Eric Corbridge: How Broken Hearts Inspire Happy New Dreams

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Really good to hear you. 

What

Rich Bennett 0:27
if the things we leave behind after break-up could tell their own stories? And what if they all ended up in the same thrift store? As the idea behind Bad Will, a comic set right here in Maryland where the store only accepts donations from failed relationships. Between the employees, the customers, and the emotional baggage coming through the door, there's plenty of room for laughter, heartbreak, and second chances. So joining me today I have, for the first time as a co-host, Piper Thomas. 

Piper Thomas 1:00
Hello. 

Rich Bennett 1:02
And, uh, the Bad Will creator and writer, Eric Corbridge. Now this part blows me away. He's a Maryland native who spent 22 years in the United States Air Force retiring as a master sergeant and military intelligence. 22 years? 

Eric Corbridge 1:19
22 years. 

Rich Bennett 1:21
Come on. 

Eric Corbridge 1:21
It was a long time, but it also feels like it was just yesterday. I remember... 

Rich Bennett 1:25
You look like you could just go in at 22. 

So this proves my one point that I've said in the past two points actually. I never said the other one. But the Air Force definitely has the best food, the best sleep in barracks, and apparently the best water because you look 22. 

Eric Corbridge 1:46
I will take that. I will have. 

Piper Thomas 1:48
God. 

Rich Bennett 1:50
Alright, so, I didn't even mention the other prize going there. 

Before we get into the book, I have to ask you, do you go right out of high school into the Air Force? 

Eric Corbridge 2:03
No, actually I didn't. I 

Piper Thomas 2:06
didn't 

Eric Corbridge 2:08
even join in until I think I was 25. There was 2004 when I joined. Well, we don't need to talk about what I am now, but people could probably-- I actually had a college degree before I went in. But I got 

Piper Thomas 2:22
college 

Eric Corbridge 2:22
my 

Piper Thomas 2:22
degree from Towson 

Eric Corbridge 2:24
in sport management. And then I realized at some point, like, what am I going to do with this? Am I going to go be a gym teacher? I didn't even know what to do with it. 

Rich Bennett 2:32
The physical therapy, right? 

Eric Corbridge 2:34
I 

didn't 

Piper Thomas 2:36
really have that focus. 

Eric Corbridge 2:37
was more of like, maybe I could be an athletic director or something like that. It was more in the 

Rich Bennett 2:41
It 

Eric Corbridge 2:42
management side of sports, not like the therapy side of it. So I was definitely not qualified for a physical therapist. But I didn't know what to do with it. And, you know, to dig into some of my upbringing, I was a middle-class kid living in Bel camp. That's where I grew up. 

Rich Bennett 2:58
Oh, so we're here in 

Eric Corbridge 2:59
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 2:59
Har-- 

Eric Corbridge 2:59
yeah. Yeah, I grew up here. I went to Aberdeen Middle School, Edgewood High School. I lived in Aberdeen, Belair. I've been all around this county. 

Rich Bennett 3:06
Wow. 

Eric Corbridge 3:07
And, but when I was a kid, you know, typical only child, middle-class, parents were great, raised me well. But then during high school, we found out my mom had multiple sclerosis. 

Rich Bennett 3:18
Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 3:19
And, it just changed 

Rich Bennett 3:22
yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 3:22
things. It changed things so much, especially for my dad and mom, because, you know, I have all these vivid memories of being a kid and spoiled in a way because I was the only child, and they 

Rich Bennett 3:33
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 3:33
really-- I was fortunate even to make it, honestly, so they were really happy to have me. And then, when my mom got sick, it was almost like a light switch turned off in our house. Everything got dark, and my mom heard disease progress quickly. My dad got laid off from his job at 3M. He was a pharmaceutical rep. 

Rich Bennett 3:53
Oh, wow. 

Eric Corbridge 3:53
And, yeah, it was-- it was-- it was dark because my dad wanted to shelter me from having to take care of my mother, 

Rich Bennett 4:01
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 4:01
like-- I don't want your son to have to bathe his mother, like things like that. But she was having a real hard time, and she was a nurse. She had worked at Franklin Square. 

Rich Bennett 4:11
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 4:12
And, you know, obviously she couldn't work anymore. Dad was taking care of her. Then he gets laid off. Now we're just relying on savings. 

Rich Bennett 4:20
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 4:20
Right. And we had 

Piper Thomas 4:21
great 

Eric Corbridge 4:22
who would come and, like, bring us dinner sometimes. It was really nice. But he was trying to let me have a normal high 

Piper Thomas 4:28
neighbors 

Eric Corbridge 4:28
school experience. 

Rich Bennett 4:29
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 4:30
While he was taking care of 

Piper Thomas 4:31
else. 

Eric Corbridge 4:31
everything 

Rich Bennett 4:32
Wow. 

Eric Corbridge 4:32
and then, a lot of things happened and when I finished college, my dad was in Utah at that point. It's where he grew up. It's where he lives now. It's his home. Um, but my mom was in a nursing home here and I didn't know, I didn't feel like I could leave. 

Rich Bennett 4:50
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 4:50
So it was one of those things where I had this degree. I'm working retail. Uh, I had been working at, if you remember, KB toys. 

Rich Bennett 4:58
I got you. 

Eric Corbridge 4:59
I 

worked at the I worked at it was an assistant manager at the KB toy works at the festival in Bel Air in the late 90s or really I know you probably don't know this 

Piper Thomas 5:08
not at 

Eric Corbridge 5:08
place pipe 

Piper Thomas 5:08
all 

Eric Corbridge 5:09
but KB toys was this mostly a mall store it was like a mall toy store 

Rich Bennett 5:13
like the a miniature toys are us 

Piper Thomas 5:15
That's cute 

Eric Corbridge 5:16
right and 

Piper Thomas 5:17
yeah I know that one 

Eric Corbridge 5:19
and the one up in festival was like it was a mini toys 

Rich Bennett 5:21
yeah 

Eric Corbridge 5:21
or us it was you know not as big but it was a standalone store that wasn't in a mall but I was 

Piper Thomas 5:26
until 

Eric Corbridge 5:26
there I don't remember when and then they wanted to promote me and I didn't want to get stuck in that life 

Rich Bennett 5:32
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 5:32
So I went to work at right aid for a couple years in an assistant manager because I had this 

Piper Thomas 5:37
I didn't 

Eric Corbridge 5:37
know what to do with it and I didn't want to leave when my mom was still here 

Rich Bennett 5:41
right and 

Eric Corbridge 5:41
then to circle back to your original question I had never intended on joining the military but my dad and 

Piper Thomas 5:49
had 

Eric Corbridge 5:49
mom Air Force so kind of like you said your parents are in the military if I were right so they had always kind of touted what it did for them 

Rich Bennett 5:58
yeah 

Eric Corbridge 5:59
and how up them a lot about themselves and instilled some discipline and My mom passed away in 2003 so I had graduated from Towson two years prior and It kind of dawned on me Wait, I can leave now like 

Rich Bennett 6:16
yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 6:16
she's at peace I can go do something else now if I want to so I decided to just take a shot and I joined the Air Force as a I this was never my intention, but as a language analyst they Had I am it was not something I wanted to do necessarily, but they asked me if I would take this Language aptitude test and I said sure why not and so I took this crazy test with I'm pretty sure it was on a tape recorder I had to listen to a tape and It was just asking me weird questions and like building a language as it went and telling me like hey You're gonna let hear a series of noises and tell us which noise you think should come next And I remember taking this test for like an hour or whatever it was thinking I miserably failed it then They gave me the results and said you did really well. So I was like oh Apparently I have an aptitude for this then they I'd go to basic training. I go to what's called the defense language institute 

And they sent me there to go to school for a year and a half to learn Arabic and I quickly learned that Okay, maybe I have an aptitude for this, but not compared a lot of these kids them in school with that are and especially the ones that are younger to me because I'm like 25 years old going through this and it was tough But I worked really hard and I got through it and then I spent the first six years in my military career sitting on an airplane sitting the back of an airplane listening to Arabic and wow Bad people saying bad things and we figure out what to do with that information Then after six years of doing that a lot a lot of little things in between but essentially for the last, you know, 16 years I've been stationed back here in Maryland and Working at the National Security Agency for the most part is 

Rich Bennett 8:05
yeah 

Eric Corbridge 8:05
Doing the same kind of stuff using the language and then really though for the last like decade I've been in more management and leadership roles and other 

Rich Bennett 8:14
yeah 

Eric Corbridge 8:14
people are using I'm just kind of like guiding them along and trying to mentor and train people So that's been my kind of my career and then I just retired from the Air Force in April Wow 

Piper Thomas 8:23
Rich so close. That's why you're still fit Still 

Eric Corbridge 8:28
I'm 

Rich Bennett 8:29
what 

Eric Corbridge 8:29
trying 

Piper Thomas 8:30
The military look

Eric Corbridge 8:31
Yeah, I haven't quit

Rich Bennett 8:33
The young look Wow, so 22 years in the Air Force now were you writing at any point while you're in Air Force or even a high school or drawing? 

Eric Corbridge 8:45
definitely not drawing I can't 

Rich Bennett 8:46
Okay, 

Eric Corbridge 8:46
draw there's 

Piper Thomas 8:47
Good 

Eric Corbridge 8:47
to draw if you paid me a lot of money. I for badwill I hired an artist. I hire 

Rich Bennett 8:52
Okay, 

Eric Corbridge 8:53
answer to do it for me 

Rich Bennett 8:54
I 

Eric Corbridge 8:54
because 

Rich Bennett 8:54
I know and 

Eric Corbridge 8:56
I 

Piper Thomas 8:57
know an artist Yeah, I went to art school 

Eric Corbridge 8:59
Trusting okay. 

Rich Bennett 9:01
Oh, let me tell you something so 

If you need an artist 

Eric Corbridge 9:07
Sure. 

Rich Bennett 9:07
pipeers that pipeers a hell of an artist if for some reason later 

Piper Thomas 9:11
the road. If you would 

Rich Bennett 9:13
like to make some of the 

Piper Thomas 9:14
to 

Rich Bennett 9:14
characters. 

Piper Thomas 9:16
the moon. She 

Rich Bennett 9:18
also does balloon. Magic as well, right? 

Piper Thomas 9:22
Yes. A lot of side-off. 

Eric Corbridge 9:23
Interesting. We will have to talk. 

Piper Thomas 9:28
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 9:29
Are you hired an artist for that? Yes. But were you writing? 

Eric Corbridge 9:32
Yes. So the back story is I mean I've always this is kind of 

Piper Thomas 9:35
my 

Eric Corbridge 9:35
been 

creativity. 

Rich Bennett 9:38
my 

Eric Corbridge 9:38
It's always been kind of envisioning things and writing never had anything published or anything like that but I would just write things for myself that no one has ever seen and will ever see. 

Rich Bennett 9:50
never say no. 

Piper Thomas 9:52
That 

Eric Corbridge 9:52
will the way it happened was it actually the idea came to me during COVID and I was playing tennis with a friend of mine or names Teresa and one day we were playing and she said hey I need to cut things short today because I have to drop some stuff off at Goodwill. The 

Rich Bennett 10:09
store. 

Eric Corbridge 10:09
thrift 

Rich Bennett 10:09
OK. 

Eric Corbridge 10:10
And just the way my brain works the entire time we were playing I was thinking what would it be like if there was a store called Badwill? What could that be? And right there on that that day I came up with the entire premise for this store and the entire season once since I wrote it I initially conceived the it as a television show as a sitcom 

Rich Bennett 10:30
right 

Eric Corbridge 10:31
I pitched it to Theresa when we were about to leave and she said huh you might have something there you should probably try to write that. And so I did what anybody would do I didn't do the thing about it for at least a year I just sat on it and then one day I remember one Saturday I woke up and I thought you know I could watch TV today or do my normal chores or whatever I was going to do or I could try to see if I can fair how to write this. So I did a bunch of research on like how TV scripts were structured 

Rich Bennett 10:58
and 

Eric Corbridge 10:59
read a bunch of them for like the office and some other shows and outlined my thoughts and then one day I just started writing episode one learned a lot gave myself to rules my one 

Piper Thomas 11:11
rule my first 

Eric Corbridge 11:12
rule 

Piper Thomas 11:12
rule 

Eric Corbridge 11:12
was if this ever doesn't feel like fun stop doing it 

Rich Bennett 11:15
right. The 

Eric Corbridge 11:16
and my other one was if I start writing and I start going down some rabbit hole keep going 

Rich Bennett 11:21
keep 

Eric Corbridge 11:21
and see 

Piper Thomas 11:21
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 11:21
going 

Eric Corbridge 11:22
It really ends up because and that ended up being very helpful because I got a lot of better stories out of it than I thought I would 

Rich Bennett 11:28
well I was going to say other stories could spin off from that 

Eric Corbridge 11:30
yeah absolutely and it happens like even in the. 

