After nearly nine years directing publicity, DC Comics v-p of publicity David Hyde is leaving the company. Over the course of his tenure, Hyde has seen DC Comics reorganize itself into DC Entertainment as well as the steady growth and transformation of the comics category in the general book market.

Hyde Joined DC Comics in 2003 after leaving Random House, where he was an assistant director of publicity at Anchor Books. Hyde managed the company’s public relations and publicity during some of the biggest events in the DC Comics Universe, among them Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis; as well as original graphic novels like Jonthan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s the Alcoholic and Harvey Pekar’s the Quitter, also with Dean Haspiel. Hyde’s experience working in the general book trade was brought to bear in a new era of publishing at DC Comics focused on the general book market as well as direct market comic shops. Even more important, he oversaw the promotions supporting DC’s book publishing side during the release of the Watchmen film and the subsequent sales of millions of copies of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s superhero epic, Watchmen.

It’s should be no surprise that after he joined DC, stories about DC Comics began show up regularly in the New York Times, USA Today, the L.A. Times and other noncomics publications in addition to the comics trade press. Certainly it’s no coincidence that the New York Times managed to use the largest illustration of comics characters—Jim Lee's Justice league drawing—anyone can remember seeing on its Arts page to feature DC’s The New 52, the recent and wildly successful relaunch of its superhero comics line in September 2011.

A big time comic book fan himself—anyone who knows him, knows he is a comic book fan, not just a comic book flack—Hyde was around for the industry’s initial steps toward the transition to digital delivery as well as a major reorganization of DC Comics during 2009-2010. Over the course of his 8 ½ years at DC Comics, DC changed as dramatically as the rest of the comics world, but in DC’s case, Hyde can easily take some share of the credit.