Kenk: A Graphic Portrait

by Richard Poplak, Nick Marinkovich (Illustrator)

A Graphic Portrait is an award-winning, 300-page, journalistic comic book surrounding Igor Kenk, "the world's most prolific bicycle thief" (The New York Times and The Guardian). In the summer of 2008, Kenk was arrested and nearly 3,000 bicycles were seized in what became one of the biggest news stories of the year. Built from an incredible mix of candid, filmed interviews prior to his arrest, found footage and archival material, treated with a dazzling visual style, KENK is a thought-provoking and surprisingly funny journalistic profile of an outsize neighborhood figure and a city in flux (in the tradition of New Yorker masters Joseph Mitchell and A.J. Liebling). KENK is a one-of-a-kind profile - a mash-up of mediums that culminates in a marriage of thorough investigative journalism and the comic book form in an entirely new way.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Biography, Canada, Crime, 21st Century, Comics

304 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2010

About the author

Richard Poplak is the author of the acclaimed Ja, No, Man: Growing Up White in Apartheid-era South Africa and The Sheikh's Batmobile: In Pursuit of American Pop Culture in the Muslim World. He has written for, among others, The Walrus, THIS Magazine, Toronto Life, and The Globe & Mail and has directed numerous short films, music videos and commercials. He lives in Toronto, Ontario."

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This groundbreaking GN looks at Igor Kenk; labeled 'the world's most prolific bicycle thief'. But this is much more than just his story: it is a very good example of a 'crime ecosystem' that covers many areas - the police lack of resources, the complicity of communities, the politicization of crime and the loopholes that exist in enforcement of the law as it exists. Igor makes a good point; most people who buy his bikes 'know' they are 'hot', but he does everything (taking down names and addresses of sellers) that the law requires of him. Everyone wants a good deal - but he is the only bad guy - and the police just let it continue. The photomontage aspect just adds to the grittiness of this story of urban decay - highest recommendation.

[First Second Books]

This book was utterly fascinating!

It’s a graphic novel about bicycle theft – specifically, about one Toronto-based bicycle thief, Igor Kenk, who The New York Times calls “the world’s most prolific bicycle thief.” It’s done fumetti-style, with the photographs and film footage run through a photo-copier for a grainy look, and it comes out looking individual, gritty, and unlike anything else I’ve ever read. The art style is a wonderful frame for the out-of-the-box political views of the book’s subject, Igor Kenk – and the narrative came together in a wonderful, balanced, thoughtful way.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenk: A Graphic Portrait is a biographical graphic novel written by Richard Poplak and illustrated by Nick Marinkovich. It is a graphic biography of the criminal life of Igor Kenk – the most prolific bicycle thief.

Igor Kenk is known since 2008 as the most infamous and prolific bicycle thief in Canada. More than 3,000 bicycles were recovered in police raids. Kenk pleaded guilty to sixteen Criminal Code charges of theft on 15 December 2009 at Old City Hall court. He was dubbed the world's most prolific bike thief.

It recounts the events leading to the arrest and conviction of the world's most prolific bicycle thief. Igor Kenk was notorious on the Toronto bicycling and policing scenes for years, even before his several well-publicized arrests and ultimate conviction in 2008. The police seizure of almost 3,000 bicycles and related paraphernalia – not to mention illegal drugs made headlines were made around the globe that summer. Some of his notoriety was attributable to his neighborhood scavenging, scouring garage sales and sidewalk refuse for scrap he deemed worthy of reuse or, at least, retaining if not hoarding.

His Bicycle Clinic was also well known to both cyclists and police as the go-to place for used bikes and bike parts. It seems to have been widely suspected that not all the owners of those so-called used bikes had actually been finished with them when they entered Kenk's possession. It seems few who knew the place had been under the impression that all this used stock arrived at Kenk's door entirely through the choice of the original owners.

Kenk: A Graphic Portrait is written and constructed rather well. Poplak, cultural journalist, has created a graphic novel that merges several mediums – a hybrid project that simultaneously takes the form of journalistic profile, documentary film, and graphic novel. The real creative work is in the layout and editing of the filmed material, and the gritty, underground look so befitting its grungy, alt-culture subject and his pre-gentrification Queen Street West neighborhood. The marriage of text and image is nearly perfect. Nick Marinkovich scratchy black-and-white pictures and typewriter-style font reinforce the book's documentary and DIY feel.

All in all, Kenk: A Graphic Portrait is an impressive visual presentation with tight, captivating narrative, which leaves readers with a sense of having gotten to know this man, perhaps understand him, while at the same time despising his crimes.

[Allan Olley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting portrait of the infamous Igor Kenk perhaps Toronto and the world's most prolific bicycle thief. He owned a used bicycle shop were he bought and accumulated stolen bicycles some if not all stolen under his explicit instruction some may have even been legitimately purchased. This graphic novel that tells the outlines of his life and thoughts as illustrated by excerpts from 30 hours of video interview. The dialogue is transcribed from those interviews, the images are stills from those interviews rendered via black and white photocopying with effects added that create thick white outlines around people and some objects.