Rich Bennett 11:35
Yeah 

Eric Corbridge 11:36
I originally so you said how did I when do I start writing this for like the last three years of my air force career I was writing this just on weekends and coffee 

Rich Bennett 11:45
shop oh wow. 

Eric Corbridge 11:46
You know I live in Severin right now in Severin Maryland and I would go to various coffee shops and just sit there for a few hours in the morning and right and next thing I knew you know sometime and I want to say. Late 2024 maybe I had a 10 episode season one of a sitcom written tells a full story character arcs for everybody and I had this whole thing and then it was just what am I going to do with this I spent all this time writing it I want people to read the story 

Rich Bennett 12:17
yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 12:17
Last time I checked netflix wasn't going to take my calls so then I started to explore what can I do with this I briefly considered can I turn it into a novel like I could probably do that but it would probably take me another year to to do that because I really have to fill in all the gaps of I have scripts that are scene settings and dialogue and stuff 

Rich Bennett 12:38
yeah 

Eric Corbridge 12:38
like that but I don't have all the stuff that goes in between like there's birds chirping in the all the stuff that you would need to write a full novel. But then I thought 

Rich Bennett 12:48
there's nothing that says you can't do that after this just 

Eric Corbridge 12:52
true. Oh 

Rich Bennett 12:52
either 

Eric Corbridge 12:53
absolutely that's everything is on the table because I see bad will as a story 

Rich Bennett 12:58
all the 

Eric Corbridge 12:58
you know more than anything else and but to try to get this story out there quicker and have some control 

Piper Thomas 13:04
over that 

Eric Corbridge 13:05
I'd always been a comic book reader I grew up on that. 

Piper Thomas 13:08
And 

Rich Bennett 13:08
so 

Eric Corbridge 13:10
I kind of understand how comic books work to a degree so that's when I went on to I was looking for a freelancer and said hey I just want to like get this out in comic book form so I found Haley Micheisek my illustrator who lives just based in Toronto I actually never even met her in person at least not yet. 

Rich Bennett 13:28
do you find her through what fever 

Eric Corbridge 13:30
I 

Rich Bennett 13:31
five 

Piper Thomas 13:31
five. 

Rich Bennett 13:31
five 

Eric Corbridge 13:32
I 

Rich Bennett 13:32
going. Fevers 

Eric Corbridge 13:33
considered 

Rich Bennett 13:33
for tickets yeah 

Eric Corbridge 13:34
instead of going to five or but first I went to something called freelancer dot com 

Rich Bennett 13:38
okay 

Eric Corbridge 13:38
and so I found her I I put a project on there for bad will. saying what I wanted and I got a whole bunch of responses back 

Rich Bennett 13:47
That's good 

Eric Corbridge 13:47
I sifted through all of them that were just AI and then I found the people that actually really I could tell read the sample that I put in there 

Rich Bennett 13:55
right 

Piper Thomas 13:56
and really like. 

Eric Corbridge 13:56
Put some thought into it and what they wanted to do with it 

Piper Thomas 13:58
they 

Eric Corbridge 13:59
and what 

Piper Thomas 13:59
thought 

Eric Corbridge 13:59
about the story. And so then from there it's been... Haley and I working together ever since and now we have two episodes finished and she's working on the third one. 

Piper Thomas 14:08
Yes, pretty cool. Does she do the storyboarding? Do you help with that? 

Eric Corbridge 14:11
help with it. So I give her a lot of guidance on... So I take my scripts. I send her the full script for an episode and she reads it. And then I send her trim-down dialogue and kind of like storyboard ideas and things that I'm thinking and some of my vision, I'm like, hey, you know, turning a page here would be great to have this kind of reveal or a splash page here. 

Rich Bennett 14:32
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 14:32
Right. Things like that. And then I leave it up to her creativity on the rest because my assumption is just that two heads are better than one here. 

Piper Thomas 14:41
I 

Eric Corbridge 14:41
You know, I have this vision and I know what I wrote. But she can just make it better and there's been so many spots where she sends me something back, I'm like, I like, didn't even envision this and you made it even better. 

Rich Bennett 14:50
And I guess the point that you could probably answer this, especially since Eric's not not an artist, but I would 

Piper Thomas 14:59
there's a big 

Rich Bennett 15:00
think 

Piper Thomas 15:00
difference from drawing for a comic book versus 

Rich Bennett 15:04
a children's book. 

Piper Thomas 15:05
Yeah, you're able to put in more details and that's really what I was asking about because of the detail she puts in. I was wondering how many details you put in because there's certain, because I just read the books so everything is so fresh in my mind. The one part where we're in Greg's flashback and in his hand is on his head and then we fast forward to the stores owner and she's doing the exact same pose. I'm like, what a cute parallel. So, it was when I'm like, how involved you are in the art process and there is, I don't even answer a question. Yeah, there's a lot more details. 

Eric Corbridge 15:36
no, I'm really glad 

Piper Thomas 15:37
Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 15:37
you picked up on that, in that particular scene that you're talking about. That was in my script. So that was something that I had envisioned in my head of. I want there to be a parallel between these two characters. It's the main character of that. Well, our names Karah and there's a guy that works in her store name Greg and they clearly have a connection of 

Rich Bennett 15:56
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 15:56
some. And so I wanted to be a parallel and you could, as you pointed out, they both have their hands in the same spot on their heads as they're going through something. 

Some other ideas in the comic, first episode 

Piper Thomas 16:11
the 

Eric Corbridge 16:11
necessarily establishes the premise of this. Why is this thrift store for the only. 

Piper Thomas 16:18
Except some of the 

Eric Corbridge 16:19
relationships. Why is this a thing? So I had to establish that. And without giving too much away, obviously this was my idea of like, what would goodwill be like with a twist. And so this girl Karah, you know, she goes through a breakup. And she gets stuck with all the guys stuff. He's not coming back. And she just wants to get rid 

Rich Bennett 16:39
it. 

Eric Corbridge 16:39
of 

Rich Bennett 16:39
Get rid of it. 

Eric Corbridge 16:40
And so things unfold. And the next thing, you know, she's got this store where she's Russell, she's wrestles with it internally like, is this even a good idea? So I'm profiting, 

Piper Thomas 16:48
profiting off 

Eric Corbridge 16:48
of people's, you know, misery. 

Rich Bennett 16:51
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 16:51
That failed relationships. But in her mind and what she's told herself is that no, this is about giving back instead of giving up. You know, this is about building new dreams off of broken. 

Piper Thomas 17:03
So 

Eric Corbridge 17:03
it's so it's she wants to be a positive experience. And it even plays a part into how she hires for, you know, people to work there. But when I'm writing the first one, you know, I have to establish 

Piper Thomas 17:16
the process 

Eric Corbridge 17:16
then a lot of it's based on, you know, you kind of understand Karah's plight and how she gets to where she's at. And then we introduce the other characters. But most of them don't have as much to do in the first episode because there's not, it wouldn't make sense. So 

Rich Bennett 17:32
and 

Eric Corbridge 17:32
I introduce a lot of them as you know, Piper in an interview montage. 

Piper Thomas 17:35
Yes, I wrote notes about that one. 

Eric Corbridge 17:38
As it was very much a sitcom idea where I'm picturing, you know, there's two girls doing the hiring. Karah and her friend Jenny are doing the hiring for this story that's about to exist. And I'm picturing a sitcom where you, you see the two characters faces looking at you and then you click over it's a montage. 

Rich Bennett 17:54
You know, 

Eric Corbridge 17:55
the other character they're interviewing and just flashes back between all the different questions they're asking. There was one in particular. There was, there was a character that I won't spoil, but it was supposed to 

Piper Thomas 18:06
just 

Eric Corbridge 18:07
make you laugh if you're watching TV and this just pops up. And that was, and this was one of those instances where that's all I thought it was going to be. But as I'm writing I'm thinking I've established this character that I keep on my right. 

Piper Thomas 18:21
So 

Eric Corbridge 18:22
there's a lot more that happens with that character because I thought it needed to happen and then also the first half of the comic you only meet a couple characters. 

Rich Bennett 18:33
So like 

Eric Corbridge 18:33
I want to, I want people to kind of know who these people are and I don't want to waste someone. So, but, to circle way back, uh, we're talking about the Greg character. So Episode 1 is all about establishing the premise moving 

Piper Thomas 18:46
forward. 

Eric Corbridge 18:47
Episode 2 through 10 because I wrote 10 scripts. 

Rich Bennett 18:50
Okay. 

Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 19:13
Probably not. I've seen the good little stories. They're not huge. So there's only a certain amount of locations you could have seen. I've expanded it to, there's a drugstore next door and in my head, the drugstore, it was designed like the right aid that I worked in. In fact, don't 

Piper Thomas 19:33
I 

Eric Corbridge 19:33
think I've ever even told anyone this, but badwill in my 

Piper Thomas 19:36
head 

Eric Corbridge 19:37
laid 

Piper Thomas 19:37
is 

Eric Corbridge 19:37
out the exact same way KB Tour Works was laid out. I worked there from where like the stockroom is and where the bathrooms are and where the shelves and the registers are. So that was all there and laid out, because you know, in my head, if I'm going to tell a more honest story, go with my own experiences. 

Rich Bennett 19:54
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 19:54
So that's, that makes sense to me. But, you know, they go to the drugstore and they go to, there's a fortune teller at the other end of the strip mall, which becomes a major player in the season. And there's even an empty store in between that I know I can use for future seasons. 

Piper Thomas 20:10
That's 

Rich Bennett 20:10
smart. 

Eric Corbridge 20:10
So I wanted to give myself some room there, but starting an episode two, 

Piper Thomas 20:14
so happens 

Eric Corbridge 20:15
in the present day, you know, is a key driving point for the story, obviously. But then each episode is dedicated to one 

Piper Thomas 20:24
character, one character, 

Eric Corbridge 20:26
So 

Piper Thomas 20:26
so. 

Eric Corbridge 20:27
episode two it's about Greg, so you've got flashbacks to in his particular case, his previous time living in Omaha and he makes a very bad decision. And then it's about what happens from there and how he ends up in Maryland and he can he move on from this decision, or is that going to be something that defies. His life, so my thought was I feel like I have a unique premise here, and I learned this from my favorite TV show of all time was lost. And if anyone's seen lost, I don't know if you guys have watched it. 

Rich Bennett 21:01
now I never seen it, but 

Eric Corbridge 21:02
Okay, 

Rich Bennett 21:03
it's funny, you say that because everything you're explaining sounds to me, like the office or the other shows super. 

Eric Corbridge 21:10
Yes, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 21:11
Yep. That's 

Eric Corbridge 21:12
sounds. 

Rich Bennett 21:12
what it 

Eric Corbridge 21:13
Yep. I, uh, the office was a key influence on this. I was actually watching Superstore for the 

Piper Thomas 21:19
time, 

Eric Corbridge 21:19
first 

Rich Bennett 21:19
okay? 

Eric Corbridge 21:20
As I was writing 

Piper Thomas 21:22
bad 

Eric Corbridge 21:22
will. 

Rich Bennett 21:22
Oh, wow. 

Eric Corbridge 21:23
So a lot of that was fresh. 

Rich Bennett 21:25
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 21:25
And then lost just happens to be my favorite show. And one of the narrative devices it used was having flashbacks. And so you would learn about these characters and they did it very well. It's a device that showed a some degree. 

Rich Bennett 21:38
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 21:39
But what I feel like the reason I like lost so much was that. Ye, I like the 

Rich Bennett 21:43
the 

Eric Corbridge 21:43
premise, 

Rich Bennett 21:43
way 

Eric Corbridge 21:44
and I 

Rich Bennett 21:44
it was. 

