Last night, I attended a comic book event I wouldn’t have even known about had it not been for the ukulele.

During each of the past two Augusts, I took part in UkeFest, a ukulele workshop and festival held at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland. That got me on the art center’s mailing list, which alerted me to the exhibition “A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books,” as well as Thursday’s free opening reception.

The reception attracted a number of comic book locals, including Joel Pollack of Big Planet Comics, Sara Duke, curator at the Library of Congress, and my sister-in-law, artist and teacher Ellen Vartanoff (seen with me above).

It was a fun night, and an interesting exhibit, though it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. While there were pieces of comic book art on display, they seemed overwhelmed by the works of fine artists who were influenced by comic book art, such as Andrew Wodzianzki‘s “Self Portrait as Iron Man” …

… and Mark Newport‘s life-sized, knitted superhero costumes.

You’ll be glad to know that I resisted slipping into the one of Michael Chabon’s character The Escapist. Good thing, too—I think the asking price was $7,000!

As I said, there was actual comic art, too, from the likes of Kate Beaton, Bob McLeod, Josef Rubenstein, Phil and Kaja Foglio, and my favorite, Warren Kramer, represented by the 1963 story, “Strumbo the Giant.”

But to my mind, that all seemed overshadowed by the fine art. Which might not have bothered me had the description not caused me to expect the exhibit to be made up entirely of, well, comic book artwork. Which likely means that if you go without such expectations, the fine art/comics art ratio probably bother you at all. No false expectations might mean no disappointment!

If you’d like to check it out for yourself, there’s still plenty of time—the exhibition continues through June 8, 2014.