RESTORATION BULLETIN -- GOAT Redesign continued

Sean Michael Robinson:

Greetings everyone!

Last week Dave wrote that he's entertaining suggestions for potential redesigns for the "Goat" section of High Society. As I mentioned last week, the section is a bit clunky as-is, owing to the fact that it originally ran as a "Unique Story" back-up feature in the monthly book, and originally consisted of double page spreads, which were subsequently chopped up for the High Society collected edition.

I asked for those inclined to post potential mock-ups, and we've received two so far! First off is one from Scott Yoshinaga, of the adorable webcomic nemu nemu, who says the following--

Here's my quick take on GOAT. Not sure if it's OK to move the text around but I felt if the actual page was going to be on the right side of the book, there should be some context. Also got rid of the Unique Story logo entirely although I tried to play around with it in conjunction with the GOAT heading but it looked out of place. Maybe a small text that says "A short aside." or something under the GOAT heading would work.

And version number two is by Tom Palmer Jr, who has the following to say--

Is it possible to expand Goat to 6 pages? If so, here's a way to redesign the story so that the original spreads remain intact:

(The new page 1 is the original title lettering with a bit of the smoke enlarged and bleeding off the bottom of the page.
New pages 2 and 3 are the original first spread, but with the title lettering and Unique Story banner removed. I cloned the smoke so that it now rises up off the top of the page.
New pages 4 and 5 are the original second spread, except the final two "transcript copy..." lines have been removed as well as the figures of Julius and the goat.

And new page 6 is the two "transcript" lines from the original last page with the figures of Julius and the goat at the bottom of the page.) 

UPDATE: Tom revised these some and sent a new version, which is now posted below. Here's what he had to say about the new version--

Wow! Thanks for pulling my and Scott's layouts into their own post. Didn't expect that at all.

Now that the layout is out there on the big stage, I'm actually a little embarrassed by the quick Photoshop roughs I made. I knew I should have spent a few more minutes with it! Here's a revised version that I took a little more time with:

.....

I made a few tweaks to the layout to fix some concerns I had and to address a few of the comments that have popped up here. Aside from tightening up the layout, I added in page numbers as well as the facing pages from the previous and next chapters so it's easier to see what it will look like when placed into the book. 

Like M Kitchen and Eddie, I can see how that new first page is a bit sparse when seen in context next to the last page of the previous issue. So, I worked up another version of the first page with a quick "High Society Interlude" banner along the top (since I think the old "A Unique Story" doesn't really convey how "Goat" fits into the novel.)

To answer your question, Tom-- yes, we can definitely spare two pages from the back matter, if need be.

Thanks for the great layouts, both of you! They both punctuate the chapter in very interesting and different ways, and I think both have significant advantages over the current layout. If anyone else reading this wants to take a crack at it, post a link to your files in the comments and I'll add them to the post. I'm hoping to get feedback from readers on the ones so far, and on Friday Dave will take a look and possibly make a final determination.

(Am I wrong in thinking this might be the first crowd-sourced book layout project??)