Gein didn’t inspire Lecter. Lecter was inspired by one Dr. Alfredo Balli Trevino, a jailed Mexican prison doctor who Thomas Harris interviewed when he was a young reporter.
Jame Gumb, Leatherface and Norman Bates were both mildly inspired by Gein. It seems apt, though. Given the kind of brutalization Gein went through by that malicious mother of his, it seemed obvious that those two characters would be tempered by tragedy. (Heck, the werewolf graphic novel I’m writing about my father is similar. My father had an upbringing identical to Gein, except he never went that far over the edge. He only cut up rats, and it drove him to drop neurochemistry as his major.)
Gein didn’t inspire Lecter. Lecter was inspired by one Dr. Alfredo Balli Trevino, a jailed Mexican prison doctor who Thomas Harris interviewed when he was a young reporter.
Jame Gumb, Leatherface and Norman Bates were both mildly inspired by Gein. It seems apt, though. Given the kind of brutalization Gein went through by that malicious mother of his, it seemed obvious that those two characters would be tempered by tragedy. (Heck, the werewolf graphic novel I’m writing about my father is similar. My father had an upbringing identical to Gein, except he never went that far over the edge. He only cut up rats, and it drove him to drop neurochemistry as his major.)