Joe Hughes Exits IDW, Sonic Editor Role

Late Friday night, word emerged that Joe Hughes, tapped by IDW to run the Sonic franchise in July 2017, has left the company.

TSSZ can confirm the announcement was made on the Facebook group IDW Sonic Comics Squad. IDW’s David Mariotte penned the bulletin. Promoting himself as an associate editor on his Twitter bio, It is not immediately clear whether he has been appointed the Sonic editor position proper, but the announcement claims he will now be involved with the production, along with Megan Brown, who is now on the Sonic comic team as an associate.

The announcement notes Hughes left to pursue “exciting new projects,” but beyond that, the circumstances of his departure are unclear. Hughes was not in attendance at New York Comic Con last week, and there was no proper IDW panel there. Hughes has not remarked on the departure, on his Twitter page or otherwise. No announcement has been made about the leadership change on IDW’s official website. And as far as we have found, nobody on the Sonic comic writing or art team has remarked on the departure either.

Hughes, though leading the relaunch of the Sonic comics under the IDW label, will have only lasted through the publication of nine issues. As part of the announcements, issue 10’s release is now delayed to Halloween.

We are working to collect more information on this story, and we’ll have more tonight on TSSZ News Final on TSSZ Plus, live at 10:30PM ET.