Gingerbread Housing Crisis

Today's Bizarro cartoon takes a hard-hitting look an occupational hazard for mortgage brokers working the Enchanted Forest beat.

I first submitted the idea to Bizarro's big cheese, Dan Piraro, last September.

Dan and I exchanged a few emails to hammer out the dialog, which needed some work.

Dan: I don't actually understand the candy house gag.

Wayno: The joke here is supposed to be that the guy delivered a foreclosure notice to the owner of that house who responded by turning him into a frog. Obviously, it doesn't quite work!

D: Ah, of course. That's a good premise, but maybe there's a better way to present it.

W: How about if the frog says: "I though you said foreclosing on this homeowner (or property) would be no trouble at all." (or "a piece of cake")

We agreed that this did a better job of setting up the payoff for the reader and proceeded with the final version appearing in today's panel. The image of a frog wearing a human-sized necktie is pretty amusing, and Dan improved on it by showing the rest of the broker's clothing in the background.

I'd been toying with this idea for over four years, and drew the first version as a proposed magazine panel back in 2007.

I haven't looked at the original version in a while, but I still like it. In my head, the frog speaks in the voice of Jackie Mason. The art in this one has an error in perspective. The house looks like a tiny, frog-sized structure that's right behind the characters, rather than a normal-sized house farther back.

The main lesson I took from this is to avoid any gag involving a gingerbread house. They're a pain to draw and to color!

If you'd like to kill some time, check out the ninety-plus Bizarro comics I've done in collaboration with the great Mister Piraro here.