I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
The story is good as usual, but the framing is still a distraction from the story. I'd rather have an artist change in the middle of the story and all credits on one page than this presented as two different stories when they're really subplots and breaking this up this way instead of threading them throughout makes them seem more separate than they really are. Which is a shame: the ending deserves the reader's full attention and didn't get mine.