The graphic novel charts Kenk's life from growing up in Tito's Yugoslavia in Slovenia, moving to Toronto in the 80s and becoming a dealer in used bicycles in the 90s. The portrait that emerges is of a mercurial arrogant and violent man obsessed with accumulating and using items of dubious value and contemptuous of the rest of society for not recognizing the value of its cast offs. He is dubious about the communist society he grew up in and the early 21st century Canada he resides in. The details and anecdotes presented involving violence, arrests on drug charges and theft make me wonder that Kenk stayed on the streets as long as he did.

The messy black and white photocopy style of the artwork gives the book a definite dirty style that is appropriate to the subject matter. However it can also make the text hard to read. The vignettes of Kenk's life and thought are interesting and go some way to filling out ones sense of Kenk's life and psyche but other than some context here or there the authors offer minimal reflection on Kenk's life. I sort of suspect that the book could have delved a bit deeper than it did. The book does not really try to defend Kenk but one might be inclined to think the authors may have given Kenk more credit than he deserved in terms of being serious about his ramblings that in Kenk's mind at least seem to justify a version of Kenk's lifestyle as it appeared before the major bust.

Be warned Kenk is a foul mouthed and angry individual and the language of the dialogue reflects this being peppered with various swear words. He was also fond of referring to those he was contemptuous of by use of that term for people with developmental disabilities that is avoided precisely because it is used as a contemptuous insult so readily.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenk presents with an interesting style centred around a very fascinating man. Highly-recommended for bicycle, 2nd-hand, and/or environmentally-minded folks, as well as those interested in Canadian immigration, Eastern Europe, gentrification, anti-consumerism... At times it's difficult to decipher what is going on due to the grainy, murky quality of the art style, which does seem fitting to the story.

*Note: The binding/glue quality of the physical book is crap.

4.4 Stars


PS: If you liked the book, there is a documentary by some of the authors of Kenk which covers a bit of the book material but also looks at how Igor is doing now, in Switzerland.













A few Notes

- Page 58: Igor relates a story on trying to save expired milk in a local grocery store. He ends up getting into a violent confrontation because he can't understand why people are wasting all this food here in Canada, compared to attitudes toward expiration dates in his native, Communist Slovenia.

- Page 75: "I don't hate it. It's really just eclectic collection of circumstances, Toronto."

- Pages 78-79, 99, 102-104, 200-207: Stupid laws and norms. Igor deals with neighbours complaining about his unsightly junk piles, including many bikes, and rants about how he is doing the city a service by cleaning up and re-using other people's junk, producing cheap bicycles for people to ride. He rants against wasteful consumerist society, and how all this wealth in scrap and trash is free for the taking. He seems to be a hero, yet he clashes with gentrified folk and the changing image of his neighbourhood. He lives with his famous, cultured, Julliard-trained pianist girlfriend, and spends his days driving an old pickup around, picking up junk and hurling insults at potential customers. He sticks out as a sharp and mangled stone in a river of middle-class Canadian convention. He clearly does a lot of good, yet his character is murky, like the art style of the book. Wild and aggressive at times, he also has a hand in selling thousands of stolen bicycles, may have even stolen many himself, and is caught in possession of tons of illegal drugs. What a character.

[fleegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to preview this amazing book. It is a biography meets graphic novel. I would not have thought that would work, but the guys behind this book: Richard Poplak, Alex Jansen, Jason Gilmore, and Nick Marinkovich make it work. They tell the story of Igor Kenk, Toronto's most prolific bicycle thief.

I know, it sounds boring. A bike thief? Who cares, right?

The thing is, Igor Kenk is such an interesting guy, he becomes so compelling. The more you read the more you want to understand why he does the things he does. The art in this book is great as well. It has a photcopier quality (which reminded me of Tom Goes to the Mayor) and each frame is scratched up and distorted and outlined in such a, I want to say tangible and human way. I love this. I think a lot of non-comic reading people like myself (the only book I kind of keep up with is HellBlazer, and that's me buying a collection once a year) think of comics as just superhero stories. Slick character, smooth outlines. Seen one seen them all kind of thing.

But this book is great. It's in black and white, looks like it was made on a photocopier, these two things really bring the story down to a human level. There's nothing super polished or shiny about it. The way the story is laid out it feels like you're reading a documentary film, which, you are.

It's a great concept, great execution, great book. These guys did a masterful job with their subject.
Get it. Read it. You will not be disappointed.

