the-village-and-the-tower

A tall, multi-panel comic told as a fairy tale. Panel 1: a green landscape with a stone tower beside a village; narration reads "Once upon a time, there was a village and a tower." Panel 2: the tower shown taller against a blue sky; "It was such a pretty tower, some people decided to make it taller and taller and taller." Panel 3: a small worried person standing atop the tall tower under a dark stormy sky shouts "Everyone help or the tower will topple!"; narration notes a great storm and the worried tower people. Panel 4: close-up of three villagers, one saying "You shouldn't have made the tower so big!"; they don't want to help. Panel 5: a small framed warning sign that reads "The tower is so big, if it falls it will destroy the village." Panel 6: rows of little people marching from their houses toward the tower, "reinforcing" it with parts of their homes. Panel 7: the tower now twice as tall after the wind died down. Panel 8: "And they lived happily ever after." The votey panel shows an old storyteller in a chair with a child, saying "This next one is about a credit rating agency with magical powers." The joke: the tower is an allegory for an institution deemed too big to fail, so the villagers are forced to sacrifice their own resources to prop it up and then make it even bigger.