s early albums ''Space Oddity'' and ''The Man Who Sold the World'' got the [[Trend Covers]] treatment after ''The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars'' hit it
* Nearly every single Super Eurobeat cover lives and breathes this trope, quite notably in [http://www.eurobeat-prime.com/covers/seb175.jpg Super Eurobeat 175], which features upbeat and fun tunes such as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-xTpK7n2B4 this.]
* Famously, the cover for ''Led Zeppelin IV'' (which doesn't even feature a title!) shows a significantly weathered image of an old man on a rural road, suggesting that the record was going to be nothing but hippie folk music. While there ''is'' some of that ("The Battle Of Evermore," for instance), the tracks that most people remember from this album are the heavy metal standards "Black Dog" and "Rock And Roll" - and, of course, "Stairway To Heaven," which actually ''starts out'' as a medieval ballad, but has morphed into a full-blown headbanger by the climax.
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=== [[Professional Wrestling]] ===
* Wrestling posters and DVD covers will often feature one of their Divas (and one of the [[Faux Action Girl
** If he ''had'' turned face, that would have been the creepiest foreshadowing ever. Yeah, he was holding a dove, but his ''face!''
=== Tabletop Games ===
* The box for ''Space Crusade'' (basically ''HeroQuest'' set in the ''[[Warhammer
* The old boxed sets for the Basic version of the Dungeons & Dragons game invariably showed a party of heroes engaged in glorious battle with a dragon of some description. The Basic D&D rules only provided information for advancement up to 3rd level, meaning that if your Basic-level adventurer met up with a dragon of any sort, the resulting [[Curb Stomp Battle]] would wipe you out within a round or two.
=== Video Games ===
* ''[[Doki Doki Literature Club!]]'''s cover looks colorful, happy, and such. Which actually matches the parts of the game. This trope is mitigated by the content warning.
* Occasionally a game will get away with using beta screenshots on the back of the game box, sometimes these only faintly resemble the finished game. An example of this is [https://web.archive.org/web/20120526015108/http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/2/256222_16855_back.jpg the boxart for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos] which shows buildings a lot taller than the units themselves, as well as units that weren't even in the final game (although most were added later in the expansion pack or through modding).
** [[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]] had the same thing happen as well. [http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/5148/darknuttwilight1cq7.jpg One of the screenshots] on the back of the box is from a beta version of the game that had a magic meter when the final game is among the few non-handheld installments in the series since the second game (the first to have a magic meter) to lack one. This led people believe that at some point in the game Link would get access to spells, but they were all sadly mistaken.
* ''[[Commandos]] 2'' backcover features screenshots from missions which have been modified by the development team between their editing and the release of the game. The most obvious is the presence in a picture of a member of the team which isn't present in this particular mission in the finished game.
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** There are a ''lot'' of NES and SNES games with anime-style artwork which doesn't look anything like the American box art. This is understandable, given that most Americans didn't even know what anime ''was'' at the time, and certainly not the intended age group for those consoles. For the record, the girl with the big paddle is, in fact, in the game: she's the tennis player boss.
* ''World Series Baseball 2K1'' for the [[Sega Dreamcast]] came on the heels of the ultra-successful ''NBA'' and ''NFL 2K'' (the latter being a system mover in its own right), both developed by Visual Concepts, and ''WSB'' was presented as a sim-like entry along the other Sega Sports entries. However, the gameplay was actually a port of a Sega arcade game, and left the box in blatant lies. It boasted things like hot zones, scouting reports, and weather changes, neither of which were in the game. Also neither in the game were sim-like gameplay and user-controlled fielding, which among other flaws made the game universally panned, and the series was properly handed off to Visual Concepts the next year.
* The ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series does it over and over. On the cover of ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]'' there is a hooker who has appeared only in the first mission, on the cover on ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Vice City]]'' there is a stripper who some think doesn't even appear in the game, and on the cover of ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]]'' there is a woman who never appears in the game and a gang member who is named only "Scarface".
** Done by Rockstar again, in the ad campaign for ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]''. The cover is a fairly inoffensive [[Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You]] of Marston, but posters show prominent illustrations of a Mexican prostitute NPC with no role in the plot to speak of, and super-sexy depictions of Bonnie and Luisa with tons of cleavage, both of whom were pretty but normal-looking in the game.
