Kenk

Produced and conceived by Alex Jansen
Written by Richard Poplak
Filmed and designed by Jason Gilmore
Illustrated by Nick Marinkovich

This graphic novel is such an interesting project.  Igor Kenk is a notorious Toronto figure; a known bicycle thief and walking urban legend.  The creators of this unique book filmed Kenk for more than 30 hours, and then, instead of making a film about him, made this book instead.  The dialogue (okay, with Kenk it's mostly monologue) is taken from the film, with journalistic details provided by Richard Poplak.  His writes with a very light hand - there is no real analysis or interpretation here, as he prefers to let the man speak for himself.

Artistically, the book is made up of stills from the filming, which have been manipulated, enhanced, or just straight photocopied, in a style intended to evoke the 80s Yugoslavian punk FV style.  It makes some of the more cluttered scenes - and when Kenk is involved, there is a lot of clutter - a little muddy and evocative of a cartoon trash heap, where identifying any one thing becomes impossible.  What it also offers though is plenty of photographic images of the man himself, allowing the reader the opportunity to really study his face; something usually lacking in other journalistic graphic novels.

The book is quite fascinating.  Kenk, an immigrant obsessive compulsive holds court on many topics, but his strident environmentalism and rabid self-sufficiency are his favorite topics, with Western excess, police harassment, and 'monkey factor' (his homegrown understanding of Social Darwinism) being close runners up.

Kenk berates customers (not as much as I would like), attends garage sales, drives around the city, and eats with the filmmakers, and much of what he says makes sense.  I began to see him as a bit of a sympathetic figure, although the information that came to light about him following his 2008 arrest does make it difficult to maintain that sympathy.  Basically, for people who don't know, when Kenk was arrested, the police discovered almost 3000 bicycles in his possession, most stolen, as well as some smallish weight of drugs.  Kenk has been driving the bicycle theft mania in Toronto for decades.

Kenk the man is irascible, thorny, intelligent, and mesmerizing.  The book is much the same.  'Kenk' reminds of some of the more off-the-wall New Yorker profiles I've read over the years, as the writer and producer really get a sense of who this guy is, and work hard to situate him in his environment.  This is a very 'Toronto' book, and helps capture the spirit of Queen St. West that has been lost as the neighbourhood has become increasingly commercial.

This is a rare piece of work, that deserves a lot of attention.