Piper Thomas 21:44
the 

Eric Corbridge 21:44
enjoyed all 

Piper Thomas 21:45
mysteries 

Eric Corbridge 21:45
He's in 

Piper Thomas 21:45
and. 

Eric Corbridge 21:45
the sci-fi around it, but it was the characters that made me stay it was because I cared about them. So my main goal throughout writing all 10 episodes so far of badwill was I want people to care about all of these characters in some 

Piper Thomas 21:58
way. 

Eric Corbridge 21:58
Episode 10, For more. So I tried my best to whether you like the character don't like the character or resonate with the character. That was one of my intentions. 

Rich Bennett 22:09
right. 

Eric Corbridge 22:09
Right. So that's kind of the structure. If you if anyone reads episode two, that's the structure moving forward. 

Piper Thomas 22:15
Oh, that makes sense why you set it up like that 

Eric Corbridge 22:17
Yeah, 

Piper Thomas 22:17
then you're thinking so far ahead. 

Eric Corbridge 22:20
try to. Had three years to do it. 

Piper Thomas 22:22
Yeah. See, 

Rich Bennett 22:24
and I already thought of what can go into an empty store. 

Eric Corbridge 22:27
Oh, I'm so glad you 

Piper Thomas 22:27
up. 

Eric Corbridge 22:27
brought that Oh, well, you already got. Well, no, I have ideas. I have one very specific idea. gosh. It wouldn't be for season two, but maybe season three, 

Piper Thomas 22:37
Oh, my 

Eric Corbridge 22:38
but there's always options, and when I when I talk to readers and I have a website and people it's babblecomac.com, uh, if anybody wants to check out episodes one and two that are available now, and there's digital and 

Rich Bennett 22:52
additional. 

Eric Corbridge 22:52
signed 

Rich Bennett 22:53
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 22:55
But I asked people like, Hey, there's an email. There's a way to contact me on there. If you have ideas, send them to me. I have spreadsheets where I keep all these ideas, because you never know when it's going to be perfect. You know, even if it's What kind of crazy customer is going to come into bad will and what in the world are they going to want to donate? 

Piper Thomas 23:11
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 23:11
So people have given me great ideas for 

Rich Bennett 23:12
ah, 

Eric Corbridge 23:12
that too. 

Rich Bennett 23:13
what's my think of this empty store because you, you know, it's all these people that are going through tough times, bad relationships. Well, you're getting rid of all the everything 

Piper Thomas 23:24
from that relationship, 

Rich Bennett 23:25
but be honest, when you go through bad relationship, what's the one main thing you really want to get 

Piper Thomas 23:30
rid of? 

Rich Bennett 23:32
It's the other person, 

Piper Thomas 23:33
right? 

Eric Corbridge 23:33
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 23:34
I'm thinking of empty 

Piper Thomas 23:36
So 

Rich Bennett 23:36
store. If 

Piper Thomas 23:37
you, you could 

Rich Bennett 23:38
have like Piper's Magic 

Piper Thomas 23:40
Shop. 

She 

Rich Bennett 23:42
can make things disappear. 

Piper Thomas 23:44
oh 

Eric Corbridge 23:44
Yeah, 

Piper Thomas 23:44
my gosh, relocation program. 

Eric Corbridge 23:48
Yeah, 

Piper Thomas 23:49
maybe 

Rich Bennett 23:50
not, maybe not name it Piper, 

Piper Thomas 23:51
but, 

Eric Corbridge 23:51
I mean good. Good, 

Piper Thomas 23:55
she's 

Rich Bennett 23:56
gonna work on it too. So, it's a period, wait 

Eric Corbridge 23:58
for me 

Rich Bennett 23:58
to, period tricks to you. 

Piper Thomas 24:00
We'll see. 

Eric Corbridge 24:01
Magic Shop right next door to a fortune teller, I feel like there could be. 

Rich Bennett 24:04
Oh 

Piper Thomas 24:04
god, 

Rich Bennett 24:04
my 

Piper Thomas 24:04
that was the 

Eric Corbridge 24:05
thing 

Piper Thomas 24:05
best these 

Eric Corbridge 24:05
dynamics. There. 

Piper Thomas 24:06
Yeah, we put a curse on you. 

Rich Bennett 24:10
Yeah, there are so many twists I could take. oh yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden one of them gets busted for something, 

Eric Corbridge 24:17
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 24:17
the fortune teller or the magic 

Eric Corbridge 24:19
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 24:19
shop. 

Piper Thomas 24:20
I wouldn't get caught. It has to be her. 

Eric Corbridge 24:24
go. Well, yeah, this is one of the freedoms that I've enjoyed about all of this is that 

Rich Bennett 24:28
Yeah, you can 

Eric Corbridge 24:28
I get to dictate where 

Rich Bennett 24:29
is. 

Eric Corbridge 24:29
this 

Rich Bennett 24:30
Yeah, 

Piper Thomas 24:30
people 

Eric Corbridge 24:31
have great idea. It's like, I enjoy that. That's, that to me, it's fun. 

Rich Bennett 24:35
It just keep going and going. I mean, you look at all the comics like X band and I mean, it's they can swear of a good different ways. Oh, 

Piper Thomas 24:48
bad wield the 

Eric Corbridge 24:49
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 24:51
multiverse, 

Eric Corbridge 24:51
the multiverse, several caros, 

Piper Thomas 24:53
several 

Eric Corbridge 24:54
Greg's. 

Rich Bennett 24:55
All right, so how do you come up with all these characters? 

Eric Corbridge 24:59
Uh, so before I even started writing episode one, I knew I, I knew my main character was 

Piper Thomas 25:05
just 

Eric Corbridge 25:05
coming up with a random name. 

Rich Bennett 25:07
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 25:07
No significance to naming some of these people. I just, whatever name made sense in my head. Um, I decided I wanted a roughly seven or eight main characters. I wanted to figure 

Piper Thomas 25:16
know, 

Eric Corbridge 25:16
out, 

Piper Thomas 25:17
could 

Eric Corbridge 25:17
you work in a store like this. 

Rich Bennett 25:20
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 25:21
Um, and I just sort of thought, what 

Piper Thomas 25:24
okay, 

Eric Corbridge 25:25
character traits do I want here? I want there to be some diversity here. I want there to be something for everyone, if I can make it happen. 

And then I just laid out character traits. Uh, it's funny. A question I've gotten asked a few times is which character is the most like me. And I'm like, well, really none of them. 

Rich Bennett 25:44
Okay, 

Eric Corbridge 25:44
I didn't want anyone to be about any particular, 

Rich Bennett 25:47
right. 

Eric Corbridge 25:48
But also they're all like me, because they're all 

Rich Bennett 25:50
Throwing 

Eric Corbridge 25:50
coming. 

Rich Bennett 25:51
combined. Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 25:51
And they're all based on my experiences. Um, you know, we talked about my childhood and growing up. There's a character in this story that has that background. Like, 

Rich Bennett 26:01
okay, 

Eric Corbridge 26:02
at least a good part of it. And, and I won't reveal who that is yet. Um, ironically, we've talked about the, uh, the site, Fiverr. Why have a cat named Fiverr? But he's been around a lot longer than that company, because he's 16 years old now. But he's a rescue and he had a lot of problems and, you know, if I'd listened to my ex-wife, we would have gotten rid of him after about two weeks, because he had some aggression problems. Um, I don't want to say instead I got played out. 

But it did lead to some conflict and some disagreements on how we should like handle this. But in my head, um, there was no way I could give up on this, 

Piper Thomas 26:47
and, 

Eric Corbridge 26:47
and 

Piper Thomas 26:47
and 

Eric Corbridge 26:47
help 

Piper Thomas 26:47
help, 

Eric Corbridge 26:48
itself. Um, and I think it had a lot to do with, how I never felt like I could help my mom. Right 

Rich Bennett 26:55
right, 

Eric Corbridge 26:55
through 

Piper Thomas 26:55
her sickness. 

Eric Corbridge 26:56
And so I don't know if it changed something in me where there was like, no way I was ever going to give up on this animal. And take it back to a shelter, knowing it was probably going to get put down if someone returned it because it had aggression problems. And I bring this all up to say that I found a way to fit Fiverr into this 

Piper Thomas 27:12
well. 

Eric Corbridge 27:12
story, as 

Piper Thomas 27:13
So it's like, 

Eric Corbridge 27:14
I wanted to bring stuff that I knew, and that I could talk about, um, with some authority and some authenticity. And then when I didn't have it, like, for example, there's a character named Aiden, and you'll know him the most from the first episode is the guitar kid. And 

Rich Bennett 27:30
okay. 

Eric Corbridge 27:31
So there's, there's stuff that happens there, but he's a South Korean kid. He's a recent high school graduate and badwillens up being, you know, 

Piper Thomas 27:39
his first job. 

Eric Corbridge 27:41
so, but I remember when I'm writing one of the episodes, in, in I can spoil this it's episode three is his first, his flashback episode. But I'm writing about him as a child at his eight, his eighth birthday party. 

Piper Thomas 27:55
I'm like 

Eric Corbridge 27:56
no, 

Piper Thomas 27:56
no, 

Eric Corbridge 27:56
there's probably some cultural aspects about this that I just don't know. 

Piper Thomas 27:59
And 

Eric Corbridge 28:00
so then I just do a whole bunch of research and try to do the best I can. And I found out how rewarding that was for me. I'm like oh I'm learning 

Piper Thomas 28:08
so much about stuff 

Eric Corbridge 28:08
that I had no idea about. It's just really fun. 

Rich Bennett 28:11
Are you, so you mentioned your ex-wife which 

Eric Corbridge 28:14
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 28:15
I had no idea 

Eric Corbridge 28:16
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 28:17
you 

were divorced, but, you know, it could have helped but because of the 

Piper Thomas 28:25
divorce, you 

Rich Bennett 28:26
think that actually helped with the writing of badwill. 

Eric Corbridge 28:30
Yeah, I think in a sense that, and, and I should preface this with, my ex-wife is a wonderful 

Piper Thomas 28:34
person. 

Rich Bennett 28:35
Say, do you give her credit 

Piper Thomas 28:37
in it? 

Eric Corbridge 28:37
There is... 

Piper Thomas 28:38
And I certainly 

Eric Corbridge 28:38
did not write 

Piper Thomas 28:39
about her in 

Eric Corbridge 28:40
this, in this story. 

Rich Bennett 28:41
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 28:41
And the cat did not break us up just. So, it was nothing about that. There was no horrible anything. It was just one of those cases of irreconcilable differences. 

Rich Bennett 28:52
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 28:53
But I'm certain it taught me a lot about relationships 

Rich Bennett 28:56
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 28:57
and about myself and it gave me things to think about when I'm writing these stories. And it teaches me. Like I said, she's wonderful, but we're not together. 

Rich Bennett 29:05
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 29:06
Shades of gray. Like nobody's perfect. She's a great person. We just weren't perfect 

Rich Bennett 29:10
other. 

Eric Corbridge 29:10
for each 

Rich Bennett 29:10
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 29:11
And so, yeah. That absolutely fueled me when I'm writing this. 

Rich Bennett 29:14
Okay. Okay. I had a feeling. 

Piper Thomas 29:17
So go into the story. I can see like parts of your actual life story just all over it, especially like the comms Graham. Except Instagram. I'm like, yeah, these are very military. Comms? 

Eric Corbridge 29:30
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 29:31
It 

Piper Thomas 29:32
was 

Eric Corbridge 29:32
me being terrified of when I'm writing this. I'm like, so I'm going to get mad at me if I use real. 

Rich Bennett 29:38
Yeah. Probably. 

Piper Thomas 29:39
Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Some of the renames. 

Eric Corbridge 29:41
Use settings and like real places in Hartford County, but I was unsure if I could do that. So I didn't use that either. I was like, I don't want to just go name and names and then 

Rich Bennett 29:50
get. 

Piper Thomas 29:50
No, 

Rich Bennett 29:51
Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 29:52
for sure. I was just curious where Omaha came from. I feel like I see the inspiration between everything besides Omaha. 

Rich Bennett 29:59
I just kept thinking of 

Eric Corbridge 30:01
that. 

Rich Bennett 30:01
Peyton Manning said 

Eric Corbridge 30:03
Of course, 

Rich Bennett 30:03
he was a quarterback. OK. He was a quarterback when he was in the. You know, get ready to fight y'all he's hurting. Omaha, Omaha. Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 30:14
I am very aware of that. 

