Now I didn't actually read this too closely, but I wondered if you have tried storyboarding these pages like you did with your spotlight.

It does seem like you're going for few panels and speech bubbles per page which does put quite a lot more emphasis on the artist. Like page 14 to 16 for instance only have two panels each, which will dillute the big full page moment on page 17. You probably should aim for a minimum of 3 rows of panels per page (even if it's only one panel a row) so that big moments that "break the grid" stand out more.