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). (more…)