Rich Bennett 30:15
And 

Piper Thomas 30:16
It 

Eric Corbridge 30:18
simply came from I was stationed in Omaha for. 

Piper Thomas 30:20
That's what I like. I had to be that. This a Maryland. I 

Eric Corbridge 30:23
offered air force base in Omaha. 

Rich Bennett 30:24
Sorry. Peyton. You're getting 

Eric Corbridge 30:26
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 30:26
credit. 

Piper Thomas 30:26
All 

Eric Corbridge 30:26
Sorry. right. 

Rich Bennett 30:29
Wow. 

All right. So that's another thing that went out of my head. Thanks. 

Piper Thomas 30:35
What 

makes sense? You know sports. 

Eric Corbridge 30:39
I was never been the biggest Peyton Manning fan. My buddy. My buddy Wayne. He was the biggest Peyton Manning fan. And I just was never the biggest fan of his. At the time, I was more 

Piper Thomas 30:49
of a Brady 

Rich Bennett 30:49
as a 

Eric Corbridge 30:50
fan than 

Rich Bennett 30:50
quarterback 

Eric Corbridge 30:50
a Manning fan. Oh, 

Rich Bennett 30:51
not 

Eric Corbridge 30:52
say 

Rich Bennett 30:52
just 

Eric Corbridge 30:52
at the 

Piper Thomas 30:53
time. 

Eric Corbridge 30:53
If I had to compare 

Piper Thomas 30:54
two. 

Eric Corbridge 30:54
the mean, 

Piper Thomas 30:55
I 

Eric Corbridge 30:55
I'm a diehard Ravens fan to be. 

Rich Bennett 30:57
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 30:57
No, I'm not. I just. I really. In Brady as a winner. But I. 

Piper Thomas 30:59
But I. I always 

Eric Corbridge 31:00
like he was more of 

Piper Thomas 31:01
felt 

Eric Corbridge 31:01
a winner than Peyton. And he and he usually got the best of Peyton in their matchups. But really would drove me nuts about Peyton is good as he is. And I don't just beat that He. I used to get annoyed when he would talk. Yahu. 

Piper Thomas 31:15
you know. 

Eric Corbridge 31:15
His players on the field and 

Rich Bennett 31:16
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 31:16
he. 

He was a Peyton blaming his receiver as he wants everyone to know it wasn't his fault. And. 

Rich Bennett 31:25
OK. 

Eric Corbridge 31:25
And I always thought Peyton would have won more Super Bowls. If he didn't try to shoulder so much by himself, it felt like he was like a. was the quarterback, the play collar, the coach all in the field 

Rich Bennett 31:36
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 31:36
at the same 

Rich Bennett 31:36
He 

Eric Corbridge 31:37
time. I'm like, maybe if you just trust his coaches and just worry about being a quarterback. Maybe he wouldn't have shown some like poorly timed interceptions at certain points in his career. And as much as I appreciate it when he lost to the Ravens when we beat him last time we won the Super Bowl in a matchup that nobody thought we were going to win. 

Rich Bennett 31:56
And 

Eric Corbridge 31:57
my ex is a Denver Broncos fan. So. And it was, it was maybe a year after we had divorced. I took a little bit of joy in that. But. But yeah, Peyton made a mistake in that game and I'm like, well, maybe you should just focus on playing quarterback. 

Rich Bennett 32:09
And he never lived in Omaha. 

Piper Thomas 32:12
He 

Eric Corbridge 32:14
never lived in Omaha. Nothing we know. 

Sorry, p*t, 

Piper Thomas 32:28
sorry. 

Rich Bennett 32:30
know you got more stuff to go ahead because look, everything 

Piper Thomas 32:33
I 

Rich Bennett 32:33
that I thought that he mentioned, I was wrong 

Eric Corbridge 32:36
already. 

Rich Bennett 32:36
about 

Eric Corbridge 32:37
Oh God, I like that. 

Rich Bennett 32:38
Except for the superstore thing. 

Eric Corbridge 32:39
No, that was part--you spot 

Piper Thomas 32:41
one. 

Eric Corbridge 32:41
on on that 

Piper Thomas 32:42
Yeah, isn't that on the cover? I know the office is on the cover. 

Eric Corbridge 32:46
Uh, it's mentioned, yes. 

Piper Thomas 32:47
Uhm, 

Eric Corbridge 32:47
god. Yeah, and some of my readers have--they've referred to it, this is a bit of a data reference for some, but if anyone remembers adult swim, 

Rich Bennett 32:56
yeah. Oh my 

Eric Corbridge 32:56
or-- 

Piper Thomas 32:57
But don't swim still happens. 

Eric Corbridge 32:58
It still happens, okay, so I'm not even plugged in an 

Piper Thomas 33:01
adult 

Eric Corbridge 33:02
swim. some have said like an 

Piper Thomas 33:05
Um, 

Eric Corbridge 33:05
archer vibe. 

Piper Thomas 33:06
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 33:07
yeah, exactly. 

Rich Bennett 33:08
Archer map, 

Piper Thomas 33:11
yeah, um, I did take a lot of notes. I liked that, there was like actual, like, parts of Maryland there. Like, it's so 

Eric Corbridge 33:20
hard for County. The fa--edgewood, 

Piper Thomas 33:21
like, actual Harper County references in there. 

Rich Bennett 33:23
Oh you actually named the towns. 

Eric Corbridge 33:25
So yeah, Bad Will's actually Sutton Falston, which ironically is like the one town in Hartford County. 

Rich Bennett 33:29
It doesn't have 

Piper Thomas 33:30
mall. 

Rich Bennett 33:30
a strip 

Piper Thomas 33:31
Two, 

Eric Corbridge 33:31
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 33:32
Oh yeah, they do, don't 

Piper Thomas 33:34
I? I have no clue. 

Rich Bennett 33:37
Okay, nevermind. 

Eric Corbridge 33:38
Yeah, and like I said, I was afraid to use real places, uh, well like real like 

Rich Bennett 33:43
places. 

Eric Corbridge 33:43
stores, or 

Rich Bennett 33:44
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 33:44
But I 

Piper Thomas 33:45
wanted 

Eric Corbridge 33:45
certainly 

Piper Thomas 33:45
to include, 

Eric Corbridge 33:46
you know, town names, and they'll let people know this is definitely Harford County, a this is definitely Maryland. And I feel like it gives off the vibe, at least that's the hope. 

Piper Thomas 33:54
It does. 

Eric Corbridge 33:55
And 

Piper Thomas 33:55
(laughs) 

Eric Corbridge 33:55
then I do create one thing, there's no way this could exist, uh, in Hartford County due to laws, but there's a fireworks testing facility across 

Piper Thomas 34:06
street. 

Eric Corbridge 34:06
the So in my head it was going to be a gag where like every, like, 30, every like 10 minutes on the show, all of a sudden you hear a bunch of fireworks go off 

Piper Thomas 34:19
The 

Eric Corbridge 34:19
into bad 

Piper Thomas 34:19
background because they're testing fireworks. 

Eric Corbridge 34:20
things and fireworks. 

Piper Thomas 34:20
Bro, it's APG. It's 

Eric Corbridge 34:23
basically APG, but I spending it a different 

Piper Thomas 34:25
way. 

Eric Corbridge 34:27
But I ended up not really doing that throughout the script because it got to be too distracting. But in my mind on a TV show, it would be the point where none of the employees are even affected by this anymore, but 

Rich Bennett 34:38
react. 

Eric Corbridge 34:38
customers people watching would react to it, and one of my friends who read made me a t-shirt that says Hartford, uh, fireworks testing facility. 

Rich Bennett 34:50
Some 

Eric Corbridge 34:51
And it's catchphrase, its motto is get banged and 

Piper Thomas 34:55
it's 

Eric Corbridge 34:56
an acronym for something, I don't even remember what it means off the top of my 

Piper Thomas 34:58
head. 

Eric Corbridge 34:59
You learn that later because in one of the future episodes they take a tour of the fireworks facility. And but I'm wearing this shirt sometimes out in public, and I'm waiting for somebody to be like, is that, 

Rich Bennett 35:09
where's that? 

Eric Corbridge 35:09
Like, it's Hartford, 

Piper Thomas 35:10
not, 

Eric Corbridge 35:11
like, that's 

Piper Thomas 35:11
that's a real 

Eric Corbridge 35:11
thing, but it can't be. 

Piper Thomas 35:13
Like, it's just

Eric Corbridge 35:14
wondering if someone's ever going to ask me about it. 

Rich Bennett 35:17
it. You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

I've been talking about them for years, and I will keep talking about them. It's a company that I trust for my home exterior needs. Tor Hill construction group. When it came time to replace my roof, I didn't hesitate. I called Joie, all right, Tor Hill construction group. They were professional, timely, and most importantly, they did an incredible job. The new roof looks amazing, and I know it will last for years to come. Their quality and attention to detail are unmatched, but here's the thing. I'm not stopping there. I'm already planning to use them again for my siding and gutters. Why? Because I trust them. Tor Hill construction group has earned my loyalty by delivering exactly what they promised. High quality work, excellent communication, and a commitment to customer satisfaction. If you're thinking about tackling any exterior home improvement project, whether it's roofing, siding, or gutters, or even solar, give Tor Hill construction group a call. I've used them and I'll keep recommending them and use them again in the future. Check them out at Tor Hill Construction Group dot com or call them today at 410-638-7021. 

Okay, it's funny, though, ' you mentioned that, and when, when people move here to Hartford County for the first time, and you see it all over social media, oh my god, what was that boop? My 

Piper Thomas 37:11
sh- 

Rich Bennett 37:11
house just 

Piper Thomas 37:12
What 

Rich Bennett 37:12
was- what was going on here? And growing up here, oh my god, when APG used to bomb all the time, I mean, there are times some people's windows shattered. 

Eric Corbridge 37:23
Yeah. It's been a lot of time on APG playing baseball when I was growing up, 

Rich Bennett 37:27
So 

Eric Corbridge 37:27
so I've heard it there, and then, you know, I lived in Riverside in Belkham, so, 

Rich Bennett 37:30
you're right there? 

Eric Corbridge 37:30
I would still hear it from there, 

Rich Bennett 37:32
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 37:32
never quite, you know, windows shattering effect, but I could still hear it, 

Rich Bennett 37:35
Oh, our house used to shake all- 'Cause right here in Jopton, you got an edgewood arsenal there, and they used to be active there, too. 

Eric Corbridge 37:41
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 37:41
And you just shake all of the time. 

Piper Thomas 37:44
Have 

Eric Corbridge 37:45
we just got used to this stuff, too? 

Rich Bennett 37:48
true, we do. 

Piper Thomas 37:49
That's 

Rich Bennett 37:49
It's funny because I remember years ago, 'cause my wife and daughter were in Washington State, and my son was every house, and we were in the backroom watching TV, and my son was little. And the house started shaking. Oh, my God. Man, what the hell are they blowing up over there this time? But it kept shaking, so I walked outside, and my other neighbors were outside, like, feel that? Yeah, that didn't feel like APG. It's when we had the earthquake. And I left my son inside the house, it's like, "Oh, is that okay?" Yeah. And I thought my wife got all of this stuff, 'cause I never experienced earthquake, and I have to go away out of the state, and you guys get one? 

Piper Thomas 38:32
Yeah. I mean, 

Rich Bennett 38:33
it was nothing. Nothing like what we had over in Japan 

Eric Corbridge 38:36
not- Oh, 

Rich Bennett 38:36
or 

Eric Corbridge 38:36
what 

Rich Bennett 38:36
we're 

Eric Corbridge 38:37
happened? 

Rich Bennett 38:37
The pain, but yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 38:38
Yeah, it was. 

Rich Bennett 38:38
It was. So, yeah, I have to live with the testing fireworks testing facility. 

Piper Thomas 38:44
'Cause 

Rich Bennett 38:44
anybody from Harford County that reads this is gonna know. 

Eric Corbridge 38:48
Oh, 

Piper Thomas 38:48
absolutely. 

Eric Corbridge 38:48
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 38:49
Other people are going to be like, "Oh, wow." 

Eric Corbridge 38:51
Yeah, although I will say, when we get to episode seven, which is where they tore the facility. 

