We haven’t given “Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light” as much snark as some online sites have. So you might not expect we’d note that his painting factory and gallery franchisor has filed for bankruptcy.

The story isn’t simply that Kinkade’s assembly-line “art” isn’t as popular as it used to be. There’s also a lawsuit filed by two disgruntled ex-franchisees. They claim, according to the here-linked WSJ article, that Kinkade had “used his Christian faith to fraudulently persuade them to open one of the artist’s ‘signature’ galleries,” leaving them stuck with unsaleable merchandise.