A work so iconic, it defines the creator. And makes people forget that He Also Did (other works, which you wouldn't believe if you didn't know).
In most cases, authors that create a great work and several lesser-known works can still be associated with all of them. However, if the work is popular enough, it overshadows all other aspects of their career. In extreme cases, the work becomes synonymous with the author's name.
For the actor version, see I Am Not Spock. Compare Magnum Opus Dissonance, Tough Act to Follow, One-Hit Wonder and Follow-Up Failure. Contrast One-Book Author for when the person has only made a single work.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Kentaro Miura and Berserk. It's literally impossible for Manga readers to mention one without bringing up the other, and any attempts to search for Miura's other works online will inevitably have "Berserk" in related searches, even if the other work belongs to a completely different genre.
- If you know Ken Ishikawa, it's because of Getter Robo. Any of his other work (most notably Kyomu Senki) is relegated to obscurity at best. The fact that most of his non-Getter work is both untranslated and never got adaptations doesn't help.
- Masashi Kishimoto is known for creating Naruto, its sequel series, and nothing else. He has created several one-shots before and afterward, as well as an unrelated serial manga that flopped because Naruto was a Tough Act to Follow.
- Akira Toriyama is most well-known as the creator of Dragon Ball. While his previous Dr. Slump manga was already a massive hit in Japan, Dragon Ball would overshadow it to such a degree that he would sometimes ask people what they thought of Dr. Slump when they were approaching him about their love of Dragon Ball. Similarly, Toriyama made many one-shots and limited manga serials throughout his career, such as Go! Go! Ackman and Sand Land, but you wouldn't know it with Dragon Ball's ubiquity. All of this is especially true in the west, as Dragon Ball is the only anime adaptation of his work that is readily available and dubbed into English.
Comic Books
- Alan Moore is associated with Watchmen and The Killing Joke, much to his dismay. Though his other work, V for Vendetta, is fairly well-known and got a film adaptation in 2006.
- Scott McCloud and Understanding Comics.
- At least for comics, Neil Gaiman is almost always associated with The Sandman. It's his longest comics work, it was critically and commercially successful, it became the flagship title for DC's Vertigo imprint and it was a rare example of a company-owned series that ended when the creative team brought it to a conclusion, rather than being cancelled due to falling sales or handed over to new work-for-hire creators. But it's far from his only comics work.
- In 2022, when Gaiman and Mark Buckingham returned to Marvel to finish their 1990s series Miracleman: The Silver Age, media attention was still almost entirely focused on the TV series adaptations of Gaiman's Sandman and Good Omens instead.
- Art Spiegelman and Maus.
- Themo Lobos and Mampato (ironically he was not the one who created Mampato)
- Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird will be forever remembered as the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Trying to find any of their comics non-related to said franchise is a rather difficult task.
Films — Live-Action
Literature
- George Orwell and 1984. Despite being responsible for any number of other exceptional books, the word "Orwellian" forever refers to the totalitarian, oppressive/suppressive government present in 1984; evidence for it is right here on the site. It doesn't help that his second most famous book, Animal Farm, concerns almost all of the same themes. In Britain, at least, he is remembered, at least to a degree, for his journalism relating to poverty in Britain, such as The Road to Wigan Pier.
- H. P. Lovecraft is another extreme example; Lovecraftian basically means Cosmic Horror Story and/or Eldritch Abomination.
- To complete the trifecta, Niccolò Machiavelli's non-fiction essay The Prince has forever ensured that "Machiavellian" will always be a synonym for amoral behavior in the pursuit of absolute power. Ironically, his other works are so pro-republican that many believe The Prince to be a Stealth Parody.
- Orson Scott Card and Ender's Game. He also wrote a bunch of sequels and several other series.
- C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia. Fans of Christian literature might know his other works, but they're not nearly as prominent in wider pop culture.
- J. R. R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.
- Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- L. Frank Baum and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He kept trying to move on to other works (even making one Oz book a Poorly Disguised Pilot) but nothing else sold.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sherlock Holmes stories, reportedly to the author's chagrin.