Rich Bennett 38:57
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 38:58
What to expect? not- It's 

Piper Thomas 38:59
It's 

Eric Corbridge 38:59
not anything you would have ever dreamed of. more. 

Rich Bennett 39:03
There was no 

Eric Corbridge 39:04
I don't want to give anything 

Rich Bennett 39:04
I'm 

Eric Corbridge 39:04
away. 

Rich Bennett 39:05
a mustard gas or anything. 

Eric Corbridge 39:06
No, 

Rich Bennett 39:06
gas. 

Eric Corbridge 39:06
mustard 

Rich Bennett 39:06
Right. [Laughter] No 

Eric Corbridge 39:09
one was harmed in the making 

Rich Bennett 39:10
episode. 

Eric Corbridge 39:10
of the 

Piper Thomas 39:11
[Laughter] 

Eric Corbridge 39:13
think 

Rich Bennett 39:13
I 

Eric Corbridge 39:14
anybody can 

Rich Bennett 39:14
don't 

Eric Corbridge 39:14
predict how it's going to go. 

Rich Bennett 39:16
Are there any plans of hope that this actually 

Piper Thomas 39:19
does become a TV 

Rich Bennett 39:21
series 

Eric Corbridge 39:21
Yeah, certainly. Now that the first two episodes are 

Piper Thomas 39:25
finished? 

Eric Corbridge 39:25
finished and they're out into stores, my artist is working on the third one and I'm still providing her with dialogue. 

Rich Bennett 39:32
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 39:32
Yeah, my vision and storyboard information. But I'm starting to explore, like, what can we do here? Like, is it time to start reaching out to, you know, networks and see if there's any possibilities here? I've even talked about- what some people about potentially animating the first episode and putting it on YouTube. And- because I don't know how to animate anything, but if they can keep faithful to the way the comics look, at least to some degree, 

Rich Bennett 39:55
yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 39:55
I'd love to put it out there and see what we can do. You know, really all the options are on the table because, like I said, I think of it as a story first and foremost and I just want to get it out into the world. I'd do it for free if it didn't cost me so much 

Piper Thomas 40:06
money. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 40:07
The other thing is too, there are so many streaming platforms out there. 

Eric Corbridge 40:12
Yes. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 40:13
Besides, you know, Netflix, Disney and all of them, there's a lot of people, a lot of different ones you can pitch it to. Now the big thing is finding the crew to put it together. 

Eric Corbridge 40:25
Yeah. And these are not my area of expertise, but if I could find the crew, I'd be- I'd be very interested. Um, yeah. It's just tricky. 

Rich Bennett 40:34
Yeah. Funny thing you mentioned because, uh, Peyton Manning does TV. 

Piper Thomas 40:37
[Laughter] Hopefully. [Laughter] 

Eric Corbridge 40:43
[Laughter] There's Lamar. 

Rich Bennett 40:44
No, 

Peyton was one of the producers for, uh, Unreal. 

Eric Corbridge 40:50
Oh, that's right. 

Rich Bennett 40:50
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 40:51
Wait. 

Rich Bennett 40:52
That's a- that's a wrestling show. 

Piper Thomas 40:53
Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 40:53
but that's a different Peyton Manning I think. It's not the same guy. Are you 

Rich Bennett 40:56
I'm- 

Eric Corbridge 40:56
sure? 

Rich Bennett 40:56
I'm pretty sure it's- it's the same Peyton 

Eric Corbridge 40:59
Interesting. 

Rich Bennett 40:59
Manning. 

Eric Corbridge 40:59
Okay. Alright, I guess that would make sense. There's not. 

Rich Bennett 41:02
Oh 

Eric Corbridge 41:02
he- 

Rich Bennett 41:02
yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 41:02
It's 

Rich Bennett 41:02
because 

Eric Corbridge 41:02
not exactly a common name. 

Rich Bennett 41:07
No. 

Piper Thomas 41:07
You know almost everyone with that name? 

Eric Corbridge 41:13
I believe you. Yeah. It's a sh- that's a show- it's a pro wrestling show 

Piper Thomas 41:19
where 

Eric Corbridge 41:20
where 

Piper Thomas 41:20
they 

Eric Corbridge 41:20
they- 

Piper Thomas 41:20
really 

Rich Bennett 41:20
like- go 

Eric Corbridge 41:21
behind 

Rich Bennett 41:21
behind 

Eric Corbridge 41:21
the 

Rich Bennett 41:21
the- go 

Eric Corbridge 41:22
scenes of what's going 

Rich Bennett 41:23
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 41:23
on. I- I would argue it's not the best idea for pro wrestling to do that, 

Piper Thomas 41:28
but- 

Rich Bennett 41:29
You know what? The- the thing is, uh, when it comes to that, with pro wrestling, people now. 

Eric Corbridge 41:36
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 41:36
But I think the good- I- I- I think it's a good 

Piper Thomas 41:40
thing to say. 

Rich Bennett 41:40
Because even today you always hear Oh, it's fake. People don't understand how dangerous 

Eric Corbridge 41:48
It's fake. It's fake. Oh, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 41:49
it is. And you see this 

Piper Thomas 41:51
stuff going on 

Rich Bennett 41:52
in unreal and you know, the bumps that people take it how people have died in the ring. Yeah, so 

Eric Corbridge 42:00
I mean, somebody just died a few days ago the day after. 

Rich Bennett 42:03
Yeah, I've been saddery. 

Eric Corbridge 42:03
feel so I don't know. I don't even think it's come out. What the reason? The reasons are behind it and it's not my place to judge, but 

Rich Bennett 42:09
Yeah, they 

Eric Corbridge 42:10
very sad. 

Rich Bennett 42:10
Yeah, slumped over in his car to restaurant. Did they, did they after he wrestled 

Eric Corbridge 42:14
and actually was it just a few weeks ago someone died in the ring. 

Rich Bennett 42:18
Yeah, that was Andy 

Eric Corbridge 42:20
Yeah, the butcher. 

Rich Bennett 42:21
the butcher who also played in a heavy metal band. 

Eric Corbridge 42:23
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 42:24
Do you do that, too? 

Eric Corbridge 42:27
Yeah, we were talking about pro wrestling before we went on the air and I'm a long time pro wrestling fan since I was a kid. And and I know what it is. Like we said, we know what it is. I know it's people 

Rich Bennett 42:38
yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 42:39
pretending to fight in their underpants, like I know what it is. But I've just always been fascinated by it. And there's, there's parallels. I 

Piper Thomas 42:44
think to that. 

Eric Corbridge 42:45
to any kind of story telling and it's fueled my writing to 

Rich Bennett 42:48
I was 

Eric Corbridge 42:49
because the 

Rich Bennett 42:49
going 

Eric Corbridge 42:49
best 

Rich Bennett 42:49
to 

Piper Thomas 42:49
characters and the ones that get developed and then you care about, 

Rich Bennett 42:52
I was going to ask if that's helped and also because with your writing in wrestling, but also 

Piper Thomas 42:57
there 

Rich Bennett 42:57
are 

Piper Thomas 42:57
are there any care? 

Rich Bennett 42:58
plans 

Piper Thomas 42:59
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 42:59
of 

Piper Thomas 42:59
they wrestling 

Rich Bennett 42:59
clean in 

Piper Thomas 43:00
character 

Rich Bennett 43:01
bed with 

Eric Corbridge 43:01
there's always thoughts of that. 

Rich Bennett 43:02
Okay, 

Piper Thomas 43:04
always. 

Eric Corbridge 43:05
eventually, I don't want to say definitively, yes, but it's certainly on my spreadsheet as an 

Rich Bennett 43:10
Okay, 

Eric Corbridge 43:10
idea. 

Piper Thomas 43:11
I will 

Eric Corbridge 43:11
say one of the characters, Cedique, my mind, he's the craziest character in bad will. He is a lot of 

Piper Thomas 43:21
in 

Eric Corbridge 43:22
bravado, very eccentric, has a bunch of fun facts that he likes to tell people. 

Piper Thomas 43:27
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 43:28
and but it all masks like a deep insecurity always 

Piper Thomas 43:32
and like 

Eric Corbridge 43:33
like craving 

Piper Thomas 43:34
belonging, 

Eric Corbridge 43:34
but he's never had for various reasons that get explored, but he has a line, he, there's a dusty roads shout out in the first step. The people wouldn't know 

Rich Bennett 43:44
if 

Eric Corbridge 43:45
they don't know yeah, but 

Piper Thomas 43:45
expect 

Eric Corbridge 43:45
I wouldn't it 

Piper Thomas 43:46
that 

Eric Corbridge 43:46
runs but wrestling fans will get it. 

Rich Bennett 43:50
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 43:50
for sure. 

Rich Bennett 43:52
I said, pipe her since you've read it and now I have. 

Eric Corbridge 43:55
I'm 

Rich Bennett 43:56
hungry. I'm hooked. 

Piper Thomas 43:57
It is funny. I even wrote some of the funny quotes. Who's 

Rich Bennett 43:59
your favorite 

Piper Thomas 44:00
character? Oh, oh my gosh. 

Eric Corbridge 44:03
On the spot. 

Piper Thomas 44:04
I don't. I just learned like 10 people. I think you 

Rich Bennett 44:09
read two episodes, so your favorite character may not be here yet. 

Piper Thomas 44:13
So far. I'm sorry, but it was the brown lady who works here with the brown hair, and when they're like talking out going to the. 

Eric Corbridge 44:23
And 

Piper Thomas 44:24
then like, Cedique is like, he's talking about like okay, yeah, you do this as she's just enabling him the whole time. I thought that was really. 

Rich Bennett 44:29
What way did man hold up? Hold 

Eric Corbridge 44:31
up. 

Rich Bennett 44:33
So 

Eric Corbridge 44:34
Cedique's 

Piper Thomas 44:35
a guy. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 44:36
And so him and a woman are talking about going to the bathroom 

Piper Thomas 44:39
Well, he's going to the bathroom. She's the lookout right? Because he might want to tell. 

Eric Corbridge 44:43
together. 

Piper Thomas 44:45
So, so he goes to the drug store nearby, which is called drugs for you. The letter you. I know. I thought that was hilarious too. So he goes in there and he has his like regularly scheduled bathroom breaks and everything. Because he doesn't like to use the store's bathroom because they cannot share a porcelain thumb. So he goes over next door, and then they're like, well, what do they think about you? He's like, they think about them about me like, I don't think about what other people think about me. So he takes this, what is the girls? 

Eric Corbridge 45:14
Her name is Alicia. 

Piper Thomas 45:15
So he takes Alicia over to the drug store, and he was like, okay, check out the cash here and see what she says after I go into the bathroom, right? 

Eric Corbridge 45:21
And the 

Piper Thomas 45:21
whole time they're talking about this, she's like, aha, sure. Yeah. Like, she's like clearly enabled him, but he's not picking up on it at all. So then he goes into the bathroom and then Alicia walks in. She talks to cash here. Cash here on her phone doesn't care. And so she's like, okay, then she leaves. Then city comes back like a half hour late, and he's like, well, what happened? And she's like, oh, like, you know, I'm here now. There's 

Rich Bennett 45:41
a lot of humor in this, isn't 

Eric Corbridge 45:42
Oh, 

Rich Bennett 45:42
there? 

Eric Corbridge 45:42
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 45:43
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 45:43
Yeah, it's it's a workplace comedy. It was sure it's designed on people bouncing back from heartbreak. And there's drama in it, too. But there's still it's still a workplace comedy at heart. 

Rich Bennett 45:53
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 45:54
she shows like the 

Piper Thomas 45:54
oh. 

Eric Corbridge 45:54
office superstar, 

Piper Thomas 45:56
You 

Eric Corbridge 45:56
just don't think of it that way. 

Piper Thomas 46:01
To deep 

Eric Corbridge 46:02
was a character like he's great. He's supposed to be crazy. 

Piper Thomas 46:05
no 

Rich Bennett 46:05
Best, 

Piper Thomas 46:05
he is. 

Eric Corbridge 46:07
And it was important for me to have, you know, a character of Arabic descent. You know, I spent 

Rich Bennett 46:11
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 46:11
all this all this time in the military learning that culture and working with people. 

Rich Bennett 46:16
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 46:16
so I wanted him to be a character where he stands out, but not because he's.. err. 

