He also mentioned a lot of the reason he dreamed of being in the newspapers was because it would help his dad understand how successful he was, because that is what being successfully looked like for a Cartoonist pre-2000.IIRC he's mentioned several times over the years that he dreamed of being a newspaper cartoonist. Not really surprised that he's still emulating that gag structure.
Art wise, it still looks like he's doing that thing where he copy and pastes panels then makes tiny changes to disguise that he copied that panel. Panel 1 here feels like the only dynamic shot we've gotten so far.
It's hard to imagine that Scott was considered a top tier webcomic artist for a long time these days. It's not even his fault, the market is just so much different now.