- John R. Erickson has written many decently reviewed non- Hank the Cowdog books (humorous autobiographical tales, other cowboy-focused nonfiction, the Riley McDaniels middle-grade mystery/adventure stories, and a cowboy version of The Epic of Gilgamesh), but relatively few of his fans have read or heard of them.
- Chances are if you know the name Ann M. Martin name well, it's as the author of The Baby-Sitters Club series before any of her other books.
- A. A. Milne and Winnie the Pooh.
- Herman Melville wrote a whole bunch of books. You probably only know Moby-Dick, and possibly the short story "Bartleby the Scrivener."
- J. D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye.
- Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.
- J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan.
- J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter.
- Joseph Heller and Catch-22.
"When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'" – Joseph Heller
- L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics. Battlefield Earth runs a close second.
- God and The Bible. It'd carry over for all its other authors too, but listing all those would fill up the page.
- Charles Darwin and On The Origin of Species.
- Terry Pratchett and the Discworld.
- Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Venus in Furs.
- Ian Fleming and James Bond
- For many years, Philippa Gregory was known mostly for writing The Other Boleyn Girl and the rest of the Tudor Court series, though especially The Other Boleyn Girl. Gregory had actually written a dozen novels before The Other Boleyn Girl that were quite successful (A Respectable Trade even got a film adaptation in 1998), but her Tudor novels overshadowed them for much of the 2000s, to the point that reprintings of her older works came with "From the author of The Other Boleyn Girl" stamped on the covers. She finally managed to move past this in the 2010s to a degree, becoming better known for the Cousins' War series. These days, Gregory is strongly associated with both her Tudor novels and her Wars of the Roses novels. It probably helps that they've been merged into a single series, containing fifteen books in total.
Live-Action TV
Music
- Mike Oldfield has recorded many albums, but is mostly known for Tubular Bells, to the point where Virgin Records constantly pestered him about recording a sequel. Oldfield would leave the label in the early '90s partly because of that, not putting out Tubular Bells II until after he signed a deal with WEA and Reprise Records.
Tabletop Games
- Dominion is a Long Runner that started the Deckbuilding Game genre, so it defines the career of its designer Donald X. Vaccarino for most board gamers.
Video Games
- Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear Solid, to his annoyance.
- Bungie, despite making ground-breaking series such as Marathon and Myth, will forevermore be known as the studio that created the Halo series.
- AlphaDream have created quite a few games over their studio's lifespan, but they're mostly known for the Mario & Luigi series.
- FromSoftware is known primarily for Dark Souls and their similar games Demon's Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. Not many people realize that they've been releasing games since 1994, including the King's Field and Armored Core series.
- Game Freak and Pokémon. Also for that matter, Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri and artist Ken Sugimori, who are also mostly known for their work on Pokemon despite having worked on a fair few games at the company in the past.
- Core Design was a fairly prolific developer throughout the 16-bit and 32-bit era with many successful titles on the Amiga and Sega CD, but most will recognize the company as the original developer of the Tomb Raider series and nothing else.
- Rovio Entertainment is remembered for its Angry Birds franchise to the extent that fans got really sour when the original game was removed from the App Store, among several others.
- Mojang has worked on other games, but they are usually considered to be synonymous with Cash-Cow Franchise Minecraft.
- Shigesato Itoi is a fairly prolific copywriter with a number of projects and business ventures to his name, but since most of these didn't hop the Pacific, he's best known outside of Japan as "the guy who made EarthBound".
- Scott Cawthon has had a long career in independent video game development, but he is only associated with his most successful franchise: Five Nights at Freddy's.
Western Animation
- Whenever Kennedy Cartoons is brought up, it's almost always in the context of their animation on Tiny Toon Adventures, even though they've worked on many other shows after that.
- John Kricfalusi and The Ren & Stimpy Show.
- Nowadays, Woody Woodpecker has become this for Walter Lantz.
- Carl Stalling composed music for a number of studios during The Golden Age of Animation, but most people are only aware of his Looney Tunes compositions.
- Fred Wolf Films produced several animated specials and television shows, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) is the show permanently associated with that studio.
- Trey Parker and Matt Stone and South Park.