* The US cover for [[Konami]]'s ''[[Suikoden I]]'' featured what were ''supposed'' to be scenes of various characters from the game; however, they had a completely talentless artist do it, and he rendered them so [[Off-Model]] that they're all hideous and only one or two are even recognizable as being certain characters from the game. Not exactly deceptive, but inaccurate nonetheless, and earns the US version of the game a position among the most awful game cover arts of all time. They get some points for the inexplicable [[Bruce Campbell]] lookalike, mind you...
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** The [http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/mega-man-/cover-art/gameCoverId,67365/ European cover] for ''Mega Man'' was somewhat closer in appearance to the in-game graphics.
** The box art for ''[[Mega Man X]] 7'' prominently displays the [[Optional Party Member]] title character, hiding the [[Replacement Scrappy|real main character]] in shadow to the right.
*** Axl is featured on the DVD label and the instruction book, though. He also appears front and center on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20120526015236/http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/9/561699_26821_front.jpg Japanese cover].
* ''Mobile Light Force'' and ''Mobile Light Force 2'' (better known as [[Macekre
* Video games based on college athletics cannot use the image of a current athlete on the cover; it would void their amateur status. So the cover is almost always a standout player who recently completed their eligibility, meaning that you can almost never play as the athlete on the cover of the game box.
** One game in the NCAA Football series instead shows a mascot. Another edition of NCAA Football has Super Bowl XXXI MVP Desmond Howard on the cover, who was retired from the NFL at the time.
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* On the NES, Konami usually did good artwork of their game covers that left things just ambiguous enough that it didn't matter. But when they designed the cover of The Goonies II, everything just went to crap. Assumedly unable to afford the royalties for using the actor's likenesses, the artist just drew them all to look like [[Mark Hamill]].
* The box art for ''[[Nintendo Wars|Advance Wars: Days of Ruin / Dark Conflict]]'' really makes the very heroic moral pillar Captain Brenner / Lt. O'Brian look like a villain, due to a combination of the lighting, his beard and hair and his head being in a position in the art befitting of an [[Evil Overlooker]].
* The ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'' cover has Crono, Frog, and Marle fighting a boss. The boss is in the wrong location (in fact, a location that doesn't exist in the game), he's being fought with the wrong party, and Marle is using a flame spell when she's [[An Ice Person|an ice spell user]]. ''And they kept it for the DS release!'' This is made even more bizarre by
** This is somewhat turned into a [[Cover Drop]] in the DS version, as there is a fight with that creature, in an area similar to that on the box art in the bonus dungeon...but doing the shown move (Frost Arc) on said monster heals it.
* The cover of ''[[Spore]] Creature Creator'' shows two creatures with embossed, segmented plates running down their torso. These creatures cannot be built, and after the release of the full game there is still no texture that even vaguely resembles an exoskeleton.
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* The box for ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' features Angela's face, and nothing else, on the cover. Angela is a character that you encounter a couple times throughout the game... but the much more important female character who you encounter far more often and who plays a major role in the story, is Maria, who is nowhere to be found.
** The cover of the HD collection does feature a very stylish and creepy image of Maria - but unfortunately, it has nothing from ''[[Silent Hill 3]]'' except for the original box art, downsized and included (next to the downsized original cover for 2).
* The cover artwork of the ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' NES game features a cel artwork from the anime series which depicts Kenshiro sparring with his brother Toki,
** The Japanese cover of Sega's ''Hokuto no Ken'' side-scroller for the [[Master System]] (the one that was released overseas as ''Black Belt'') features [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Rei]], who is not in the game at all.
* Not only the cover in this case. ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' prominently showed fan favorite [[Badass]] Solid Snake in the cover, the comic inside, and all the promotional material. Turns out you spend most of the game playing as [[White-Haired Pretty Boy|blond-haired prettyboy]] Raiden.
** Possibly lampshaded by
** The cover art of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]: [[Mission Pack Sequel|VR Missions]]'' is nothing more than an image of the Cyborg Ninja, giving the impression that the player will control a good portion of the game as him. However, he's only playable in three of the 300 featured missions.
