Dept. of Schadenfreude.

Hard not to appreciate the ripping the LA Times gives hack painter Thomas Kinkade, whose mass-produced kitsch hangs in dentists offices and bourgeois dining rooms across the nation. Former owners of Kinkade franchise galleries are suing Kinkade (link courtesy BoingBoing) and his sole-owner corporation, claiming he hoodwinked them into opening too many franchises and made buckets of money on their sales while driving the owners to bankruptcy. The story also details how a drunken Kinkade heckled a Sigfried & Roy show in Vegas, fell off a barstool while plastered, and urinated on a Winnie the Pooh statue.

But my favorite line in the piece was this plaint from a former gallery owner:

"I took a bloodbath, an absolute bloodbath," said De la Carriere, the Los Angeles art dealer...

Update, also courtesy BoingBoing: Kinkade's images photoshopped

Thomas Kinkade, shlock,kitsch, metaphors