Rich Bennett 46:22
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 46:22
I 

Rich Bennett 46:22
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 46:22
wanted to stand out for some other reason. So there's a lot of, and I've read a lot of these characters, even in the first episode, I had to introduce them with some sort of traits, so it might lean into a stereotype to some degree, but then I spend the rest of the 10 episodes kind of subverting that, and letting you peel back the onion and see there's more of these people than just that, that you might have.. ...thought about. And then maybe you're reading and you're 

Piper Thomas 46:44
like, "Blood." 

Eric Corbridge 46:45
I pre-judge this character, and maybe I shouldn't just pre-judge people, and like maybe it'll help me realize that there's more to people 

Piper Thomas 46:51
to.. ...No too. 

Rich Bennett 46:52
Alright, so with badwill, I love that, and I mean the goodwill, badwill. 

Eric Corbridge 46:57
Well, actually, this is not a secret either, but the reason it's called 'badwill' is because Cara, Cara's boyfriend's name was 'will'. That's 

Rich Bennett 47:06
Okay? 

Piper Thomas 47:06
what I figured! 

Rich Bennett 47:09
Oh! So it's not a spin-off. 

Eric Corbridge 47:11
Oh, it is. 

Rich Bennett 47:12
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 47:13
It 

Piper Thomas 47:13
just works both ways. 

Eric Corbridge 47:15
reason she decides to call the 'store badwill' 

Rich Bennett 47:17
Okay. Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 47:18
is because his name was 'will', and in her mind, she initially just wanted to get rid of the stuff. 

Rich Bennett 47:21
Right. The 

Eric Corbridge 47:22
So that's where that started. She just opens to start the website. She just has a website quickly that'd get rid of his stuff, but then things develop. 

Rich Bennett 47:28
Okay, so do you go into any detail about some of the things in the store, and if so, what's probably the strangest thing? 

Eric Corbridge 47:38
So, I don't know. Yes. guess 

Rich Bennett 47:40
So I 

Eric Corbridge 47:41
I have a... It's a spreadsheet that's like ideas that can be donated 

Rich Bennett 47:44
Yeah. ...Drunken. 

Eric Corbridge 47:45
to the store that I can use. But it can be like simple things. Like there's an episode two, 

Piper Thomas 47:51
someone was just trying to 

Eric Corbridge 47:52
donate some hairspray. 

Piper Thomas 47:53
stupid. 

Eric Corbridge 47:53
Something 

Piper Thomas 47:53
Something very 

Eric Corbridge 47:54
very 

Piper Thomas 47:55
simple. 

Eric Corbridge 47:55
But it leads to a scene between Cadek and the customer, because they're like, you can't donate. We can't take something that's flammable. And then it turns into an 

Piper Thomas 48:04
interaction. 

Eric Corbridge 48:05
But there's a lot of stuff that gets donated. You know, it could be... 

Piper Thomas 48:10
A 

Eric Corbridge 48:11
couch 

Rich Bennett 48:11
couch. 

Eric Corbridge 48:11
that 

Rich Bennett 48:11
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 48:11
a couple shared or blankets, or you know, somebody's hoodies, like normal everyday stuff like that. But what happens if, you know, like a couple's in the store and they break up in the store? 

Rich Bennett 48:22
A 

Eric Corbridge 48:22
Or if they try to donate an engagement 

Piper Thomas 48:23
a... 

Eric Corbridge 48:24
ring. 

Piper Thomas 48:24
What 

Rich Bennett 48:24
Ooh. 

Eric Corbridge 48:25
What if 

Piper Thomas 48:25
if that's 

Eric Corbridge 48:25
that's 

Piper Thomas 48:25
a... What if someone 

Eric Corbridge 48:26
tries to donate a pet. 

Piper Thomas 48:27
Oh my gosh. 

Rich Bennett 48:28
Like a 

Eric Corbridge 48:28
Shelter. 

Rich Bennett 48:29
cat. 

Eric Corbridge 48:29
Yes. What... There's just so many options on the table. 

Rich Bennett 48:33
Oh yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 48:33
And that was my thought was if this was a television show. And if I 

Piper Thomas 48:38
would have 

Eric Corbridge 48:38
think 

Piper Thomas 48:38
to get... Think it would 

Eric Corbridge 48:38
it 

Piper Thomas 48:38
have to get cast love. A show 

Eric Corbridge 48:40
Well 

Piper Thomas 48:41
cast. 

Eric Corbridge 48:41
then you're in good 

Piper Thomas 48:42
shape. But 

Eric Corbridge 48:42
if it became a hit, then you might have these, you know, bigger name celebrities that want to do a one 

Piper Thomas 48:48
it 

Eric Corbridge 48:48
episode 

Piper Thomas 48:49
an episode 

Eric Corbridge 48:49
thing 

Piper Thomas 48:49
thing 

Eric Corbridge 48:49
where 

Piper Thomas 48:49
where 

Eric Corbridge 48:49
they 

Piper Thomas 48:49
they come in 

Eric Corbridge 48:50
call... 

Piper Thomas 48:50
and do 

Eric Corbridge 48:50
Is 

Piper Thomas 48:50
this customer thing? 

Eric Corbridge 48:51
Has this crazy story and they try to donate something insane? 

Rich Bennett 48:54
Almost like 

Eric Corbridge 48:55
Cause 

Rich Bennett 48:55
pond 

Eric Corbridge 48:55
they can... Yeah 

Rich Bennett 48:56
stores. 

Eric Corbridge 48:56
exactly. And 

Rich Bennett 48:56
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 48:56
then they can kinda spread their acting chops and like really get into something 

Piper Thomas 49:01
That's 

Eric Corbridge 49:01
ridiculous. 

Piper Thomas 49:01
the thing I 

Eric Corbridge 49:01
Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 49:01
get 

Eric Corbridge 49:02
Like, remembered for, especially if they're like known as like a serious actor. And they come 

Piper Thomas 49:06
my 

Eric Corbridge 49:06
in here 

Piper Thomas 49:06
turn 

Eric Corbridge 49:06
and do 

Piper Thomas 49:06
to 

Eric Corbridge 49:06
this one episode of a TV show where they're insane. Like... 

Piper Thomas 49:09
do this... 

Rich Bennett 49:09
You know what Ergen, oh honestly. I 

Piper Thomas 49:12
I 

Rich Bennett 49:12
can 

Piper Thomas 49:12
can 

Rich Bennett 49:13
see 

Piper Thomas 49:13
see this... 

Rich Bennett 49:13
this... 

Eric Corbridge 49:13
A 

Rich Bennett 49:14
novel series as well. 

Eric Corbridge 49:15
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:16
Because when 

Piper Thomas 49:17
you... 

Rich Bennett 49:19
You know, 

Piper Thomas 49:20
that's donated. 

Eric Corbridge 49:21
Right. 

Rich Bennett 49:21
The story 

Piper Thomas 49:22
behind... 

Rich Bennett 49:23
What was donated. Which... 

Piper Thomas 49:24
Which 

Rich Bennett 49:25
So 

Piper Thomas 49:25
could go back 

Rich Bennett 49:25
back... Decades to 

Piper Thomas 49:27
to 

Rich Bennett 49:27
other 

Piper Thomas 49:27
other 

Rich Bennett 49:28
couples as well. 

Eric Corbridge 49:29
couples. 

Rich Bennett 49:29
You know like... This was donated by so and so because of their breakup. And then come to find out... That particular... 

Piper Thomas 49:36
I think that was donated 

Rich Bennett 49:37
Because 

Piper Thomas 49:37
caused so many other breakups. Oh. 

Rich Bennett 49:39
But only a fortune teller or 

Piper Thomas 49:43
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 49:43
magician. 

Piper Thomas 49:43
you 

Rich Bennett 49:43
a... 

Piper Thomas 49:43
call 

Rich Bennett 49:43
Oh 

Piper Thomas 49:43
her 

Rich Bennett 49:44
my God! 

Piper Thomas 49:44
said... He 

Rich Bennett 49:45
He 

Piper Thomas 49:45
already 

Rich Bennett 49:45
already 

Piper Thomas 49:46
said he 

Rich Bennett 49:46
fortune 

Piper Thomas 49:46
put the 

Rich Bennett 49:47
teller... It... 

Piper Thomas 49:48
she 

Rich Bennett 49:49
Is 

Piper Thomas 49:49
incorporated into a lot of story 

Rich Bennett 49:50
stories? 

Eric Corbridge 49:51
I will 

Piper Thomas 49:51
Yes. 

Eric Corbridge 49:51
tease a little bit with the fortune teller. 

Rich Bennett 49:53
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 49:55
fortune teller establishes a relationship with one of the main characters 

Rich Bennett 50:00
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 50:00
that drives a lot of story. And yes, she's a fortune teller to whatever you want to put stock in that. But she's essentially someone's therapist. Is 

Piper Thomas 50:12
The 

Eric Corbridge 50:12
really what it... Is really what it comes down to. 

Rich Bennett 50:15
Wow. Okay. Oh 

Piper Thomas 50:17
absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 50:17
man. 

Piper Thomas 50:19
I think that happens a lot now. Every time I see like, some type of like whoever's claiming to be a terror reader or something, it's always some sort of therapy speak. It's always something like that. 

Eric Corbridge 50:27
Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 50:27
So that's gonna work out really well for you. 

Eric Corbridge 50:29
So. 

Piper Thomas 50:29
And you can go really funny ways. Please. Is it like relationship help? 

Eric Corbridge 50:32
Oh, 

Piper Thomas 50:33
Because it's right there. 

Eric Corbridge 50:33
Absolutely. 

Piper Thomas 50:34
Yeah. There's 

Eric Corbridge 50:35
a lot of different aspects that are being helped. 

Piper Thomas 50:38
That's gonna be really good. You 

Rich Bennett 50:39
mentioned quotes. What was one of your favorite 

Piper Thomas 50:41
oh 

Rich Bennett 50:41
quotes? 

Piper Thomas 50:41
my gosh one of the quotes made me realize like because like I said, my parents are in the military. I moved them around a lot So then you know it's hard to like claim home, but then I'll see like a quote from one of your characters. I was like, Oh, I say that's that very Maryland of me. 

For you, that was a funny store name. And then, uhm, at the end of the second episode, there's two characters talking. It's Cedique and the old lady and the old lady says something about me and a star and it's Cedique is like, okay, Orion. I thought it was really funny. 

Rich Bennett 51:23
God. 

Eric Corbridge 51:23
Yeah, it's funny that the older woman her name is Lucille and in my head when I was when I was conceptualizing all of these characters. I had usually like an actor and actress from a TV show or something in my head as I'm like picturing them until they until I saw what they were 

Piper Thomas 51:41
drawn, like, and now 

Eric Corbridge 51:42
those images have replaced it, but I gave these images to Haley and said, hey, here's who I thought of when I was drawing when I was thinking about these people. So if you want to use that as a guideline, but with Lucille, my thought was she was like Sophia from the Golden Girls. 

Rich Bennett 51:58
Oh, God. 

Eric Corbridge 51:59
So she's supposed to be, she's the oldest one there clearly. She is a widow, has a whole bunch of grandkids, and she was also on Broadway when she was younger. So like, you kind of throw that in there. And she's supposed to be kind of like, have this aura where she's like the coolest person in the room, 

Rich Bennett 52:17
was. 

Eric Corbridge 52:17
anytime 

Rich Bennett 52:17
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 52:17
she And it's funny that I'd written her episode, her episode is episode five with her backstory and some of his flashbacks to her time on Broadway and prior to that and she was in and I was trying to do research of like what she was in Chicago in this year what what kind of like places they do theater back then. That thing. And so I found 

Piper Thomas 52:39
the name and the name of 

Eric Corbridge 52:39
theater that I worked, they worked perfectly and I wrote it. Then a year later, I was in Chicago and I'm sitting in this theater, I was at something and I realized and I hadn't done with me. And I was like, wa a minute, the name of this sounds familiar. I looked it up and it was the exact same one I just researched a year ago. It was like the craziest 

Piper Thomas 52:57
the 

Eric Corbridge 52:57
coincidence 

Piper Thomas 52:57
church, 

Eric Corbridge 52:57
and I would have never guessed. There's so much. 

Rich Bennett 53:01
wow, 

Eric Corbridge 53:01
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 53:02
wow, 

Eric Corbridge 53:03
it was so strange. 

Piper Thomas 53:04
It was cool to sing up like that. 

Eric Corbridge 53:06
She's my dad's favorite character by the way. 