** The cover artwork for the MSX2 version of the original ''[[Metal Gear
* The packaging for ''Discovery Kids: Dolphin Discovery'' for Nintendo DS has [https://web.archive.org/web/20090621120219/http://consumerist.com/5271127/gamer-tricked-into-buying-lame-ds-dolphin-title-by-erroneous-ad-publisher-dragging-its-fins a blurb describing, and screenshots from, an entirely different game]. Sure, the actual game at least involves dolphins, but everything else is wrong.
* The original NES release of ''[[Super Mario Bros 3]]'' had a screenshot on the back of the package of a level that never made it into the final game (see [http://www.mobygames.com/game/super-mario-bros-3/cover-art/gameCoverId,95697/ here], the second screenshot), leading many players to become quite confused when the level never actually showed up in game play. [http://www.mobygames.com/game/super-mario-bros-3/cover-art/gameCoverId,16094/ Later printings] of the box art corrected this, moving the bottom screenshot to the second place and adding a screenshot from the bonus memory game in its place (which, ironically, featured a grammatical error that was corrected in the ROM at the same time).
** That level is one of the [[Dummied Out]] levels in the game.
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* The Box art for ''Demon Sword'' features a [[Barbarian Hero]] wielding the game's eponymous weapon. The protagonist in-game is a [[Wuxia]]-type warrior who can leap the height of the screen [[In a Single Bound]].
* Not really cover art (there is no cover art in this case), but the [[Sex Sells|horrific]] ads for the [[Allegedly Free Game|freemium]] Civ clone ''[[Evony]]'' feature busty women imploring you to "Save the Queen", when it is a ''strategy'' game, not an RPG (and hence you'll never see them ingame) and, according to those who've played it, ''there is no queen at all''.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20100203235513/http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001286.html They aren't even pretending] to have anything to do with the game anymore. Thankfully, you can count on the marketing geniuses at [[Plants vs. Zombies|PopCap]] to come to the rescue with their own [https://web.archive.org/web/20090801095310/http://www.offworld.com/2009/07/evony-agony-popcaps-plants-vs.html undead twist].
* The cover of the PC version of ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' featured screenshots of a different port (either SNES or Amiga)
* The cover for the North American version of SNES game ''[[Ranma ½]]: Hard Battle'' has an ugly, highly [[Off-Model]] [[wikipedia:File:Hard Battle cover.jpg|illustration]] of Ranma, Ry?ga, and Genma.
* Compare the cover of the [http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/out-of-this-world/cover-art/gameCoverId,73816/ original Amiga version] of ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'' (with artwork by the developer of the game, which does resemble the in-game graphics) to its [http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/out-of-this-world/cover-art/gameCoverId,68422/ SNES version].
* The US release for the first [[TurboGrafx-16]] ''[[Bomberman]]'' had [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/31/Bomberman_%28TurboGrafx-16%29_boxart.jpg this] as its cover.
** There's also [https://web.archive.org/web/20140729020412/http://www.mobygames.com/game/bomberman-/cover-art/gameCoverId,48253/ the American NES cover], which is just plain [[Hilarious in Hindsight]] what with the abomination that is ''Act Zero''.
*** Which was probably done in order to make non-astute parents and kids think they were buying a sequel to ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20111107193956/http://edoscuro.home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/fds_metroid.jpg Metroid]''. And for comparison's sake, [http://www.1101.com/nintendo/famicom_mini/images/bomber_man.jpg this is what Bomberman's Famicom box looked like.]
* While it wasn't on the cover of the game itself, the artwork done for [[Nintendo Power]]'s ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' strategy guide [http://www.creativeuncut.com/art_final-fantasy-1_a.html probably qualifies]. Feel free to show this to people who always associate the series with being full of [[Bishounen]].
** Related are the two [[Signature Style|"classic"]] logos for ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'', though it should be noted that the game's various releases have box art that does and does not use the trope. The Japanese GBA art features Kain Highwind. The American DS art features Golbez. Both of them are in the game, but neither of them are the hero.
