For other webcomic authors I’d assume they had a buffer then had to rewrite due to current events. I don’t think Jeph has a buffer, and certainly not one extending more than a week to cause him to rewrite something.

The joke reads like a dorky joke that’s pretty common in QC. And the punchline isn’t even the joke, it’s Bubbles being irked that a joke she thought was clever didn’t get a laugh.