IMO, it is nothing to do with Brun (and Renee) and everything to do with the fact that I think Jeph has been struggling to find a direction in which to take the strip after Faye's post-Angus breakdown and its consequences. Only in the Faye & Bubbles arc has he found something that really works. More or less everything else has the feel of throwing plots and character quirks at the wall to see which one sticks.
Italicised emphasis is mine.
And with that in mind: Really? I mean seriously?
We've had two slow burning and very dark and very intense storylines over the last two years; Faye's alcoholism and its affect on her life and the relationships with those around her, and we've had the seedier side of the AI community. We've had a woman brought down the very foundation of rock bottom, all by her own fault and we've gotten an emotionally destroyed AI that wanted some measure of peace from what has happened to her. Faye has had to rebuilt her life from the bottom up and Bubbles has now found out that she has nothing left to rebuild.
Know what the major rule for writers is when they do such dark storylines? YOU TAKE A BREAK WHEN THE STORY HAS BEEN WRAPPED UP!
Writers can get into a very dark place when they get into those storylines and its obvious that there's a fair bit of Jeph's past in what Faye has gone through. Its a stressful thing to do and to revisit over a long period of time. And it can be damaging to a creator to constantly do the dark stuff.
So you do a silly bit. Not just one comic, but a string of them. You laugh, to banish those thoughts. You make others laugh or at the very least smile, because as a writer, or in Jeph's case, a comic creator, you can.
This isn't a case of Jeph trying to get back into the groove. This is venting and getting away from a dark place. This is getting back to the roots of QC, the slightly absurd humour coupled with the sometimes wacky members of the cast.
There are plenty of comics that go into the darker recesses of the mind. Questionable Content is not one of them.
Also, I've always thought Elliot had an uplifting personality.
Although it might just be a hair-raising experience for him.