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** The Western box arts for early Sega Master System games were often [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|made of crack]]. Observe: [[wikipedia:File:Blackbeltgame.jpg|An exploding, disembodied leg]], [[wikipedia:File:Sms pro wrestling box.jpg|a man carrying his head around]] [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and]] [[Alex Kidd]] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/AlexKiddInMiracleWorldBox.jpg depicted as a blond] [[Off-Model|when he's actually brown-haired]].
** The [[Phantasy Star]] series is somewhat infamous for its English-version box art. PSII has a Rolf whose face is apparently melting off, standing with a Nei with curved alien horn-antenna and a blouse where her [[Cute Monster Girl]] ears and bodysuit used to be. PSIV ''almost'' avoided this, because they got ''Boris Freakin' Vallejo'' to provide the artwork for the cover, except Rika is brunette twentysomething, Rune is a skinny 40-something with grey hair, and Chaz, rather than being sixteen, svelte, and naive, is a bit like a 30-year-old [[Conan the Barbarian]] look-alike.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]] vs. [[Jack the Ripper]]'' has several examples of a [https://web.archive.org/web/20121011030825/http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/6/955116_123650_front.jpg cover lying in your face].
** Holmes is shown wearing a deerstalker hat and coat. In-game, the only hat he wears is a top hat and a black suit. The hat issue is [[Lampshade Hanging|cleverly pointed out]] during a puzzle to determine what the killer looked like from several witness accounts. Holmes tells Watson to get a few articles of clothing, including "that deerstalker I never wear but people seem to think I have day and night".
** Jack the Ripper is shown with the top hat and cape. We never actually see Jack the Ripper in action (first-person scenes notwithstanding), and {{spoiler|Jack wouldn't even ''wear'' those clothes due to his class status.}}
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* ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days|Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2]]'' features [[Mickey Mouse]] in the Organization cloak, which leads people to believe he's a prominent figure in the actual game. Instead, he's featured for one cutscene near the game's end, and doesn't even encounter Roxas.
** That scene was also in the trailers, again, hinting it might be important, leading to the Sister Trope, [[Never Trust a Trailer]]. The trailer for this game featured a few other cutscenes like this as they were all from the (few) higher quality ones.
* ''[[
* [[Ubisoft]]'s 'Imagine Happy Cooking' proudly displays a very dull housewife to appeal to grandmothers and boring people alike, coming across as a tired lump of shovelware. Surprisingly, the game itself is a very cutesy Japanese-style visual novel complete with friendship meters and gift-giving, and the cooking games are far more well-made compared to ''Cooking Mama'', as you actually cook three-course meals complete with sides, desserts and dressings.
* In the box art for ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', you see a group of adventurers in level 15-30ish gear taking on a dragon in an outside worldzone, which only happened at level 60 with a full group (40 people). Not to mention that one of the characters is wielding a sword 'Teebu's Blazing Longsword' that is incredibly rare to acquire in game. The original box art for the Burning Crusade also included a picture of a character riding a Nether Drake, something that was not possible until late in the expansion cycle.
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* The cover to ''[[Deadly Premonition]]'' has a definite "ultra gory action/survival horror" theme. It's actually a standard survival horror games that, while it ''does'' have a good amount of gore, focuses more on the detective work than the action.
* The cover for the original ''[[X-COM]]'' game, ''UFO - Enemy Unknown'', features a huge bug-eyed monstrosity which does not appear in the game in any way, shape, or form. To be fair, showing something that ''did'' would be a subversion of the title.
* In the ''[[Double Dragon]]'' series, it is established that Marian is Billy's girlfriend, who is the Lee brother that wears blue in the games. Yet on the cover artwork used in pretty much every version of ''Double Dragon II: The Revenge'', she is shown embracing the one who wears red. Either, Billy doesn't mind sharing his girlfriend with his brother Jimmy, or the artist switched their colors by mistake.
* ''[[Space Station Silicon Valley]]'' has a picture of the fire fox on the game cart and instruction manual (he's the only animal in the picture). Although he's one of the most fun animals to control, you only encounter him twice and NEVER play as him, unless you use a cheat code.
* The PAL cover artwork for [[Atelier Iris 3]], bizarrely, [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/51/Grand_Phantasm.jpg shows every character] ''but'' the title one.
