A world is an invitation

Todd Howard’s games, Todd McFarlane’s comics and Todd Phillips’s films work in different media. Yet each asks an audience to enter a world with its own atmosphere, rules and possibilities. Looking at these careers together gives us an interesting way to think about creative identity: the details people return to are often the ones a creator has made unmistakably their own.

Room for the audience

A role-playing game gives its audience choices. A comic combines still images with the movement a reader imagines between panels. Film guides attention through performance, framing and sound. These are different relationships with the viewer, and their differences matter as much as their shared ambition. A successful idea in one medium does not automatically transfer to another.

Follow the work

Start with the individual profiles below, then explore the work itself. Howard’s name leads toward The Elder Scrolls and Fallout; McFarlane’s toward Spawn and character design; Phillips’s toward comedy and dramatic filmmaking. This collection is an editorial connection between careers, rather than a claim that the three have collaborated.