History Main / CoversAlwaysLie

* The cover for the 2000 reissue of Patrick Senecal's ''Aliss,'' a BloodierAndGorier take on ''Literature/AliceInWonderland,'' features the heroine facing off against [[ThoseTwoBadGuys Bone and Chair]] (TheMadHatter 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 finds Bone moderately attractive.

* ''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]].

* The cover for Creator/MercedesLackey'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.

* ''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 DarkSkinnedBlonde 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.

* The heroine of ''AshASecretHistory'' is a WhiteHairedPrettyGirl, with her pale hair being repeatedly referred to and turning out to be a plot point. This didn't stop one cover artist from drawing her with red hair, however.

* In the issue of the original {{Justice League|OfAmerica}} where the first Mr. Terrific dies, {{Batman}} is pointing at Mr. Terrific's killer, with RedTornado, PowerGirl, WonderWoman, and Jay Garrick (Flash I) behind him. The murderer is [[spoiler: Jay Garrick, though [[NotHimself he was possessed at the time and it wasn't really his fault.]]]]

* Dave Dorman's cover for the comic adaptation of TimBurton's ''Film/BatmanReturns'' 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 MichaelKeaton.

* Shortly after the [[{{Batman}} Batmobile]] was introduced in the comics (Detecive #362) following the Creator/AdamWest movie and TV series, (the first of which looked nothing like the Lincoln Futura Batmobile), it [[http://pics.imcdb.org/0ge14/145900-BatMobile4.jpg slowly started to resemble]] the Futura more and more (Detective #371 and #375, though later issues change it to look like a Jaguar E-Type), the cover of Detective #375 has Robin drving the Batmobile and Batman waving to a crowd. The Batmobile does not appear in that issue.

* EdutainmentGame series ''JumpStart'' gives us some examples. The original cover for ''[=JumpStart=] Spanish'' showed Mr. Hopsalot, who was indeed the game's main character, on the cover. However, somewhere around 2001 or 2002, [=JumpStart=] arbitrarily decided that Frankie the dog should be the main character and mascot of the entire [=JumpStart=] series. As a result, in 2003, the ''[=JumpStart=] Spanish'' cover was changed to one that prominently featured Frankie and didn't feature Hopsalot at all...''even though Frankie didn't appear in [=JumpStart=] Spanish''.

* Earlier editions of ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' had a youngish wizard with a short brown beard and a purple robe on the back cover, presumably Nicolas Flamel or Professor Quirrell. It's most likely the former, as he appears to have the philosopher's stone in his pocket, though it should be noted that Flamel's appearance is never described and he never even appears in the book itself. Later editions replaced him with someone who was clearly Dumbledore.
** 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 the fact that one of the most famous covers in literature was the result of a single day's work.

* The American manga ''Return to Film/{{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 ToiletHumor in [[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/multimoog/labyrinth/2.gif a completely different "amercanime" art style]] by one Chris [[MeaningfulName Lie]].

* The old, pre-Imperial Edition unrated DVD of ''{{Caligula}}'' claims it to be a straight-up Roman epic in the vein of ''Film/{{Gladiator}}''. The cover makes ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION that the film is hardcore pornography with, in places, unsimulated penetration. Plus actual urination and extreme violence, among other things.

* Subverted in ''PhineasAndFerb'' where Candace immediately dismisses books based on their covers, when her mom says not to judge a book by its cover Candace argues that books have covers to capture someones interest, and then asks her mom why she picked these books to which Linda begrudgingly admits because they looked interesting and leaves.

* Subverted in 'PhineasAndFerb'' where Candace immediatly dismisses books based on their covers, when her mom says not to judge a book by its cover Candace argues that books have covers to capture someones interest, and then asks her mom why she picked these books to which Linda begrudingly admits because they looked interesting and leaves.

* Taken to magnificent extremes during the 80's with VHS home video releases. Two excellent examples are ''[[http://www.vhsisland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/frogs.jpg Frogs]]'', a film not featuring giant man-eating frogs at all, and ''[[http://i677.photobucket.com/albums/vv139/intruder2k/survlast.jpg Survivors of the Last Race]]'' which at no time features anything at all on the front cover and instead is a film about a small group of bad actors trapped in a fallout bunker.

* Earlier editions of ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' had a youngish wizard with a short brown beard and a purple robe on the back cover, possibly Nicolas Flamel or Professor Quirrell. Later editions replaced him with someone who was clearly Dumbledore.

* One issue of ''Comicbook/AvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' has a cover with IronMan, CaptainAmerica, TheMightyThor, [[{{Ant-Man}} Giant-Man]], and TheWasp 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]].

* ''PennyArcade'''s book covers ([[http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1593074441/ref=sib_dp_pop_fc?ie=UTF8&p=S001 1]], [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/docs/gabe/pabook2.jpg 2]], [[http://images.darkhorse.com/covers/400/13/13979.jpg 3]]) all feature the two main characters, but that's about it. On the other hand, this may as good a way as any to represent [[GagSeries the comic]].

* ''Kendo Rage''. [[http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/4430/476848-box.png The cover]] looks similar to ''XenaWarriorPrincess'', but the game is cute, lighthearted, and anime-style. This game was actually the first of a trilogy of games known as "Makeruna! Makendou". The whole story and the characters' names had been rewritten for the American game market.