Piper Thomas 53:10
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 53:10
do you have any more questions for him before we get to the last question. What you're going to read him? 

Piper Thomas 53:14
Oh, that will be cool. I see. 

was connecting. I really liked the interview part because like, so Kara is interviewing all these people. She's meeting them all. Yes, I 

Rich Bennett 53:28
Oh, 

Piper Thomas 53:28
read them. 

Rich Bennett 53:28
okay. 

Piper Thomas 53:29
And so she's interviewing everyone for the first time and introducing like five or six new employees. Right. And the audience is also learning all these characters for a good time. So I think I mean for the first time, I think it was like a really smart way to like have the interview got way. We all had to speed these all the whole cast that you're introducing so to have Kara be like 

Eric Corbridge 53:50
I 

Piper Thomas 53:50
lost and then now have to learn these people and we learn with her. We really get to like bottom of care, but also it's like a good way to build your characters very quickly. 

Eric Corbridge 53:57
Thank you. And speed dating is such a perfect way to explain it. And I need to remember that because 

Piper Thomas 54:02
it's kind of, it's

Eric Corbridge 54:03
kind of how it unfolds. I forget which movie had a scene that was the 40 year old version. I can't remember which movie there was a speed 

Rich Bennett 54:10
dating? 

Eric Corbridge 54:10
dating. Is that 

Rich Bennett 54:10
Oh, no, there's a good 

Eric Corbridge 54:11
I can't remember. 

Rich Bennett 54:12
Got that. 

Eric Corbridge 54:13
But I had all these things in my head. And I really did have a fear when I was writing episode one because like the first at least third of it, you basically meet two or maybe three characters that are going to be in the story 

Rich Bennett 54:23
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 54:23
and I'm thinking I got to introduce all my main characters in this first episode. I have to introduce all my main characters in this first episode. How am I going to do that? So that's why the speed dating and the interview montage kind of came about. So I was like at least I can introduce all of them and give them something. 

Piper Thomas 54:39
Something 

Eric Corbridge 54:39
that shows a little bit of their personality. So that was my goal. 

Rich Bennett 54:43
I can't wait for the episode of Badwill Christmas party. 

Piper Thomas 54:48
Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 54:48
so funny. You bring that 

Rich Bennett 54:49
My 

Eric Corbridge 54:49
up. 

Piper Thomas 54:50
god. 

Eric Corbridge 54:51
That's the season finale. 

Rich Bennett 54:52
Are you serious? 

Eric Corbridge 54:54
It is an actual Christmas party. I have a Halloween episode and a Christmas episode. 

Rich Bennett 55:01
Yeah, but you know, well, we all know what some of us know Piper may not. The crazy things that can happen. 

Eric Corbridge 55:07
Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 55:10
Company Christmas parties can be dangerous. Especially if there's alcohol involved. 

Eric Corbridge 55:15
Oh, absolutely. 

Piper Thomas 55:18
Yeah, I did my lasting about it. Um, the like way that the book is like covered cover composed. I'm not sure how much it was you or Haley, but I really 

Eric Corbridge 55:26
like. 

Piper Thomas 55:35
So it really like shows and I'm like, store manager and it's you and that was so funny. But it's such like a good visual representation. This is the story, this is the TV references, comments, a comedy. 

Eric Corbridge 55:53
I 

don't want it to feel like you're, you're reading this comic book and you can tell it's in a, it's like an office style store and you mentioned the clipboard. It was my idea to do that and then Haley I thought really just knocked it out of the park with the way she made it look. And it's a way that I give credit. There's a lot of credit given to people that are listed as associate producers. And those are people that I ran two kick starters for these first two episodes to like fund the printing and those were people that backed me at a higher level to become associate producers so they'll have their name listed in the back of each episode moving forward. I thought it'd be cool to have it. It was like a associate producers 

Rich Bennett 56:34
credit like 

Eric Corbridge 56:34
Is 

Rich Bennett 56:34
credit. 

Eric Corbridge 56:34
there name listed on a clipboard. And then there's another page. There's 

Piper Thomas 56:38
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 56:38
another. Call the badwill break room where it's got 

Piper Thomas 56:41
I 

Eric Corbridge 56:41
like 

Piper Thomas 56:42
liked that 

Eric Corbridge 56:42
A 

Piper Thomas 56:42
one. 

Eric Corbridge 56:42
cork board and like sticky notes and it's like it says thing. Like there's a couple testimonials. I included from some readers on there and there's like a fake donation form where, you know, it's like this thing was donated or there's an employee of the month, which I won't spoil who the employee of the month. 

Piper Thomas 56:58
But 

Eric Corbridge 57:00
moving forward, the employee of the month is actually going to be kick starter backers that backed my second kick starter for episode two and they backed at a level so they'll get their picture in the back. 

Piper Thomas 57:10
Is it going to be drawn 

Eric Corbridge 57:11
it'll be drawn. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:12
that. 

Piper Thomas 57:12
That's good. 

Rich Bennett 57:12
That's 

Eric Corbridge 57:12
I 

Rich Bennett 57:12
a pretty 

Eric Corbridge 57:12
send 

Rich Bennett 57:13
cool idea. 

Piper Thomas 57:14
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:15
Now, do you have any companies that have supported you as well? 

Eric Corbridge 57:20
No, it's something I've thought about. I just didn't think I was there yet. 

Rich Bennett 57:23
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 57:24
Maybe for episode three, if somebody was interested, yeah, it could be cool. 

Rich Bennett 57:27
I was going to see because to incorporate like the company's logo or something. 

Eric Corbridge 57:32
Yeah. Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 57:33
Yeah. It's 

Eric Corbridge 57:35
Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 57:36
the empty store. 

Rich Bennett 57:37
Yeah. There you go. 

Eric Corbridge 57:38
Yeah. Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 57:39
Come in soon. 

Eric Corbridge 57:40
Yeah. And it's one of those things where I understand that I have a comic book and some people automatically think that's for kids. And this is not for children. It's. 

Rich Bennett 57:48
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 57:49
not something that's, you know, I think if you can back me up on this paper, I think a kid can read this 

Piper Thomas 57:53
It's 

Eric Corbridge 57:54
as. And but usually I say like maybe like 12 and up. If you've been through a relationship, maybe that would help some degree. At least you can understand it. But like I have a cousin out in Utah. Her 10 year old loves it. And so I don't think it's going to hurt anybody, but, you know, I'm selling. I've always treated this is differently than just a comic book. It's a book. It's a story. So all options are on the table. If a company wanted to be interested in it, I think it could make sense. 

Rich Bennett 58:22
Here's my thinking, especially as comic books and an episodic comic book like this almost like a TV show. a company wanted to sponsor it, there's so many ways you can add them because you're in a strip mall. So you can have a it. So Deek is out there talking to the manager of this roofing company 

Piper Thomas 58:45
If 

Rich Bennett 58:45
that's working on the roof of the strip mall or whatever. Somebody 

Piper Thomas 58:50
from 

Rich Bennett 58:52
I don't know HVAC company 

Piper Thomas 58:54
where is 

Rich Bennett 58:55
in there working there's so many different ways 

Piper Thomas 58:58
could 

Rich Bennett 58:58
you could 

Piper Thomas 58:59
do 

Rich Bennett 58:59
you 

Piper Thomas 59:00
this because you can incorporate the character into it 

Rich Bennett 59:04
and have their logo like on the Oh man. I became a comic book. 

Eric Corbridge 59:10
I briefly considered reaching out to goodwill and seeing if they want 

Piper Thomas 59:13
it 

Eric Corbridge 59:14
because I was thinking, you know, no pun intended, but I might have more goodwill in my story than you got something. Think you're a company at this point. 

Rich Bennett 59:22
All right. What's the website again? So people. 

Eric Corbridge 59:24
It's badwill comic dot com 

Rich Bennett 59:26
bad bad little 

Eric Corbridge 59:28
bad will 

Rich Bennett 59:29
comic will comic dot com that's where they can purchase 

Eric Corbridge 59:32
Yeah, it's also available at some stores here in Hartford County, too. 

Rich Bennett 59:35
it. Oh, it is. 

Eric Corbridge 59:35
Chuck's comics here in Japa. 

Rich Bennett 59:37
who? 

Eric Corbridge 59:37
In Chucks comics in Japa. It's just down here in on off mountain route. 

Rich Bennett 59:43
Oh, wow. Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 59:44
Y, they've been around a while. And then infinite comics in Bel Air and collectors corner in Bel Air. 

Rich Bennett 59:50
collectors corner I've heard of the 

Eric Corbridge 59:51
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 59:52
other child never 

Eric Corbridge 59:52
Infinite's 

Rich Bennett 59:52
heard of. 

Eric Corbridge 59:53
pretty new. They've only been around for a few months, but the guys there are really nice. I talked to them just about a month ago. 

Rich Bennett 59:58
Wow. 

Eric Corbridge 59:58
So I'm hoping to have some appearances around here. I've gone to Chuck's a couple of times already and set up a table when they've had big sales and I'll be selling comics there. But those are like few and far between. And so obviously I'm still selling on the website. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:13
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 1:00:13
Like I said before, the digital copies are there. They're signed. There and then obviously the physical copies are there and the bottom it's seven ninety nine for one copy of physical copy and then a bun is fourteen ninety nine. So you'd go off. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:28
I was a see isn't that cheaper than like your other comic books regular comic. 

Eric Corbridge 1:00:32
It depends. So it's I'm glad you mentioned that too because you know you go buy a Marvel comic book or a DC comic book at a comic bookstore. They're usually around like three ninety nine four ninety nine. But the quality of this comic is much better and plus you know episode one counting covers is forty four pages and episode two is forty eight pages. I think you're getting a 

Piper Thomas 1:00:54
lot more. 

Eric Corbridge 1:00:55
Plus I am not you know funded by Marvel and 

Piper Thomas 1:00:58
DC 

Rich Bennett 1:00:58
I 

Piper Thomas 1:00:58
and 

Rich Bennett 1:00:58
was going to say I was going to say the biggest but is that they're supporting somebody that's local. 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:06
Yeah, obviously I appreciate that. it's and and it just costs money to print them and pay her 

Rich Bennett 1:01:11
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:11
a Daily and so 

Piper Thomas 1:01:12
if 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:12
I don't want to like lose a bunch of money, then I have to at least. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:15
Because 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:16
it cost 

Rich Bennett 1:01:17
all right. So is there anything you like that before pipe or issue the last question, which you're going to 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:22
Sure, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:22
pick. 

Eric Corbridge 1:01:22
I will pitch something else. It's happening. And if you're listening to this in the future, maybe want to check it out and see how it went. But on Monday, October 5th, 2026, I am launching across all four of my social media which I don't have a huge social media presence, but I think this is going to be fun. And so I wanted to do it. It's badwill presents the workplace comedy character championship across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. So search for Eric Corbridge, the RIC, CLR bridge. It's a NCAA tournament style bracket. So there's going to be, I did exhaustive research first defining what a workplace comedy would be. And which essentially boiled down to, if the workplace itself is a key setting in the 

Piper Thomas 1:02:10
story, 

Rich Bennett 1:02:10
yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:11
and a good percentage of the characters in the show work there. So some obvious shows like the office or cheers, you know, because I went back through TV history in this clearly qualified superstar we mentioned. But some other shows I hadn't considered. Even some older shows like mash, a workplace comedy, 

Piper Thomas 1:02:31
I know 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:31
you know, the workplace is a war zone, but it's still a workplace. So and Frazier was one that I really debated. I'm like is that qualify, but I leaned into yes. 

Piper Thomas 1:02:42
Some 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:43
other shows that I love. There's a show called Psych that I love. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:45
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:46
But it didn't qualify because it scrubs is in 

Piper Thomas 1:02:49
there. 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:49
Psych didn't 

Piper Thomas 1:02:50
qualify. I just 

Eric Corbridge 1:02:52
wanted it to because I love the show so much, but I just couldn't make the case that it was a workplace comedy. Once I defined it, I did exhaustive research to figure out what shows would qualify. Then I pulled the main characters from those shows and a whole more research to narrow it down to the 64. So no show can have more than five characters in it because some of those shows you could have seven eight characters in it, but I wanted to like spread it out a little bit more. But then starting Monday, October 5th, two matchups will go live. We'll have two matchups every day except for Sunday for the first two rounds. Sunday's I'm going to reveal the results of the week and then we're going to keep going until we crown a winner sometime in November. And so if anybody and it's bad will presents and it's like if you want to meet the next potentially great workplace comedy characters, check out badwill dot com. Badwill Comic dot com, excuse 

Rich Bennett 1:03:42
me. Okay. What sign felt. Sign felt qualified for that because 

Piper Thomas 1:03:46
did they even work 

Eric Corbridge 1:03:47
now? 