* Rampant in the cover art of Atari and other early-era video games. The artwork on the box and in the manuals was always way better than the blocky shapes on the screen. Take the cover of [http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb112/sicboypeachy/Warlords-F.jpg Warlords], versus the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131125201155/http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/warlords/2600_06.png ingame screenshot] for instance.
* ''[[Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure]]'''s Playstation box art had Cherie, the protagonist's mother, but not the protagonist herself. Oddly enough, Cherie only appears in her angel form in the second-to-last chapter. Granted, she does 'does' have a big effect on the overall plot, but the fact that Cornet isn't featured on the cover threw lots of people off. Corrected in the Nintendo DS release with new art.
* ''[[Fossil Fighters]]'' features the T-Rex, not only on the cover of the box, but also prominently in promotional material, being the game's mascot. In reality, you don't get a T-Rex until ''after'' you beat the game. And even then it's rather rare to find. In fact, most of the art are of [[Stock Dinosaurs]] that you don't get until later in the game.
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* The cover of ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]'' is only a picture of Lightning, similar to the [[Final Fantasy XIII|previous game's]] cover. Unlike the previous game, however, she is not the main protagonist (who is her sister Serah this time), nor does she play a huge role in the story.
* ''[[Tomb Raider]] Chronicles'' shows Lara Croft in a cat spy suit jumping out of a building shooting at someone with her signature dual pistols. Lara does infiltrate a building in the advertised outfit and the cut scene for the first level even shows her shooting a vent grate off with a pistol, but in the actual game, she doesn't have her pistols, but a limited ammo based machine gun.
* The box art of ''[[Might and Magic|Might and Magic VI]]'' shows four heroes (presumably the Player Characters) fighting a red dragon, one of which is charging it with a lance on a horse. There is no mechanic in the game that lets the PCs ride horses.
=== Web Animation ===
* [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNhTppTPvD2qox0ni9lR_Lg Detective Void] is a [[YouTube]] series animated adaptation of ''[[SCP Foundation]]'', with this as a [[Running Gag]]. Each thumbnail shows the eponymous detective (an [[Author Avatar]] of the poster) about to suffer a horrid fate at the hands of the profiled SCP, something that is often contradictory to what happens in the actual video.
=== Webcomics ===
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* The second ''[[Electric Wonderland]]'' comic has a cover page with Aerynn exclaiming, "[[The Big Country|I said I would shoot, but you didn't believe me!]] [[The Ren and Stimpy Show|Why didn't you believe me??]]" She doesn't actually shoot anyone in that comic.
* [[How I Became Yours]] not only has scenes that don't happen on the cover, but it also has several fabricated positive reviews.
=== [[Web Original]] ===
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== Parodies ==
=== [[Comic Books]] ===
* ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'', mirroring the earlier ''[[Animaniacs]]'', was spun off in its own comic book series. While the covers of both titles rarely showed scenes or concepts from the stories inside, the first Pinky and the Brain cover was notable for following the guidelines at the top of this page explicitly, with the Brain pronouncing 'This is the way to make it big in the comic business!'. The cover featured Pinky, the Brain, superheroine costumes, and a box of Kleenex. And it followed the one-inch-from-centre rule{{context}}.
** Was the Kleenex to help the mice pad out their costumes, or [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|was it supposed to be for the reader?]]
* Parodied in an issue of ''[[Excalibur (Comic Book)|Excalibur]]'' where [[Spider-Man]] guest-starred. The cover prominently displays our web-headed hero, who brags about how he's taking over this comic book, even though he already has four series of his own. None of the members of Excalibur themselves are depicted except for Captain Britain, who is shoved into the background.
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* One of the most common fake-out covers is the image of all the heroes lying dead in a pile while the issue's villains stand triumphant. A recent [[Justice League of America]] issue spoofs this by having one of the villains say to the reader, "We don't ''really'' beat them...but it's a heck of a cover, isn't it?"
* ''[[She Hulk]]'' had some fun with this. One particular issue had Punisher, Wolverine, and Spider-Man featured prominently on the cover, while She-Hulk tells the readers that they only appear ''on'' the book, not ''in'' it.
=== Film ===
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* Terry Pratchett's ''Only You Can Save Mankind'' parodies this wonderfully with the advertising material for the eponymous game: "Actual games shots taken from a version you haven't bought".
