The Property
TV producer Mica Segal accompanies her grandmother, Regina, on the old lady’s first return to Warsaw since she fled, pregnant by a gentile with Mica’s late father, to Palestine in 1939. On the plane, the son of a friend of Regina’s ebulliently accosts the women and thereafter seems to show up wherever they go, even separately. Mica shakes him by dodging into a café, where she meets a charming Pole who leads Jewish history tours. Not by chance, Regina comes on her own to the same café to meet an old man who lives in the building—yes, Mica’s grandfather. While the purpose of the trip is to assert Regina’s title to a building her parents had owned, what develops is an intrafamilial tiff, an ultimately fulfilling reunion, and the possible start of a romance. Modan’s dialogue is smart and nuanced to match a drawing style awfully reminiscent of Hergé’s Tintin and up to the most complimentary comparison with it. Nicely varied panel size and earth-tone coloration further distinguish this gratifying work of comics realism. --Ray Olson