Kenk

by Marinkovich, Nick; Gilmore, Jason; Jansen, Alex; Poplak, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780986488405
• ISBN10: 0986488402
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-04
• Publisher: Pop Sandbox Inc

Summary

KENK: 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). Igor Kenk was something of a Toronto urban legend well before he became an international news story. His reputation as a bicycle thief preceded him; if your bicycle was stolen, more often than not the police would suggest that you checked whether it had turned up at Kenk's shop. Where it had once blended in, his ramshackle storefront with its broken windows, sheet metal facade and mounds of bicycles spilling out onto the street stood out like a sore thumb next to the new crop of high-end boutiques, patisseries and doggie outfitters. The entire 'hood had quickly changed around Kenk; he''''''''''''''''d bought his building for $85,000 ten years earlier and was turning down offers of nearly $700,000 in the year leading up to his arrest. For the Toronto public, Kenk became the boogieman. But he was a surprisingly complex figure-a Fagin with a legion of followers, a beautiful and accomplished pianist as a wife, and a dark past in communist Yugoslavia that would come to define him. He was a radical environmentalist (even capturing his shower water to feed his plants), decrying Western excess and warning of pending economic collapse, all the while amassing thousands of bicycles, often from known thieves. He'd exploit loopholes in legislation that he argued weren''''''''''''''''t that different from how we exploit the Third World. KENK is a story of immigration, gentrification and a man who refused to be co-opted by a system he didn't believe in, and who sold his soul in the process. 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. A fully animated film treatment is currently in production with award-winning commercial director Craig Small, who helped develop the Academy Award" nominated animated film Madame Tutli-Putli.