So much for beauty being skin deep. Maxim’s latest ‘hot’ list proves you don’t just have to  be another pretty face to get noticed. A little campaigning and a lot of controversy can also help.

Beauty can only take you so far if you want to make Maxim magazine’s annual Hot 100 list. For starters, a successful modeling, acting or singing career—thanks in part (or in total) to said good looks—certainly helps. But if 2012′s list is any indication, apparently getting attention can also equal being hot.

Maybe that’s because Maxim was feeling pretty democratic this year when for the first time it allowed readers to help determine the top 100 hotties. As usual, the list was dominated by those beautiful models, actresses and singers, but there were a few groundbreaking entries.

Take Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” He became the first male to crack what’s touted as “The Definitive List of the World’s Most Beautiful Women.” But then again, he has a penchant for mounting campaigns to get things named after him—and obviously to get him on lists too.

Then there’s animated hottie Lois Griffin of “Family Guy” fame who comes in at No. 85—the first cartoon to make Maxim’s list. (Perhaps Marge Simpson’s Playboy centerfold spread helped pave the way for magazines—and people—to look at cartoons as something more than a piece of ink.)

As groundbreaking as those two making the list is, the host of the satirical news show and the animated mom were upstaged by the controversial inclusion of one-time murder suspect Amanda Knox, who was accused of killing her British roommate while studying abroad and then later sentenced to prison. Knox served four years before being acquitted and returning home to America late last year.

“Foxy Knoxy,” which the magazine dubbed the 24-year-old, rated enough votes to come in at No. 92, but at the cost of outrage and disbelief. Naysayers took to Twitter (what else?) to dismiss it as a joke, while others quipped that perhaps a murder accusation might boost their own chances of making the list.

But the subjective perceptions of beauty aside, some of the concerns voiced do raise a valid point. Would Knox have even had a shot had it not been for her publicized international trial? Had she not had “murder suspect” attached to her name at one time, would we even know it?

Even in more general terms—she was acquitted after all—does being a hot topic make someone hot? Or is this just a byproduct of holding court in the headlines for a while?