The entire storyline right now is basically con filler. He's rerunning an old storyline with new dialogue in order to see how color works with the strip. (The writer of Least I Could Do apparently has been wanting him to try it for a while.) Which might explain the awkward dialogue as needing to fill in speech bubbles or explaining why his mouth is open.
#7
Gusto
RE: Starslip in colour: I don't like it. Sorry. The grey tones just work so well.