Wolverine Publicity/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Wolverine Publicity in Literature include:

  • Cthulhu, of all things. In the original works of Lovecraft, he appeared only once, in The Call of Cthulhu (not to be confused with the RPG based on his works), but has since come to be adopted as the symbol of Lovecraft, no doubt due to the work of Lovecraft's "protege", August Derleth, who did more than anyone else to help keep Lovecraft's writings in print after his death and also basically created the Cthulhu Mythos. Most of the core ideas that people today would describe as being part of the "Cthulhu Mythos" come not from Lovecraft at all, but Derleth's later imitative stories.
    • Same applies to all of the Old Ones, really. The only Lovecraftian god that actually plays a prominent role in more than a couple of stories is Nyarlahothep. Yog-Sothoth often has a fairly important role, but usually he's just invoked in spells, rather than making an actually appearance. Azathoth gets mentioned a lot too, but never actually appears in any of Lovecraft's stories.
      • Of course, since the world would END if Azathoth were to appear, there's a good reason to keep him from making a physical appearance in a story instead of verbal references.
    • Of course, none of this stopped Lovecraft from mentioning Cthulhu, Yog Sothoth, Azathoth and the Old Ones in general every chance he got, regardless of relevance to the story at hand. The moment someone mentions the Necronomicon, or starts muttering about other old books, or gives any sort of long expository speech, you have a fairly safe bet some of the big names will pop up.
  • Cross-promotion. Aside from the common example of "story in book by the author of popular book ", there's when older books get hijacked by adaptations into other media. One example this editor recalls was all of Arthur C. Clarke's books getting reissues whose covers depicted spaceships from the then-recent film 2001: A Space Odyssey... Including Tales From The White Hart, which didn't even HAVE spaceships.
  • Then there are things like "Tom Clancy's Op-Center," where Clancy's name is often the biggest thing on the cover even though he didn't actually write the series. He's credited as "creator," whatever that means.
    • This is a common publishing phenomenon wherein a bestselling author's name is placed prominently on the front cover in order to attract the sales that author normally generates, wherein his or her contribution may have been limited to an idea or an outline at most. Generally speaking, if a best-selling author's name appears on the cover in massive print followed by the name(s) of another author you've never even heard of in smaller letters, this trope's in play.
    • This is especially true for those suffering from Author Existence Failure; usually, whomever is finishing their work, or writing in the style of that person, gets their own name printed on the cover in a much smaller, less noticable typeface.
  • As noted below in Magazines, Rush Limbaugh is sometimes used for Wolverine Publicity, and Limbaugh claims it's no coincidence that Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations sold significantly more copies than Al Franken's other books.
  • Ever since Liquidon Ethereteel became a part of Stationery Voyagers (about two months in its initial inception after the series itself was first thought up back in 2000,) he has become the most-referenced Voyager in promotional materials for the series. Even the 2-minute "Crepuscular" animatic that was published to YouTube make an effort to throw him in at the last minute, whereas the other Voyagers don't get so much as one animated frame. In the series itself, he competes with Neone for the title of Spotlight-Stealing Squad also.
  • In the wake of Twilight, we're being inundated with reissued classic romances such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and Romeo and Juliet—all featuring black covers with close-up pictures of something red (usually a rose) and a very familiar typeface. In the case of the relatively short Romeo and Juliet, the typeface has been blown up to a ridiculous point size to inflate the page count to more closely match the Twilight readin' experience. (Nothing wrong with the last one, though; no matter your reading level, it's always nice not to have to squint.)
    • Not to mention that there is a giant sticker on Wuthering Heights that says "EDWARD AND BELLA'S FAVORITE BOOK!"
  • Roger McBride Allen wrote three novels[1] that take place in the same Universe as Isaac Asimov's Robot series. Asimov's name is so large on the cover of these books that you could be forgiven for thinking he wrote them.

Magazines

  • In 1995, Time Magazine ran a cover photo of a cigar-chomping Rush Limbaugh with the blurb, "Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?" The article inside only tangentially dealt with Limbaugh and mainly concerned the rise of "electronic populism" that would result from people having more TV and radio choices and from consumers getting more of their news from the Internet.
  • Barack Obama was EVERYWHERE in his prime years (around 2008), even before he was President.
  • Ron Paul. He hasn't won a thing yet in the 2012 Presidential race (and he didn't fare well in the 2008 Presidential race either) but he seems to be often praised as the future of American politics.
  • Cosmopolitan often promises BRAND NEW SEX SECRETS, but really just tells the reader the same stuff everybody knows. The worst cover example was, "Orgasm Guaranteed," while inside the magazine, it says there's no such thing.

  1. Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia