ABSTRACT
Hannibal Lecter has become one of Western culture’s most influential and enduring models of monstrosity since his emergence in 1981 in Thomas Harris’ first Lecter book, Red Dragon. Lecter is now at the center of an extensive cross-mediated mythology, the most recent incarnation of which is Bryan Fuller’s television (TV) program, Hannibal. A particularly significant innovation of Fuller’s series, which highlights the show’s transformational elements in relation to key recent developments in the broader landscape of Quality TV, is the symbiotic relationship between Hannibal and transformative fandom. The TV-auteur is a recent identity to emerge in both scholarly and popular discourse on Quality TV. The TV-auteur is the figurehead of ongoing attempts to elevate TV’s cultural capital, as has always been a key driving force behind Quality TV. Some TV-auteurs can be described as the promoted fanboys, a term popularized by the website TV Tropes.