* Whenever you see a cover of one of [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s [[Ciaphas Cain]] '''(HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!)''' novels, you are not seeing an accurate depiction of events - Cain has a Bolter and is [http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/Product/DefaultBL/xlarge/defender-of-the-imperium.jpg massively] ([http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/Product/DefaultBL/xlarge/Emperors-Finest.jpg I'm talking Astartes level]) ripped in those covers. If you've read the books, you know that this is nothing of the sort (for one thing, he always uses a laspistol). The rationalization is that these covers are supposed to be motivational recruitment posters from ''[[In-Universe|within the Imperium]]''.
** Another big offense is the apparent lack of Jurgen, who is stated as always being at Cain's side. This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the novels when Amberly points out that Cain hated
*** There IS Jurgen on [http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/Product/DefaultBL/xlarge/Caves-of-Ice.jpg the cover] of the ''Caves of Ice''.
** Except that Cain ''is'' as huge and ripped as
* Parodied in ''[[The Areas of My Expertise]]'', a book of fake trivia:.
{{quote|If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported as "UNSOLD AND DESTROYED" to the Publisher and is stolen property. Also, you should be aware that the cover was awesome. It featured a painting of a metallic silver dragon flying up either to rescue or eat a beautiful, nearly nude sword maiden as she falls off a cliff. All of this is overseen by the bitter glare of the ever-uncaring Triple Suns. Plus, a very flattering portrait of the Author appeared within the Main Sun.}}
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=== Webcomics ===
* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' book ''
** In the Order of the Stick board game, one of the cards is [[Cover Drop|"Dragon from the front of the box."]]
* ''[[The Wotch]]'' lampshades the practice in [http://www.thewotch.com/?epDate=2006-11-28 this cover].
*
** Referencing that strip, the artist ''intentionally'' invokes this trope for the actual cover for that book. It features numerous characters who never met in-story, all crammed together, [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|and a ninja]], watching while Kevyn does something science-y. Generally, covers tend toward compressed and exaggerated, this one is more so than most.
* [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=557 This] ''[[Sequential Art (webcomic)|Sequential Art]]'' strip.
* Deliberately used by Justin Pierce for the last published chapter of ''Killroy And Tina''. The chapter is about Brandon gaining a magic glove that grants him [[Super Speed]], but eventually having to relinquish it. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120515082843/http://www.graphicsmash.com/comics/killroyandtina.php?view=archive&chapter=13177&mpe=0 This is the cover image.] Pierce said that he went with this [[The Silver Age of Comic Books|Silver Age]]-homage because his original cover idea gave away ''too much'' of the plot.
* Sven's book in ''Will Write For Chocolate'' is about [https://web.archive.org/web/20090820193217/http://www.willwriteforchocolate.com/2006/06/14/eva-sympathizes/ an all-male exploratory mission in outer space], but the book cover features [https://web.archive.org/web/20090820192949/http://www.willwriteforchocolate.com/2006/07/12/svens-book-signing/ a slinky blond in a leopard-skin bikini].
* Parodied in ''[[The Noob]]''. The squid people are the prominent feature of the game's expansion, but the [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] demanded it be replaced with a pair of boobs. 3D boobs.
**
* ''[[Nana's Everyday Life]]'' has every single strip start with a panel in which [[Hope Spot|Nana is cheerfully waving at the readers with a blue sky and a nice little suburb-ish house in the background]]. Nana's Everyday Life is the most horrific [[Black Comedy]]/[[Dead Baby Comedy]]/[[Black Comedy Rape]] webcomic that can be found. Except, it eventually [[Tear Jerker|stops pretending to be a "Comedy"]].
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[Regular Show]]'' parodies this when Mordecai and Rigby plug in an 8-bit game and compare it (favorably) to the cover illustration.
== Real Life ==
* [[Defied]] at a bookstore in Ottawa, Canada, where [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/troubadour-books-hiding-covers-judgment-1.5030021 books that have covers that lie are wrapped in brown paper before being put on the shelves].
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Coming Attractions]]
[[Category:Home Video Tropes]]
[[Category:Paratext]]
[[Category:Cover Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Covers Always Lie]]
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