The following interview was conducted by Tom Peterson over at the Green Lantern Shrine and is mirrored here with permission.

M.D. Bright

Shrine)  I saw at your website you will be doing the art for part of #132 and all of #133, how did this come about?

M.D.) I got those issues to work on after several months of calling around to various DC comics editors looking for work.   I guess that I was driving all of them nuts with my weekly calls. Finally something went sort of my way and during a week that I hadn't put in a call, Bob Schreck took pity on me and tossed the work my way.

Shrine) Other than this fill in stint, what the heck have you been up to?

M.D.) Well, there really hasn't been all that much of a hole in my schedule between finishing "Quantum & Woody" #27 and doing the Green Lantern stuff.   I did an issue of "The Black Panther" but that was about all that I was able to do in the interim.

Shrine) What was your first pro work?

M.D.) Well, I hate to talk about it but I guess that was the weekend that I worked the "Hey, Sailor..." booth at the Shriner's Convention at Atlantic City in '75.   I'm not proud of what I did back then but...

Oh, you probably meant my first professional COMIC BOOK work.

That was some "House of Mystery" stuff that I did back in the late 70's.    I think that I did either two or three stories at the time and then didn't do any other work until Jim Shooter gave me a few fill-in stories at Marvel in the early 80's.

Shrine) I've enjoyed your Green Lantern work earlier on in this current series and the Emerald Dawn stuff, is this your first time drawing the new GL, Kyle?

M.D.) Yes, it is.

Shrine) What do you think about this new Green Lantern?

M.D.) I haven't actually followed the book since Kyle took over as "Green Lantern" of whatever sector it is that Earth is in so I don't really have any idea of who this character is.

The guys at DC comics probably wouldn't like me saying this (that is, if what I said made any difference to anyone but me, myself and I, of course) but "Green Lantern" is Hal Jordan (even more so than Alan Scott for me as I had never read any of his adventures as "Green Lantern."). Everyone else is a guy with a power ring.

During the round-robin re-launch of "Green Lantern" that featured rotating GLs Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner on Earth and John Stewart out in space I was doing the John Stewart issues of "Green Lantern." I was *very* happy when the story came along where Hal and Guy fought it out in "Green Lantern" #25 for who was going to be THE Green Lantern of Earth."

I was even happier that I was the artist chosen to chronicle his adventures.

I had months earlier told the then "Green Lantern" editor Kevin Dooley that I didn't want to draw anyone as "Green Lantern" other than Hal Jordan. That statement had nothing at all to do with my leaving the book, though. I was blowing deadlines and really got behind schedule when the book went biweekly during the summer. Most likely I wouldn't have had a problem if I hadn't also been doing "Icon" for Milestone Media at the same time.

Shrine) Do you have a dream project, or writer that you would love to work with, besides this interview of course?

M.D.) A dream project ?  No, not really.

The only book that I had really wanted to do I've already done, which was "Powerman" 
(re: "Powerman/IronFist").

I'd had an even longer term wish to work on a "Legion of Superheroes" comic but the Legion that I had wanted to do was the one that Jim Shooter & Curt Swan or, later, the version that Paul Levitz & Keith Giffen had worked on.  Neither of those "Legion of Superheroes" exist in the DCU any longer.   *sigh*

There are a few writers that I'd like to work with but I can't name them because if I do I'll get calls from each of them asking why I didn't list them first. I'm telling you, the egos in this biz are *way* out of control...

Shrine) What kind of genre do you like drawing best, Super-hero, Sci-fi, paperback romance?   :)

M.D.) The only one of those that I'm actually qualified to draw - or maybe more correctly stated, the one that I do the best - is Super-hero.   I got into the business to draw "guys 'n' gals in wacky colored tights" that and that's still what I would prefer to draw.

Shrine) Do you make it out to many Cons?  If so, what does your 'tour' look like in the coming months?

M.D.) I don't really have the ego that is required to do those things.  

I mean, what is the point of going to a convention if I can't really get into walking around acting like what I do makes me better than anyone who comes to see me?

As things are, I wind up expending way too much energy trying to be likeable at the conventions that I go to and that is really exhausting.   Not because it's an act, it's just that it takes a lot to properly entertain and interact with several people at a time over a period of 4 or 5 hours.

Shrine) Do you have a favorite book, or do you just draw them and move on?

M.D.) This goes along with your earlier question about "dream projects."

I had thought at one point that I'd like drawing certain books more than others. That really doesn't happen, at least not in the extremes that I had thought it would.  

Even with comics that I didn't have any previous connection with (meaning that they were comics I hadn't been a reader of) I found that over the course of working on the book, the book felt more and more like "my book."  Eventually, I've come to like each book that I worked on pretty much one as much as any other.

At gun point I'd say that my favorite comic work is a toss up between the "Emerald Dawn" stuff I did on "Green Lantern" and my entire run of "Icon."

I might have formed just as large an affinity for "Static" because it was my first continuing writing assignment, if Milestone had continued on.

Shrine) Anything else you want to add?  Web site plug, upcoming projects, favorite cheeses?

M.D.) Website plug ?   Ummm, www.babesthat...

Oh, you meant *my* website.   "mdbright.com"    
No, it's not high-powered and full of dancing icons and FLASH animations but I sort of like having samples of my work up on the 'Net.

Upcoming projects ?   Nothing that I feel at liberty to mention right now but I'll have news on my web page by the middle of October.

Favorite cheese ?

Doesn't "cheese" pretty much do it all, no matter what pronoun you put in front of it ?

Shrine) Thank you very much for taking the time for this interview.  I can't wait to see your upcoming work!!!