What's My Motivation?

By Regie Rigby

OK, so the being on time thing didn’t last. Take it up with my Broadband provider, who seems to think they’re not getting paid and suspended my account in spite of the fact that I was able to e-mail them the recipts they sent me for the payments they took.

Grrr.

With all that nonsense going on (at a time when I should’ve been able to use my Broadband connection to watch the Shuttle on NASA TV too) there were times when I wondered why I bother. Why do I put myself through all the hassle that goes with trying to meet the weekly deadline?

Then again, why does anyone do anything? What makes us get up in the morning? Life can be trying and vexatious – why so we all keep putting ourselves through the daily grind of work and school when we could just sleep for an extra couple of hours then order Pizza and spend the rest of the day watching Batman movies on DVD?

And if it’s difficult to understand the motivations of regular people, how much more difficult is it to understand why the heroic characters of out fiction do what they do. This whole train of thought was sent steaming down the tracks of my subconscious by Tony Lee, who recently showed me the pages that Brazilian artist Sam Hart had finished illustrating Lee’s take on why Robin Hood learned to shoot with a bow.

Take a look at this – the man on the scaffold is an old friend of the young Robin and his father:

Now, a couple of things. First of all, imagine how amazing those pages are going to look when they’re coloured. I tells ya, Sam Hart is an effing genius. But look at what just happened. A young boy who believes in his father seeing just how desperately fallible he is – lacking the skill to rescue his friend, and merely being able to end his suffering.

Small boys don’t think like that. Small boys think in terms of success and failure. That’s the kind of compromise a small boy can neither comprehend or forgive, and it’s the kind of thing that would gnaw at you for the rest of your life – drive you to makes sure you never have to make that kind of choice.

I’ve been a devotee of Robin of Sherwood since before I could walk. I don’t think there’s any take or angle on the story I haven’t read. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen this aspect of the mythos examined and explained. We all know why he hates the Sheriff of Nottingham and his band of thugs (almost always a variation on having his father killed and lands taken) but we’ve always taken his archery skill at face value.

Although I’m a long time out of practice, I used to be a moderately fair archer. With a modern bow I can hit the centre of a target at fifty yards – well I used to be able to, you know what I mean. With the sort of Longbow a twelfth centuary archer like Robin Hood would have carried? I’d be lucky to be able to draw the damn thing back straight, let alone hit anything with it.

Longbows were frighteningly effective weapons, but they were very difficult to use. Using them with the sort of accuracy credited to Robin Hood took a massive amount of strength and training. Everyone could use a bow back then – training was pretty much compulsory – but to be able to “split the wand”? (shooting at an arrow sticking out of a tree and hitting it so that your arrow goes right down the middle of the first arrow)

No. Even if such a feat were possible, you’d need to be training with much more verve and passion than your average man could muster under any circumstances. In the past, tellers of tales about Robin Hood have always glossed over this fact. I’m impressed that Lee has finally addressed it, and addressed it in a way I can believe.

I really really can’t wait to read this book. Stay tuned for more information about publishers and release dates as soon as I get them! (So if you’re reading this Sam and Tony – let me know OK?)

But getting back to my original train of thought, motivation is important. What people do can be interesting – especially if they are flying through the air like Superman or something – but why they do these things is always far more fascinating. If the answer to the why question is unsatisfying I usually find that I’m unimpressed by most of the rest of the character.

As regular readers will know, that is why I prefer Batman to Superman. I understand Batman’s motivation. In his heart he’s still trying to save his parents. I really don’t understand Superman’s – the idea that he does what he does simply because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t work for me. Perhaps that says more about him than me, but there you go. A solid motivation behind a character is, for me at least, fundamental to a real belief in that character.

Good writers understand this, and great characters benefit from it. Think about it. Think about the iconic characters that have truly endured. In comics, the only two major characters (ones that the mundane public would recognise) I can think of who lack such clear motivations are Superman and Wonder Woman – and they sort of get a free pass on the strength of being first.

Look beyond comics, and the rule continues to hold. Sherlock Holmes? A need to know, Hercule Poirot? Similar. Lord Peter Wimsey? A desperate need to fill the void left in his soul by his experiences in the Trenches of the First World War. Odysseus? He just wanted to get home. And so on, and so on.

Understanding the motives of a character helps me to get my head around the plot. Motivation, when it makes sense, adds a depth and richness to a character. It’s good to see so much attention being paid to it.

R.I.P. Tom Frame

Some of you might be thinking “Tom Who?” Tom Frame has been lettering 2000AD, and other comics, for as long as there’s been a 2000AD. He was a master of this underrated form, and his work has enhanced the writing and art of every British star you could think of.

Tom Frame has died of cancer. His passing leaves this great medium a little poorer.

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