ABSTRACT
The concept of the author figure seems to provide a kind of organizing principle to the study of imaginary worlds. However, in recent years in particular the question of authorship, and whose voice or voices are privileged in the construction of increasingly dispersed, transmedial imaginary worlds, has become ever more contested. Despite the potentially large number of prospective creators involved in the "transauthorial" model of imaginary world-building, Mark J. P. Wolf suggests that certain facets of the unifying concept of the author persist and remain useful. For Derek Johnson, franchising's reliance on shared creativity and collaboration puts it at odds with traditional, individual-centric models of authorship. Despite the necessary scholarly attention being paid to the complex social and industrial relations that forge the polyglot authorship of most contemporary imaginary worlds, the growing prominence of transmedia storytelling has, in many ways, ensured the ongo ing primacy of the unified author function in their commercial and critical reception.