Rich Bennett 1:03:47
Yes, 

Eric Corbridge 1:03:49
well, they did work. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:50
free route, the script, the TV 

Eric Corbridge 1:03:53
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 1:03:53
show about nothing. 

Eric Corbridge 1:03:54
Yes, so that's 

Rich Bennett 1:03:55
a 

Eric Corbridge 1:03:56
good, that's a good one to bring up. I lean to know for sign felt because they didn't all have like the same workplace and the. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:03
But they always met at a particular workplace, 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:06
Yeah, the key did it. Yeah, they 

Rich Bennett 1:04:07
the 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:07
met at 

Rich Bennett 1:04:07
restaurant. 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:07
the restaurant. So if they had worked at that restaurant, it would have 

Piper Thomas 1:04:10
qualified. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:10
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:11
But it felt like the show mostly took place in like their apartments and then the restaurant or the diner, whatever it was. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:17
Very 

Piper Thomas 1:04:17
for. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:17
worked 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:19
He did. He did. You trust me. I 

Rich Bennett 1:04:21
You 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:21
went in. So when that one. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:22
were looking at every. You were going down. 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:23
I looked at every angle. Yeah. So in a case like sign felt or show like that or psych like I was saying, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:28
Yeah, 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:29
I researched a whole bunch of other art like places that have done articles on things like this. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:33
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:34
What asked like, chat GPT? Is this a 

Piper Thomas 1:04:36
workplace comedy? 

Eric Corbridge 1:04:46
yeah, 

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I like a lot of my love the office. I love parks and rec, uhm, scrubs, all of those. Ted Lasso, I'm watching now. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:58
Yeah. I'd have to go with cheers because, uh, just norm. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:02
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:02
Just because of norm. I would obey you. Do you have a favorite workplace 

Piper Thomas 1:05:07
comedy? Um, I watched a lot a lot of stuff I watched as cartoons. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:11
lot. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:11
OK. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:11
Well, there were cartoons. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:12
There's 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:12
We're 

Rich Bennett 1:05:12
a 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:12
not omitted from this. Futurama, 

Piper Thomas 1:05:15
made the cut. I did like Futurama. That was a good one. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:17
we talked about made the cut, uh, Bob's Burgers 

Piper Thomas 1:05:20
Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:21
made 

Piper Thomas 1:05:21
I 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:21
the 

Piper Thomas 1:05:21
would say 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:21
cut. 

Piper Thomas 1:05:21
Bob's burgers, for sure. Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:23
It's represented well in this. 

Piper Thomas 1:05:24
That would be my answer. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:27
Say, I'm launching that on Monday. If anyone's interested, uh, it did not put SpongeBob. I don't even know if I can serve 

Piper Thomas 1:05:33
it. Yeah, cause he's a lot of places outside. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:35
Yeah. Is it you can say all this is tricky. I'm sure not everyone will be happy with this, but that's part of the. 

Piper Thomas 1:05:41
Even 

Rich Bennett 1:05:42
with like, cheers, sometimes there were parts of the. Oh my god. I'm sorry. Cheers was not my 

Piper Thomas 1:05:47
favorite. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:48
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:49
Taxi. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:50
Want to hear another quick fun story? 

Rich Bennett 1:05:52
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:53
Taxi definitely made the cut is well represented. In fact, I don't want to spoil that. I'm 

Piper Thomas 1:05:58
related to 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:58
The 

Piper Thomas 1:05:58
one. 

Eric Corbridge 1:05:59
people from cheers. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:00
Good attie. 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:01
It's my dad's cousin is married to Mary Lou. Henner from taxi, and I know you'd probably don't do this. was basically the main actress on taxi. And yeah, so I'm related to her. She is in the bracket. Uh, 

Piper Thomas 1:06:18
She 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:18
she has a very tough match up. I 

Piper Thomas 1:06:19
What 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:19
will. 

Piper Thomas 1:06:20
does she think about being in the 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:22
she doesn't know. 

Piper Thomas 1:06:22
bracket? Oh, 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:23
So I've only met her one. 

Piper Thomas 1:06:24
It's 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:24
not like when I, she lives in California. And I've never even met her. I've never met 

Piper Thomas 1:06:30
cousin. 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:30
my dad's So, but he is, I've actually a 

Piper Thomas 1:06:33
Bunch 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:33
bad. of copies. And so they're aware of this. And they both follow me on social media. So I've been debating like, do I tip them off that she's in this 

Piper Thomas 1:06:42
bracket? 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:43
Or could that potentially throw a whole wrench into this thing where all everybody goes on votes for 

Rich Bennett 1:06:47
she 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:47
her? 

Rich Bennett 1:06:48
actually, well, 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:48
And then 

Rich Bennett 1:06:49
especially she loses too. 

Eric Corbridge 1:06:50
She's got a tough, tough match up in round one. Because the way these matchups were designed, I turned over every rock on this. I used chat GBT where AI has its uses. I argue with it constantly and I used AI for nothing to do with creating bad will, but it's helpful for like helping with documents and stuff like that. And for planning this tournament, I had it take my 64 characters and sort them into 4 tiers. So that tier 1 is like your huge names. Because I didn't want them to go against each other in 

Rich Bennett 1:07:22
Right. 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:22
the first round. And I didn't want say like the two main characters from sheers going against each other in the first round 

Rich Bennett 1:07:28
Makes 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:28
either. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:28
sense, yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:28
So it helped me split it up. But necessarily, you know, Mary Lou Henner is not going to be a tier 1 character. But she goes up against one in the first round. So it's not going to be an easy match up. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:41
Mary Lou I got your back. Don't worry. Oh man. Because everybody always has a crush. Yeah. She 

Piper Thomas 1:07:49
one 

Rich Bennett 1:07:49
was 

Piper Thomas 1:07:49
of mine. She was a 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:50
lot of a lot of people. 

Piper Thomas 1:07:51
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:51
Oh Her and Catherine 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:54
bill. Yeah. Yeah. From jagged. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:56
God. qualify. 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:57
Jagged 

Rich Bennett 1:07:57
Hey. 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:57
also did not 

Rich Bennett 1:07:58
Jeez. Huh? 

Eric Corbridge 1:07:59
Jagged also did not qualify. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:01
Well, 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:01
Not, 

Rich Bennett 1:08:01
it wasn't a. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:01
not a comedy. Yeah, that's the thing. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:03
All right. So the way this works, I got 100 different questions here. I'm going to have to see. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:08
Okay, 

Rich Bennett 1:08:09
okay. So and I still don't know what they all are. So you 

Piper Thomas 1:08:12
pick a 

Rich Bennett 1:08:13
number. And this way, people know that it's not me just saying a random question. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:18
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:19
You pick a number to 100 and then piper is going to ask you the question. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:22
Just one. Are we doing? Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:25
Yeah. Just one. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:26
Don't we'll start with my favorite number. 33 

Rich Bennett 1:08:29
from Eddie Murray. Hmm. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:30
Eddie 

Rich Bennett 1:08:32
Murray. Oh, Eddie Murray. I'm 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:33
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:08:33
thinking, wait. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:33
33. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:34
I'm thinking Eddie Murphy. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:35
Eddie Murray. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:36
Like how is Eddie, what's 33 got to do with Eddie Murphy? But yeah, Eddie Murray, the ball player. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:41
Eddie 

Rich Bennett 1:08:41
Okay. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:41
Murray was my favorite oral when I was a little kid. And then it gravitated to be cowl since I went to Aberdeen 

Rich Bennett 1:08:46
Yeah. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:46
Middle. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:48
Mine was always Brooks. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:49
Yeah. He's great too. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:50
Yeah. 

Piper Thomas 1:08:52
Okay. Are you ready? Yes. 

Eric Corbridge 1:08:53
Yes. 

Piper Thomas 1:08:54
What is a simple piece of wisdom you often return to? 

Rich Bennett 1:08:59
So 

Eric Corbridge 1:09:03
I wouldn't have been able to say this even 15 years ago. Trust my instincts. The way I see it, they've gotten me this far. And usually when I do 

Piper Thomas 1:09:12
that it gives me a 

Eric Corbridge 1:09:12
piece of mine that I made the right decision for me. and I found that it usually gets me the best results. 

Piper Thomas 1:09:19
Which is pretty crazy, 'cause you were in the military. I feel like you were only instance for a bit. You just, like, professional insulin are there. You're like, "I hope that's what he said." 

Eric Corbridge 1:09:27
you talk to me in the beginning of my career, I was probably a little more mature than... most in the beginning of my career since I was a little older. But... Night-in-day compared to how I feel about now in my instincts. Back then, I wouldn't have trusted 

Piper Thomas 1:09:39
If 

Eric Corbridge 1:09:39
them. You know, I was always kind of indecisive. And I've learned to become more decisive. And that's kinda like the... what's driven that... 'cause I always fall back on 

Piper Thomas 1:09:48
it. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:49
Yeah, 'cause a lot of, to this day, a lot of people that didn't even serve in the military. Because we're taught, you go by your gut. Your gut instinct. Not your heart, not your brain. Your gut instinct. A lot of people that never served don't understand that. 

Eric Corbridge 1:10:08
And I think it takes... I'm sure you'll agree. What happens is, you go against it enough times. And you realize you didn't get the results you wanted and you were 

Piper Thomas 1:10:17
learned... 

Eric Corbridge 1:10:17
wrong, and then you I really need to trust 

Rich Bennett 1:10:19
more. 

Eric Corbridge 1:10:20
myself 

Rich Bennett 1:10:20
Yep. Oh, yeah. Eric, I want to thank you so much. I can't wait to read this. 

Eric Corbridge 1:10:24
Thanks. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:25
Piper, thank you. You did go... You did awesome. 

Piper Thomas 1:10:28
Oh, thanks for having me again. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:31
I'm not lying to me

Piper Thomas 1:10:31
anymore. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:34
What a great conversation with Eric. And I have to tell you, I never thought a comic book about a thrish store that only accepts donations from failed relationships could lead to so many interesting stories, laughs, and even some important life lessons. You know, what really stood out to me was Eric's journey. Here's a guy who grew up right here in Hartford County, experienced some difficult times with his family. He served 22 years in the United States Air Force, and then decided to pursue something completely different. He took an idea that popped into his head during a tennis match and turned it into bad will. A comic series filled with humor, heartbreak, interesting characters, and second chances. And I love the message behind the story, just because a relationship ends or a life doesn't turn out the way we expect it doesn't mean the story is over. Sometimes those experiences lead us to something better. As Eric explained, it's about giving back instead of giving up and building new dreams from broken ones. I also appreciate what Eric said toward the end of our conversation about trusting your instincts. That's something I think we can all learn from. Sometimes we spend so much time questioning ourselves that we forget to trust what we've learned through our own experiences. And who knows? That crazy idea you've been sitting on might just turn into something incredible. I want to give a big thank you to Eric for joining us, sharing his story, and giving us a look behind the scenes of bad will. If you haven't checked it out yet, visit badwillcomic.com to learn more and pick up your copies. And remember, when you support independent creators, like Eric, you're helping bring their dreams to life. And a very, very special thank you to my co-host, Piper Thomas, for joining me. Piper, you did an awesome job, especially with your artistic perspective. The details you picked up from reading the comic and the questions you brought to the conversation. I really, really enjoyed having you as part of this one. And I hope we'll get to do it again. And a special thank you to Tar Heal Construction Group for sponsoring this episode and helping us bring these meaningful conversations to you. And to everyone listening. Here's something I'd like you to think about. What's an idea you've been holding on to because you weren't sure where it might lead? Maybe it's time to stop wondering and start creating. Until next time, I'm Rich Bennett. Thanks for listening and remember, every great conversation starts with someone willing to listen and someone willing to share. Now it's your turn. Join the conversation by sharing this episode, leaving a comment, or reaching out to me directly. Take care. Be kind to one another. And I'll talk with you again soon.