23 May Will Depp v. Heard Impact Comic Prices?

The best show on TV right now isn’t on Disney+, HBO MAX, Netflix, nor Hulu. It’s on Court TV. Johnny Depp and his defamation suit against Amber Heard is the epitome of melodrama and the public loves it. Will it impact comic prices?

It Doesn’t Matter Who’s Wrong – Or Does It?

There is no doubt that both plaintiff and defendant are getting a ton of negative press in this trial, but the court of public opinion has already chosen a clear winner:
The hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp has more than 11 billion views while the #JusticeForAmberHeard hashtag has only 41 million (as of this writing).

#AmberTurd has 1.6 billion (fueled by testimony concerning fecal matter) and #AmberHeardIsALiar had drawn more than 2 billion views by May 15th –which was before a highly effective cross-examination by Depp attorney Camille Vasquez that seemingly exposed a lot of inconsistencies, fallacies, and even accusations of perjury.

Many pundits have suggested that the cash value for a winning judgment in the suit is secondary to the need for Depp to change the narrative that Heard’s Op-Ed in the Washington Post sparked back in 2018. This is the root of this defamation case, which Team Johnny alleges to have falsely capitalized on the #MeToo movement and derailed the Pirates of the Caribbean & Fantastic Beasts star’s career.

18 days into the trial, it appears that (drug and alcohol abuse aside) Depp’s reputation has been rehabbed from accusations of spousal abuse to probable victim of domestic violence. So how soon until the comic and graded video game markets notice?

Media Matters

There’s an adage in Hollywood that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. While that is demonstrably untrue (and this trial is built upon the fallacy of that epithet), when it comes to collectibles, it is more true than untrue. In the nostalgia market, reviews can steer the value of a comic book or video game, but otherwise, the mere mention of a dormant property is generally enough to push demand and increase value.

This trial has brought back into public view quite a few intellectual properties that have inspired comic books and video games, and some of them are rising in value.

While Amber Heard has testified to her role as Mera being diminished as a result of this and prior trials, the values of Aquaman #11 & 13 (the first and second appearances of Mera) have continued to rise. Petitions calling for the role to be completely recast and fans hoping that Aquaman star Jason Mamoa’s former Game of Thrones co-star Emilia Clarke will be cast as Heard’s replacement have kept these comics hot. Investors know to buy on the rumor, sell on the hype, and short ahead of the release –so these books still have time to continue to rise. But longterm? Not so much.

Buried Treasure?

If you search for information relating to the first appearance of Captain Jack Sparrow in comics, you’ll have a long path ahead of you. There is virtually no information out there. You have to search every film title under the Pirates of the Caribbean banner and cross-reference for comic or graphic novel adaptations because Disney didn’t choose to produce or otherwise license a comic book based on this franchise until rather late in the series.

But if you are looking for the very first comic book-sized appearance of the main character portrayed by Johnny Depp, that would be in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean #1, published in September 2016 by Joe Books and bearing the Disney Comics logo but not as part of the Disney Kingdoms imprint.

There are prior publications that are NOT comic book-sized. There is a Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest Cine-manga graphic novel published by TokyoPop in 2006 as well as a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of the same from Disney Press –who also published a Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World’s End graphic novel that same year.  But judging from the price differences between Marvel magazine movie adaptations and the latter-published comic books, comic book-sized comics have maintained a much higher value, regardless of not being the chronologically published firsts.

Wizards & Goths

It has been reported that Jerry Bruckheimer intends to move forward without Depp for the 6th yet-to-be-titled Pirates of the Caribbean film, and there are rumors circulating that Margot Robbie will be brought in as the new star of the franchise. Whether we get Depp again or not as Jack Sparrow, the first comic to bear the Pirates logo will be a legacy key issue, so the fact that there are only 18 copies across all grades on the census presents some investment opportunity.

But Jack Sparrow is only one of Johnny Depp’s iconic screen characters later published in comic books. There have not yet been any US comic book adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts series (and so there is no comic book counterpart for Grindelwald as immortalized by Depp in the first and second films) but IDW published Edward Scissorhands #1 in 2014.

There are several variants of the first issue and the series eventually yielded 10 issues and three graphic novels. It has remained quite popular among fans of Goth culture – a subset of the massive fandom that propelled Tim Burton’s film from Cult Movie to All-Time Classic and helped launch Johnny into stardom way back in 1990. In a marketplace with so few Edward Scissorhands collectibles, these comics are much scarcer than FMV will honestly reflect. But they are definitely out there.

All things considered, these Johnny Depp keys (if you will) are very affordable, especially as raw books. Most are still attainable for cover price or little more. So next time you cruise the back issues at your LCS, it might be worthwhile to keep an eye patch peeled for some of these.

Want more spec?

• IS IT TIME TO RE-INVEST IN ETERNALS?

• IS DEATH THE NEW BREAKOUT STAR?

• ARE MANGA REPRINTS THE NEW HOT SPEC?

  *None of the content of this article is intended as investment advise.
  This is just the opinion of the columnist – Do your own research!