[Dana Larose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed it and they did a great job giving you a sense of Igor Kenk's attitude and personality, although it suffers from being one-sided. The book is based on a documentary done about him and the focus is squarely his voice. So we are getting his side of the story and then -- BAM! -- the narrator tells us he was arrested for cocaine possession, possession of a few kilos of pot and almost 3000 bicycles. We get a brief summary of the court proceedings and that's it. So it felt a little one-sided.

Awesome customer service note: I'd originally complained in my review about how the binding on my copy sucked and the cover fell off after a couple of days. Alex from Pop Sandbox saw my review, apologized (their printer had apparently messed up some of their first run) and offered to send me a replacement copy! How great is that?

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal work of graphic media. Very well written, flows so well I read it in one sitting. The book portrays Kenk's numerous facades, issues, highs and lows that had me hating him in the beginning, forgiving him in the middle, and ultimately non-plussed with his schtick by the end. The film/photography/xerox copying that makes up the graphics is really well done and gives a good sense of environment and mood. Great random find - highly recommended.

[Aras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This work really took me by surprise, so effective on so many different levels - as a personal story, as the story of a city at a certain place in time, as a look at decadent western civilization and its discontents, misfits and rebels....etc. Going to need to re-read it again before it goes back to the library.

[Frank McGirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tend not to like this "photo-as-a-drawing" type of art/illustration, so it took me a good while to pick this up and read it, but it was quite wonderful.

A insightful look into a man with a code of honor that he can't quite live up to.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really interested by the subject matter. Dude had some real interesting stuff to say though.

[Ben Leach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an impulse buy at a Half Price Books. My copy is actually signed by the author, so someone went to a book signing but I guess decided this didn't need to stay in their collection.

I think I should preface my review by saying that I've been going to flea markets and yard sales all my life. I have encountered many guys like Igor Kenk in my life, the fascinating local oddballs who deal in junk, see it's value, believe they have "cracked the code" of life and figure out a way to pursue it. I think having that personal experience helped me appreciate a man like Igor Kenk.

Interestingly, the creators of this graphic novel managed to speak with him not long before the big bust that made him a household name in Toronto and around the world for being one of the biggest bike thieves ever. The book does detail the court case that got Kenk in 2008, as well as a prior incident in 1993, but Kenk was likely on good behavior when being interviewed.

The graphic "portrait" does a pretty good job of characterizing Kenk, going back into his childhood, how he views the world, the story of his unlikely relationship with a Juilliard-trained musician, how he claims he made his living, and how gentrification likely made him even more of a target because his junk business was viewed by some as an eyesore as one neighborhood in Toronto became particularly trendy.

It makes the interesting decision of using stills from videos and making the pages look like xeroxed copies done to death, like old fliers on a telephone pole or an old zine or something. It works, but I think I would have preferred something illustrated.

I needed a break from "epic tomes" for a while and this ended up being a really good choice to break that streak for a little bit.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never knew a biographical account of a bicycle thief presented in graphic form could be so fascinating, at least from what little I was able to peruse of it.

I think having only a brief view of this story somewhat skews my rating for what seems to be an otherwise strong presentation of Igor Kenk, a Yugoslavian, seemingly prolific prodigy growing up that turned to a life of crime. Given his theft of over 3,000 bikes, he caught headlines around the time Obama was elected into public office. The mystery, as it's presented, is why he had need for stealing that many bicycles and what he wanted to do with them, even in a society that believed, for a long time, what he was doing was hearsay and not concrete - no one could prove it until a bust that involved officers and students from a local university that led to Kenk's arrest.

One of the fascinating things this story presented, aside from Kenk's own commentary through the story coupled with pictures, is the fact that Toronto police pointed out that he stole the equivalent of 10,000 Mars bars (candy) and still they couldn't put Kenk in front of a judge based on hearsay. It's a bit insane that it took so long for Kenk to be apprehended, and at the same time, it's a bit fascinating to see his reasoning and walking/manipulating fine morality lines.

I wouldn't mind reading this particular story in its entirety, though I wonder if this couldn't have been a traditional biography and been just as fascinating. But I think the fact they used actual footage, conversations and collected data is interesting in the way it's pulled together in graphic form, though I'll admit the distortion makes certain pictures difficult to see (such as the bikes).

Overall score: 3/5

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher Pop Sandbox.

[Matt Asher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Visually, this is a novel and interesting work, with distressed photos as for most of the illustrations. The story itself is lackluster, with the author not adding much beyond what Kenk provides. No real insight, no real investigation, no real analysis into the person (a bike thief and scumbag who occasionally said interesting things). This style of non-judgmental photo journalism can work quite well (as in many of the early Colors magazines), but it borders on hagiography when the subject is a single person given an unlimited soapbox and made into an icon by the presentation.

Also, the physical book itself is poorly produced. My copy began to fall apart after just one read.

[jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked this. great visual style, protagonist is a pretty compelling anti-hero - although i would have liked more about the trial. i wonder how compelling it would be for someone who had never heard of igor?